Sunspire Mountains i have been roaming for most of my life

set for c. 01/18/2021 - 01/20/2021. @Lovecraft some vague pp, let me know if I should edit. :) (@Kynareth Deagon for reference)

the storm seemed ceaseless, a living thing that shifted and breathed alongside her own lungs. snarling, howling, it was an enraged being that knew nothing of summer or gentleness -- it was as aliroth, reborn like the druids' dogma promised of the afterlife, come to kill her once more. 

it was this thought that caused her to shudder as the sighthound made a rare excursion to the west, towards the foothills of the sunspire she'd called home. the winds had let up enough that the blanchard could travel fairly well as she trotted along briskly, at least for a time, though they still buffered gales of white about her - razing her pale skin like frozen grains of sand through her wispy coat. 

near the base of the great range, the gypsy happened across a frozen carcass. another, less fortunate, predator: a young coyote. aerin settled on her haunches aside of the canid's still form and hunched slightly for warmth as her breaths struck the air in frozen plumes, intending to drag it back to the den she'd shared with lovecraft over the past fortnight after a momentary rest. it was a place that had become a blind sort of home; a darkness filled with their warmth and whispers as they tried to ignore the ice storm outside and the creeping paranoia that the whiteout would never end.

her silver gaze found the crags and bluffs of the sunspire's peaks -- and wondered as had become her habit. 

she'd thought herself to be as the soldiers in grinestone returning from war with glazed eyes and hollow cheeks, battle weary. aged. or mayhaps, more fittingly, like the slaves whose ranks she had once belonged to.  her war was not physical, the maid had met no rival forces upon a battlefield nor parleyed with her enemies. 

instead, the wintry seelie had rebelled against authority and oppression her entire life -- for her freedom. master to master. posting to posting. from the two-legs who had been her first masters, to dredguild and even beyond. even leagues to the south within the would-be sanctuary of teekon, the girl who had been awenfen hadn't been safe. 

it was enough to deaden anyone.

the halfling had finally gotten her solitude, snatching after long-awaited peace and autonomy with cold, greedy fingers. and yet, in the dark of the den, as she revealed bits and pieces of her history to lovecraft, her thoughts often wondered after the mountains of teekon. the empire was gone, buried, this she knew. but what of the man whose brand had been carved upon her nape?  

the halfbreed had not realized solitude would equate to loneliness. nor that in the silence settling over her like a layer of biting snowfall upon her skin, that she would still find companionship in the form of old memories -- played on a broken cine-camera, the corners of the film curling with the scorch of regret. 

would she find anything amongst the dunes -- and if she did, would donovan's people react with hostility at the sight of her? would they understand if aerin could find her tongue and get the words out? 

her moonstone gaze flickered down to her paws, to the depressions where her skinny forelegs dissapeared into the drift of snow. she'd have to make them see; she'd have never been safe, even amongst the saints, if something wasn't done about her former husband. 

the treacherous organ in her chest gave a poignant tug, the healer wincing ever so slightly as if truly pulled forward by her own heart, perhaps to escape the cage of her ribs. maybe it was painful, learning what longing felt like over again.

her stormcloud gaze clung to the 'spire a few heartbeats longer, as if reluctant to tear itself away. or as if the sighthound hoped for some inexplicable flutter of life.

after a moment, the scarred sainte bent with swan's grace and took hold of one of the coyote's legs -- beginning the arduous task of dragging it back towards herbalist's cache.

she didn't bother to chance a look back, but even so, her mind lingered upon the hazy sentinels of ruddied stone and the red dunes of the canyons hidden somewhere in the summit at her back.