Northstar Vale does this robe make my ass look too big or just big enough?

5/1. @Rhaenys.

Assuming she’d returned from her secondary quest and relayed whatever information and inquiries to Stigmata, Aurëwen tended to her children for a day-and-half — soothing, nurturing, letting them eat and drink and roam just a little further each hour. They were her sun-and-stars; they were what she yearned for, til the time came where another of Diaspora must preside over them.

But now, as the spring deepened, there were no thoughts in her head of the worn weeks, worn heart, worn will. The silver soon took flight once more; this journey would be shorter, of course, and Aure looked forward to the day where her children could run with her; the day where they would soar and fly with their mother as they ought.

Her love for them was unending, and so was, it seemed, the burgeoning heart she’d begun to hold for Diaspora. She still couldn’t believe the luck that’d brought her children to the alpines; luck on a guess, on desperation. Even if they came to leave someday, she would never forget the place where she’d laved life into her bairns.

Today, she prowled about the Sunspire, sniffed at its rugged, steep rises as she moseyed at the foothills. This was more busywork than anything; nothing had brought her here; not fate, or chance. Only the need to make away with what had happened from her head; the need to live in a mind where only her children mattered. As it was, she remained wary of any offenses on this trek, and primly, privately kept to herself.

and so it begins. perm given by lauren to pp ingram.

The conversation of the promise of a pack was still fresh on her mind - the information being stored in 'thoughts for later'. The type of thoughts that, despite the countless encounters she had, she still preferred the quiet nature of her own company so that she could dwindle on her own inquiries. Diaspora, an odd name, but she had heard of more peculiar ones: Elfen, Mythasera... Rhaesuial. The memories were still bitter on her mind just like many others, ears pricked forward as she held a rabbit carcass, just in the transition of white to brown fur, in her jaws.

Now to find a place to rest and enjoy her meal. It wasn't much; a trophy of her success so far. Living alone during the winter? Not many could say they succeeded in that and Rhaenys, understandably, barely had. The number of times she barely scraped by with her life was more times than the number of toes on her paws; a horrifying thought of those sheltered their entire life. But she had chosen to leave against the regal's wishes and Rhaenys couldn't help but wonder how long it took for them to give up on their search. A wolf of Rhaesuial did not just up and disappear - but she had.

And she wanted it to stay that way. She had never been anyone there - would she be someone here?

Breathing in the scent of the rabbit made her stomach growl louder than it had the past three times she had breathed in its scent. However, with it, a familiar, airy scent flooded through her nasal cavities too. The scent of Diaspora, she presumed. Anxiety laced up in her chest - was she getting closer? Diaspora; the name of the pack and the function of it in the ecosystem was something that intrigued her. Was she ready to settle down? Did Rhaenys truly want to belong? It didn't take her long to round a corner and nearly crash head-first into a pristine white female.

Rhaenys always envied those with white fur. So elegant, so pure - so unlike her.

Backing up just as quickly, her eyes relaxed once the distance was set and, still grasping at her rabbit like it was her life-sentence, she spoke through it. "Sorry." Awfully muffled; un-ladylike. The thought made her ears flatten half-way as she stared half-expectantly at the woman for a brief moment before setting the rabbit down. Titian eyes flickered up first and then her head followed; "Are you Diasporian?"

Perhaps she’d been too private today for her own good; one moment, she’d been meandering without purpose, except to check novel or faded scent trails and tracks — she had an inkling that Dragomir would tend towards tracking, with all of his sniffing and tasting — and in the next beat, she careened, veering sharply away from—

—a sorely-apologetic looking she-wolf, grappling with an already-dead hare. Aure’s focused lapsed as her dull, frazzled senses fought to catch up with her. This burnished female towered over her, but the silver had learned young to not be as intimidated by another’s height as much as they wished.

For all the traveler’s fumbling and muffled apologies, there seemed to be an elegance that Aure’d favor to apply to her than the mother herself. A make of power, with eyes that scorched, lancing into her own... But then she heard something of Diasporan, and she truly didn’t know in that heartbeat.

