Otatso Wetlands wet feet

Gjalla froze mid-step, her ears twitching at the sound of her name cutting through the damp stillness. It wasn’t the wind—it was sharper, heavier, dreadfully familiar. It spoke her name.  Her head turned slowly, pale eyes narrowing as they traced the source of the sound. The figure stood against the open expanse, stark and familiar, like a fragment of a memory unearthed too suddenly to be real. 

For a heartbeat, she wondered if she’d conjured him, a phantom born from some half-buried yearning she refused to name.

"Un-fucking-believable."

The gods were cruel, weren’t they? Hadn’t she suffered enough indignities without this? Another reunion, another man weighed down by his emotions or his ambition. Gjalla had had her fill of lovesick sighs and obnoxious curs for the next millennia, and if this was fate’s idea of a jest, she’d sooner gut herself for all to see than play along.

For a moment, she stared, her gaze caught on his. That golden eye, piercing as ever, seemed to pin her in place. The frost-bitten earth beneath her paws might as well have been quicksand. Her throat worked to swallow the knot rising there, but the disbelief etched into his features mirrored her own too perfectly to ignore.

Her lips curled into a tight, humorless smile, “Stark.” The name fell from her lips like a stone into water, as deadpan as she could muster. No need to give him a reason to mock her for having feelings. “Lost your way, or just can’t resist showing up where you’re least wanted?”