Bitterroot Valley lewisia

Thank you again for joining!! <3 your writing is so lovely ;_; <3

She pushed herself to keep going, though her body begged her to stop. Not yet. Not yet. She had been through worse. Her thoughts only needed to linger on Gunnar to convince the rest of her that the cold was trivial against these greater griefs.

Trivial, against the good that still awaited her among the stones that covered him.

A woman's descended. Taktuq kept swimming, but squinted up.

Pale as her father. Pale as her brother. Equal in stature to both.

These small familiarities turned her heart with longing to climb out of the river and seek fellowship with the woman - to share names and knowledge and stories, as she had with many strangers when she was younger and her mind less laden with what all her choices had surmounted to.

But she could not. 

I know not if I am followed, she called back. A cougar, in the Maplewood, and her teeth chattered. The river must steal my scent, or she will follow me and steal my daughter and sons.