Duskfire Glacier northbound

his ears twitch to the sound before he even registers it. a call, thin and distant on the wind—too familiar. too sharp. like the memory of a wound long since scarred over, but never quite healed.
faust answers it before he thinks better of it. broad paws break the snow, his heavy frame carving a path down from the glacier’s spine. the wind catches the edges of his coat, pulling at him, warning him. and yet, he goes.
and when he sees her, when the shape sharpens from ghost to flesh, when the scar flashes pale across her nose bridge—
he stops.
the world narrows. shrinks. there’s only her.
his breath leaves him in a silent exhale, visible on the frigid air. there is no anger, no violence, no clashing of teeth as there might have been once. there’s just disbelief, weighted in the pit of his chest.
svalla?
her name drags from his throat like it was never meant to leave his mouth again. so many nights he’d thought of her lost to the dispersion— he thought she would follow, but...
but here she stands.
alive.
and everything he'd built since feels, for the briefest moment, as fragile as the snow beneath his feet.