Dragoncrest Cliffs — meridian

Current week. Just a lil ramble!
Tags just for reference. wow this turned into a novel oops

The herbalist wondered if this is how @Adriel felt — searching for something settled that you couldn’t quite name. Had the raven felt as frustrated, as restricted by herself as Aure currently did? Had she, too, gotten tangled up briars and brambles, or nearly been set upon by a narrow-eyes badger? Had the winged seeker faced this, and so much more that would rather be forgotten, fickle as it were? A myriad of all these things nipped at the edges of the silver’s mind, who’d become more withdrawn as spring crept to embrace the last of winter.

For now, though, she took respite, and had returned to the lukewarmth of Hougeda. Her sixth week had since turned her fleet steps into a drag of paws, and for the time being she reveled in the natural weight that now shushed her harried search. Rather than veer to the cove — or her former quarantine — she arrowed along the other paths, but headed deeper into the caverns all the same.

She knew there was solace in solitude; Bounkola’s reclusive behavior wasn’t as out of maternal instinct as others might take it for. Regardless of both longing and loneliness that frequented her willing alienation, the murmur of inner peace within her only became more when Aure was by herself.

For the past few weeks, she’d done all she’d could to keep thoughts of unmourning and unmated suppressed. Whether through her quest for a new apothecary, a new resting place, or hours spent with @Rose or @Blodreina, she had left herself drifting amongst the sequoian hinters or the tales of others. Let herself worry over @Natjuk, her champion, and all those others who’d since departed the cliffs. Fretted over everyone but herself, as it were; as it would remain, it seems.

Her spirit threaded her down down down through the earthen chambers — illuminated wherever the sun chose to kiss them — and soon coaxed her into one aflush with faraway, spring sun. The breath nearly left her, then, as her womb quickened and an airless whisper of ”Frumos” ghosted from between scarred lips. Aure wondered, reverently, why she’d never been born a child of light instead; and why she’d long since left the world around her unsung. This sacred space reminded her of Silvertip, and @Tux, and how she had kept it in thought of her stormful night-of-life.

For the first time in weeks, her breath did not stutter at the thought of him, and the strain of her heart became less melancholy and more longing. He lingered at the vestiges of her thoughts as eve feathers in about the moon; he was in her blood, her soul, whether he’d ever wanted to be or not. And she missed him, but—

But here, almost beneath the Below, with her heart, her lungs, her womb aching with all this light, she could tell herself she was formidable. Away from the world above, she could become unwilting, everything she’d ever longed to be, yearned to unfurl and flourish in ways she’d only found in somnolent, silent dreams.