Noctisardor Bypass i am blood and blood and replay

morwenna's fur pouch was heavy with the herbs she’d managed to gather. she was thinking only of returning to the den—of warmth, of waiting, of praying blackfell would bring her daughter home—when the wind shifted.

a scent.

not male threat. not stranger. not ghost.

her boy.

the world dropped out from beneath her.

the herbs spilled from her jaws at once, scattering across the snow. the caribou pelt slipped from her shoulders in the same heartbeat, forgotten, useless—nothing mattered but that scent, that impossibly familiar thread of him woven into the winter air.

c’ed’e—

her breath broke around the name, the syllables a mother’s gasp, a prayer, a wound.

she ran.

the bypass blurred beneath her, the cold searing her lungs, her paws slipping and catching on rock and drift. she didn’t feel any of it. she climbed the ridge, heart pounding too hard for her ribs, and skidded to a halt at the crest of a deep snowbank.

there—

a shape cut from strong young bone and winter shadow, scarred, tall, carved into a growing boy she did not yet know but recognized with her whole soul.

her boy. her son!

she reared instinctively, one paw lifted in the air, unable to take a step closer, terrified he might vanish if she moved wrong—if she touched him too soon—if she dared believe this was real.

her voice would not rise, would not form words, but a sound escaped her.

a small bark. soft, trembling.

the sound only a mother makes when she finds what she thought she had lost forever.

her tail quivered. her lifted paw hovered midair. her eyes shone with a sharp, wet fire.