Shadowwyn Moor the mourning sun

Gjalla remained as still as stone even as the sound of approaching steps reached her. Her gaze was trained on the horizon, though she felt the shift in the air—a familiar pull, sharp and insistent. It wasn’t until Morwenna’s scent filled her lungs, like a forgotten song on the winter wind, that she let herself truly exhale. Her shoulders loosened minutely, but her stance held firm. 

When Morwenna reached her, brushing their muzzles together, Gjalla didn’t flinch. Instead, her head tilted slightly, leaning into the familiar warmth with the quiet strength of someone who had long ago learned to endure. For all her restraint, the ghost of a smile tugged at her lips—a rare, fleeting thing. 

“Mo,” she murmured, her voice low but steady, a deep current beneath a frozen surface. Relief, however subdued, was palpable in the way she said her name. The sight of her spirit sister, safe and seemingly thriving, softened something inside her. But Gjalla’s pale eyes soon shifted past Morwenna to the towering figure that followed.

A single ice-blue eye met her own before sweeping toward the distant ridge. She didn’t bristle under his scrutiny but held his gaze with quiet intensity, as unyielding as the winter itself. 

'She is blood?' His question was rough and clipped. Gjalla’s ears twitched, and she turned her attention back to Morwenna, a brow lifting faintly as though the question were absurd. 

Tentatively, the woman parted from the other to greet the man, stopping just short of his shadow. “No,” she said simply, the word crisp as frost. Her gaze lingered on Morwenna’s for a heartbeat longer before she added, “sisters by circumstance.” 

“You are Sun Eater?” she stated, her voice carrying an edge of something unreadable—approval, caution, challenge.