The Heartwood the stone remembers

Aneira’s ears flicked at the mention of the quake; of that day. Her eyes lifted again, catching the last breath of light that filtered through the trees, and something in her expression shifted, not grief, not fear, something quieter, more solemn, like watching the tide come in with the knowledge it would one day carry you too.
„I was,” she answered after a beat, voice hushed. „In the Grove, when the ground split and the sky came down. I made it out... barely. Didn't look back.” Her gaze drifted toward the north, as if she could still see the dust rising in the distance, the mountain groaning under the weight of what it had done. „I'd met Wraen before it happened,” she added, almost absently. „She spoke of the Firebirds. I never joined them after the landslide; but I remembered the name.” She exhaled, steady now, though her fur still bristled faintly at the memory. 
Then her eyes came back to Towhee, more present again. „I wandered after that. North, mostly. Far enough that I could forget... or try to.” A faint smile curved her lips, not bitter, but knowing. „But forgetting doesn’t always mean healing, does it?”
The frostmaiden tilted her head, studying the older woman with quiet curiosity: „You made something new after the Grove, didn’t you? You always struck me as the kind that would.”