Stone Circle In a quiet kind of litany, she accepted some defeat

Set before Reverie's latest departure. This can wait if you'd like to finish our group thread first, I just thought they should have another private thread. <3

Even before Rose died, Reverie had never brought anything special to hunts. She was quick and graceful, but those things only went so far. Really, she thought she just wasn't made for it, which was funny because wolves were made for it. And that did count for something, because she could hunt. It was just... painfully average, and painful in other ways too.
She was in a gloomy mood by the time she got around to finding a cache to put the hare in. It was a pale thing, unlike those she had known in The Gilded Sea and too much like @Bjarna with its fluff and shy demeanor. It was dead now, and had no demeanor at all. That should have made her feel better. It didn't.
What did make her feel better was crossing Bjarna's scent in her search for a cache. It was fresh, but the girl was nowhere in sight. Reverie was not discouraged, though, and set off with the hare still dangling from her jaws. Her mood lightened with each step. Bjarna, the girl who had become a sister to her overnight. The girl who gave her a home. It was weird to think of it that way. She didn't think of it that way, actually. Home had never been a place, and it never would be.
Bjarna was home to her now. It had happened so quickly, so simply, but Reverie was finding that what she needed now was simplicity. She needed someone to be home to her, for no reason other than the simple fact that they wanted to be. Bjarna had given her that, and she would never forget it.

perfect, i was just thinking of making one for them <3

she would never admit that in the scarce free time she had now, she looked for traces.

traces of mother, traces of dagur or yrsa. she refused to believe that they had simply gone — and yet she knew that also they could have. that if they had, too, that it had been too long to find a trace.

yet bjarna could not live a life where she had not at least tried. even when she found nothing. only the taste of defeat laced in her mind now as she stared into the frigid river. frozen along the edges with a lull to its flow. she wanted to love the sight. instead she only wondered if it was this cold wherever mother bear had gone.

and she could not speak upon the relief she felt to see golden fur. bright and warm against the cold, snowy world. she was pleased enough to see the golden sister alone that she thought nothing of the hare at first. other than it was good to see the others work too and not lose hope in the winter months.

systir! she called out as a limp tail elevated with eager waves.

Something was wrong. She wasn't sure what, but immediately caught the vibe even as Bjarna seemed to perk up. A lifted mood implied a low one to begin with, and the girl had been nothing but soft and excitable since Reverie had known her. She dropped the hare as she neared Bjarna, and it was left slumped and sad and discarded in the snow.
No. It was dead. She had to remember that. She greeted Bjarna with her usual affection, a few shy kisses to her chin, but it was subdued. Are you okay? She asked, before she remembered that Bjarna may or may not understand. That was a problem. So instead of waiting for an answer, she inched closer and offered a silent embrace if the girl accepted it.

it was good to be welcomed with love.

it reminded her that she did still have family. she had sister and brother. that not all was lost and she was not alone. things could be worse, but they were not.

she welcomed the embrace, and did her best to not weep into it.

she decided she did not wish to be nornir today. let her return to it later when her heart did not feel so heavy and she was not so exhausted of being grown. without a second thought, she bowed down low in a playful manner, wondering if her golden systir may entertain her.

She felt the sorrow radiating from Bjarna, felt it in the delicate warmth of their embrace, the way the pale girl felt almost breakable. Yes, something was wrong, but the girl could not tell her. Reverie was considering calling for Gunnar when Bjarna dropped into a play bow.
Then she knew what to do. She froze in the manner of any dog catching the eye of a playmate, her tail high and mostly still but waving here and there in delight. Pale chest furs mussed the snow as she mirrored Bjarna's bow and woofed softly. She butted her head playfully against the girl's shoulder, and took off past her; an invitation to follow, to run with her and forget her worries for a moment.

bjarna was not a good runner.

perhaps that should have been her very first clue that she had not come from mother bear. mother bear who wandered and left behind her cubs.

bjarna forced herself to believe it was for good. that there had to be a reason.

she let the thought roll off her shoulders as she chased after reverie. breathlessly barked out a few times, wondering where systir would lead them to in this carefree chase.

She had never been an older sibling; she hadn't gotten the chance. She was always the youngest, the baby of the family, the one they all obliged and protected. If she'd stayed, maybe she would have become an older sister the way she always expected to. But she'd left, and now it had happened, but not in the way she expected at all.
In some ways, she was still the one to be obliged and protected in this dynamic. Bjarna was young, but Reverie was beginning to understand the importance of her role in Kvarsheim. The reason no one had questioned her own presence here. It was odd to think of Bjarna as a leader and protector, but wasn't that what she was to Reverie?
Even in this moment, strangely, she felt like the child; the one who could not possibly understand the burdens Bjarna carried. Suddenly she remembered something Lestan had said, something she'd lost to the fog. We become odd when we live an odd life.
But we become kind, too, don't we? We become the things we lost, and the things we needed most and never found.
She wondered what had made Bjarna, the girl who carried hopes much older than her years and, for all that, was still a child at heart. But those thoughts were for another time, and besides, there it was!
It being a large pile of snow; not the stiff heavy kind, which Reverie had come to dislike, but the freshest snowfall. She had kicked the pile together just that morning, because she wanted a pile of snow and didn't trust any of the naturally-formed ones. For all she knew, there could be something inside of those. So she had made her own, not really expecting to share it with anyone. She was delighted for the opportunity, though.
She skidded to a halt before they reached the mound of snow, which was about twice the size of herself. For a second she struggled to redirect her focus from Bjarna to the snow, and the resulting moment of confusion had her half-turning to the girl as she stopped. If Bjarna didn't prove more graceful than Reverie was being just then, there was a good chance of a high speed crash.

her mind was not silent.

she wished it would be so, but alas. she carried her burdens close to her heart. for she could not speak them to any. for fear they might think less of her, or that they too might worry the way she did.

she wished for everybody to be happy. to have peace. to find and make a home in kvarsheim.

between her own jumbled thoughts still radiating in her mind, despite her best efforts, and the now stopped reverie...well.

she crashed into the golden woman. it was a good thing that bjarna held nearly no mass beneath her oddly thick coat. otherwise the collision may have been worse than a tangling of limbs and a puff of snow.

They went down together, a mess of golden and silvery-white fluff all woven together. For a moment she found it difficult to discern which pieces of their awkward puzzle belonged to her, and which ones belonged to Bjarna. She could only laugh and go limp, figuring they would get hurt if they tried too desperately to untangle themselves. After that it was easier to sort out.
Reverie extracted herself carefully from the aftermath of their collision, checking over Bjarna as she did and trying to help the girl up if she would let her. She assumed that her new sister wasn't hurt mostly because she herself was fine, but she wanted to be sure. Bjarna was so delicate, after all.

fade? <3

it was bliss.

tangled somewhere in the radiance of her sister, she felt a wild joy. for when she looked upon reverie she was not terrified of the older girl and her radiance. she was enchanted, charmed, blessed to call her systir.

she accepted the help, but gave every sign she could that she was okay.

and ready to continue their time of carefree romping.