Morningside Cuesta unbound

<3
happens some time after this

From a distance, the field appeared to be a gentle, rising tide of white, a slope that promised to stretch endlessly into the bruised grey of the winter afternoon. But Astier knew better than to trust the horizon. He moved with a driven, singular focus, his tracks a straight, disciplined line in the snow, leaving the noise of the "bear" and the "queen" far behind him.

He had played his part, he had been the wall, the distraction, the wit. Now, the mask could slip. The wind rushing up the slope carried a contradiction, a scent that had no business existing in this frozen, inland silence. It was the scent of a coast he had left behind, salt-soaked timber and wild, resilient blooms. It hit him with the force of a physical blow, sharper than the ice, pulling him upward along the incline.

The wraith slowed only when the earth vanished beneath his paws. The cuesta did not announce itself. One moment, the ground was solid; the next, it fell away into a sheer, breathtaking void. Astier halted at the very lip of the precipice, his toes curling over the edge of the drop. Below him, the world opened up into a tapestry of snow-dusted ledges and treacherous, icy pitfalls, a jagged scar facing the East where the sun had long since abandoned its post.

Astier stood as a gargoyle against the flat light, his silver gaze sweeping the dizzying complex of ledges. He inhaled deeply, letting that phantom coastal scent fill his lungs, searching the shadows for the source. „I know you are here, @Siofra Hawthorne.” he spoke to the drop, his voice low and roughened by the cold. „I am done looking the other way.”