Bearclaw Valley i'll be your swimming forest island

this takes place just outside of ursus's border! feel free to witness and/or pursue her, preferably in a separate thread

the moon's glittering reflection off the icy droplets scattered through the pale wolf's fur rendered her gem-like, sparkling. the sparse dark wisps in the sky had just begun to part and wither after a short and frigid cloudburst. all around her it smelled fresh and almost green under the muted desolation of winter; alive in the wake of the brief shower of rain. it was nothing like vargas island.

but it was familiar. once, a very long time ago, it had been home. yakone didn't remember those days, not the way she wished she did. she only remembered after. fleeting painful glimpses of memory, the feeling of being other. an intruder. a stranger. no one she spoke to had known her here, and the one who had helped to give her life had never shown his face. but she knew from the words of others that she had been born here. and looking at it, she felt... something. a stirring.

the once-apaata stepped cautiously toward the scent marks denoting the border of a claim. one scent among them was familiar, but no more. merrick, she remembered; just a loud little boy when she'd last seen him.

this was what had remained behind, roots burrowing into the ashes of what had once been her mother's new beginning. yakone wondered what she would have thought, to see a pack settled here after all this time, harboring the remnants of a torn chapter of her life. then she decided that she wouldn't have cared; she'd had no reason to, at the end of her life.

in her final days, she'd been at peace. yakone, who had always known her best and loved her best, could see it more than anyone. the others had fretted even as they showered her with loving goodbyes. she had grieved at first, too, as any daughter would — but acceptance had followed soon after. reigi had lived a long and loving life, filled with family and friends dear enough to be family too. she had been too happy to feel any of the bitterness yakone tasted when she looked upon the valley. perhaps she would even have found some pleasure in knowing that the fragments of her past had sprouted new life.

yakone realized, then, that it didn't matter. bearclaw valley had held nothing for her mother, and it held nothing for her now. wherever xan was, he hadn't wanted her and likely never would.

but this place... these lands. she had come here for a reason. her discovery of this place had seemed mere chance, but there had to be more to it than that. she felt, suddenly, that she was meant to start a life here, as her mother once had. not in the valley, but elsewhere perhaps. and maybe it would fail, maybe it would crumble just like yakone's own tragic beginning. but even such ruin eventually led her mother to a life of happiness, hadn't it?

it wasn't like she had anything else left to try.

yakone snorted and turned, dismissing the valley, xan, and every part of her past here in one swift motion. she did not look back.