However, she mused a lenient ”Yes, of course,” all the same, and then wondered just how familiar this wanderer was with the basilisks’ claim. ”It is, ah, alright,” for the apology. Then, ”Have you, ah, ever been a part of Diaspora before?”

Guarded eyes narrowed on the woman - each and every moment made it more awkward than the last and Rhaenys was seriously contemplating just leaving her there if she hadn’t spoken. A quiet whisper, a gentle mutter across the land that her ears pricked forward to completely hear what she had to say. The titan was, in all honesty, more relieved that she had correctly guessed her placement in the society of these southern lands than if she was okay or not.

Whoever the woman was, her accent spilled through her words - uncertain in her phrases and all tangled up in visible webs. “No,” A stated suddenly, “A male uh,” fuck, what was his name again? Iggy? No... “Ig...ram?” Her eyes flickered to the white females for a moment. It didn’t matter too much. “He told me of it.” Pause. Silence. She hated making conversations, god damn it.

Despite her internal war for what she would do next rating on ferociously in her mind, there was a certain motherly comfort that the woman radiated. Maybe that’s why, when she spoke next, the words drifted into the atmosphere like every other breath before it; “I come from the north.”

Silvered brow creased at the simmering she-wolf’s attempts to reminisce, and though Aurëwen nodded along at the reasoning, it only took a heartbeat to realize who this wanderer spoke of. ”Oh— Ingram!” The chirrup flurried about whatever silence stirred between them, ”He is a fellow companion of mine, there. You were lucky to have met him in ze areas around here.”

As for the subject of origins, the traveler spoke of north, and she could’nt help but lose a wisping chortle. ”North, mm. Myself, too. Here... here, nothing quite suits me ze way my Rhaesuial once did.” The words were absent, faraway, and to fill the rest of the wavering quiet between them, Aure rose, in all her petit stature, up the craggy rise to draw up alongside the vagrant.

Even then, as her voice went wistful and waning, Rhaesuial hadn’t been able to satiate her need to chart the world; well, what she could of it, anyways. Drageda hadn’t stoppered it, and neither would Diaspora, as seen by the smudges of her wanderlust already dribbling into the vague, gleaming characters of her children. Would it ever cease within her?

Ingram, that was it. If she could snap and point to her, she would. Instead, she settled on nodding - after all, her physical actions spoke louder than her words ever could. The northern autumn-colored girl watched the woman raise herself into a full standing and she realized, at once, how small she actually was. Everyone was to Rhaenys, but she couldn't help but notice the petite structure. A toothpick in the face of hounds. 

”North, mm. Myself, too. Here... here, nothing quite suits me ze way my Rhaesuial once did.” 

Excuse me, motherfucker, what. The moment she registered what she had said exactly, she did a double take and then a triple take. Her jaw went slack - had she- had she followed her? No, she looked like she had been here awhile; smelled that way too. Could it have been truly a coincidence? "Uh," She finally croaked out, ears flattened, her voice reasonably hoarse as she grasped the ground with her paws just that much more tightly. "I-" She was really at a loss for words and Rhaenys did not like it a bit. 

"I'm from Rhaesuial."

‘I’m from Rhaesuial’ —

The piercing revelation rattled the silver at once; a shiver of pewter sussing through her wisping coat from her scarred brow  ( now furrowing ) all the way to the feathering tail, now twitching with alarm at her hocks. Her eyes removed themselves from the horizon and instead settled more pressingly upon the she-wolf before her, pale jaw working to get whatever she was meaning to say out.

It wasn’t unusual for wolves of any particular place to disperse, but the prospect of meeting one from her natal haven — was this happenstance? Who was this Rhaesuian before her? Had she chosen to fly south, or had she been coaxed into doing so?

It also was unusual, though, to stare when she certainly knew better than to do anything but. Shrill ears splayed further back than they’d always done, ”I... am Aurëwen,” she breathed, lips thinning with hesitancy, ”daughter of Kiomaralis.”

Her face was ivory and inscrutable, but not without a faint kindness and wavering curiosity. Eventually, the two far-northern cousins became better acquainted, and when all was said and done, Aure hastened back to Vonnaruil to tell him all she’d found.  ( And hoped Rhaenys would remain close to the spires, less she wished to visit her little cousins someday. )