Bearclaw Valley i drove to the mountain and a hole in the ground

astara returned to her home several pounds shy of her departure weight. the snows had waylaid most of her journey, and she returned emptyhanded and unsuccessful.

@Avicus was not to be found.

she trudged along the entry, nose twitching.

a familiar scent clouded her nostrils. no, it couldn't be. images of her russet daughter, darling indigo eyes --

astara began to run, a howl curling from her throat.

the fever breaks a day or so before the howl rings out. her ears perk, at first unbelieving what she's hearing. it is the stuff of her incessant daydreams, visual and aural hallucinations that have shaken the girl to her core.

but then she remembers that the fever has, indeed, broken; the stench of illness is fading; it is cold and icy and dreary but she is alive—

and her mother is home.

with all the speed she can muster, Avicus lurches from the den in which she has been convalescing. she staggers toward the border, her glassy indigo eyes fixed on the trail ahead. a walk, then an ungainly trot; she cannot go any faster, no matter how much she wants to.

soon, it doesn't matter. Astara is ahead, drawing closer, and nothing can stop her paws now.

she crashes into her mother in haphazard embrace, taking sobbing, uneven breaths, muzzle pressed into the inky black warm musk of her neck. Astara is alive, she is home; Avicus may have failed but she hasn't ruined everything

i am sorry, she blurts, and it is the first—and perhaps only time—that she will bare her heart and voice genuine contrition.

nothing could slow the titanic leap of astara's stride, the earnest seeking of her gaze -- nothing at all could slow that rush of mother's instinctive urgency. avicus! home! her scent hung like ornaments across a garland of cold snow.

and then came the view of her daughter, red against a carpet of immaculate white. astara rushed headlong into the embrace, colliding messily without care for her life or limb. she pressed her nose all over, taking stock of both avicus' loss of condition, the scent of fading illness around her like a light shawl.

an apology spilled between them but astara did not care; no apology was needed when her daughter returned home alive. it mattered little where avicus had been -- she was here now. alive. home. in that moment astara was loathe to retract from her or release her once more, for fear she might lose avicus again, for real this time.

no rejoinder to her apology, but it doesn't matter. forgiveness would not come in words; her mother had none. her mother is beyond words—a solid, unshakeable mass. physical, corporeal. words are fleeting but bones are forever, and her mother is here, here again. . .

Avicus lifts her nose and nudges it first under the woman's chin, then at the corner of her mouth, like a weanling looking for regurgitated flesh. it is only a kiss, though, and she retreats shortly afterward.

she stretches out her healing limb and gestures at the jagged new scar, looking almost proud. bear, she explains succinctly. but she straightens up again not a moment later, and the pleasure fades from her face. she would not have had to deal with the bear had she been at home. but she had left—and why—?

white woman, Avicus manages through gritted teeth. she hurt Aventus. i left to kill her.

and had gotten lost, not far into her odyssey. to illustrate this monumental failure, she gravely shakes her head, eyes downcast.

astara imparts her own rough kisses, limbs shaking with violently released tension. when at last they pull away from one another, avicus offered the slim of her leg -- astara studied the new scar that snaked its length through her red fur.

a bear.

her daughter had survived.

evien had not.

her daughter was worthy.

the rest of the world... not so much.

some grim part of her had known from onset that her children's lives would be fraught with violence -- sometimes aimed at them. to see her daughter survive the might of the bear gave astara slim relief; to hear her daughter had left on whims of vengeance gave astara even more.

a thin smile accompanied her dark expression before it too faded away. nyra would have her time, someday. for now, ursus was once more fulfilled.

she nodded in acceptance, a flick of her tail accompanying that minute gesture of understanding. someday, avicus would call vengeance her own -- but for now, she was home and truly to astara, there was little else that mattered.

forgiveness. it is in her mother's smile, in the nod and movement of tail. Avicus releases a breath she wasn't aware of holding, shuffling her paws upon the snow. she, too, flashes a smile before it is gone, replaced with the nearly-dour stoicism of her usual mien.

but make no mistake. . .she is happy. overjoyed, really. Astara has returned, and Avicus can stop blaming herself for at least one thing.

she smacks her forepaws against the snow in a brief leap, dips into a play bow, and then presses up against her mother's shoulder before taking off into the territory at a slow gallop. she throws her head back, staring at Astara.

come and catch me!

the further she can draw Astara into Bearclaw Valley, the better. perhaps, then, neither of them would ever leave again.

if astara had her way, neither of them would never leave bearclaw again. at least, not for reasons relating to their disappearance...

but astara, brutish as she was, understood the call of the wild. had she not left her own home at avicus' age? had she not wandered alongside her sister, abandoning averna not once but twice, for the physical world?

and now they were reunited, by some twist of humored fate. astara would accept it, love it even for what it was -- but she knew whatever time she had here was fleeting.

already, her daughter's smile was gone. astara studied that stoic face, tensing as avicus playbowed and scampered deep into the thick of the territory.

good; let her go to the heart of bearclaw, and never lose it.

astara came after at a steady lope, play glinting in her indigo gaze.