The Heartwood the stone remembers

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The faintest glimmer of movement between trees drew her eye, halting her steps. Aneira’s breath caught in her throat, turquoise eyes sharpening against the dusk: No, it couldn’t be. But it was! 
„Towhee!” she called, the name tearing from her mouth with a rush of breathless disbelief. Her voice rang through the quiet woods like the crack of frost beneath a sudden thaw. Without waiting for a response, she surged forward, her steps quick over the mossy earth, closing the distance with an urgency she rarely allowed herself to show.
She knew Towhee couldn’t hear her, not like others did, so she moved until she was in her line of sight, where eyes could meet and mouths could form meaning. There, under the dimming sky, she slowed just enough to make herself seen. A flicker of something warm crossed her usually distant face. „You’re real,” Aneira said softly, more to herself than anything else, and though her voice might not reach Towhee’s ears, her expression carried the rest.
The weight of seasons slipped from her shoulders in that moment. The ghost of Asterism Grove stirred behind her eyes, but it was this moment that breathed new light into the dusk. „Do you remember? Aneira, from Asterism Grove.”