Duskfire Glacier testing my patience

"peace? what is it you have done, for a woman to beg you for peace?" came her sharp rebuttal. still too stubborn to see her wrongs, still too blinded by her pride to understand. always too prideful, always the wildling girl who bit first and asked later. 

their bodies meet with force that could move mountains. svalla grunts at the impact; he is stronger than she remembered. her paws scattering across the ice and snow, struggling to find her footing. and yet, he does not bite her. 

instead, he does worse. words so sharp and tempered. steel of the north wounding deep and true. cutting through her delusion of the life she had once lived, and thought she could continue. each a blow that hits harder than the last. 

she snarls, the inferno within reaching its feverish pitch. flames that lick so high and could not be extinguished. she's so angry—isn't that what's always driven her? or was it the pride she never swallowed? the very pride he is threatening to dismantle again.

they wanted you dead, faust roared. the prideful part of her wants to lash back, to scream that she would not fear death by their hands. 

but oh, didn't she? to die, would be to fail. to die, would be to lose. not only herself, but faust. and isn't he what she is here for? what she had traveled for months to find? 

she hates this. hates that he's making too much sense. hates that he's making her feel like the child she remains to be, although her pride would not allow it. 

she hates that he is right. she remembers his words, from the first time he'd lost his temper on her. i am no longer the kind man you once knew. it was true, and she could no longer pretend that faust was a version of himself she wanted him to be. 

her anger morphs into grief. those snarls morph into something softer, pained. tears that threaten to fall cloud her version, and for so long, she had not let them. her pride had not. 

but now, she had to set it aside. she had to swallow it and admit she is wrong. even if it feels sacrilegious. because if she was to give up the girl she was...who is she? who is the woman she should be? pride was her motivator. 

without it, she would have nothing.

blurry, cold eyes shift to meet his. he's so close, but not in the way she wants. she exhales a frustrated yell, her ears pinned. tail finally resting at her hind. she does not fight. 

"i am," she hisses. as if speaking the words physically wound her. "i am! you just—" she pushes away from him, lips curling. turning her head away in case those traitorous tears decided to fall. not because she's sad, but because she's livid. 

"i keep wishing you're the boy i knew. but you are not." she exhaled, sides heaving. "and it fucking angers me that i do not know you!"