Bramblepoint old wounds

aw but maybe @Solharr ? <3

The years had stretched long since her last visit; long enough to dull the edges of old wounds, but not erase them. And yet, time had done little to soften the weight of memory. The Grove was gone; she had watched its fall.
Aneira recalled the quake, the earth splitting like the hide of a wounded beast, sealing the vale she had called home. The gravastar had been on the inside; she could still hear the frantic scrabble of claws against rock, see Towhee’s desperate attempts to scale the barrier; futility etched into every trembling muscle. For days, she had thought she would die there, caged beneath an indifferent sky. Autumn had stolen more than just a home. Its echoes still stalked her in the dark, curling through her sleep in jagged, restless dreams. Perhaps that was why she trusted so little now, why she kept her distance.
But there had been another loss, older and crueler still: her father. A shadow that had simply ceased to be; one day, he had walked out of the den, into the waiting maw of the unknown, and he had never returned.
The snow woman had crossed paths with the Firebirds once; met a boy, a queen. A brief brush with something solid, something structured. And now, in the quiet hush of an unfamiliar forest, she wondered: would their ranks still hold space for her?
Aneira moved with quiet purpose, paws pressing into the damp loam, ears flicking at the distant rustle of the unseen. She was not lost; not truly. Only searching, for food, for distraction, for something to drown the ghosts that followed her still.