All Welcome ain't nothin' gonna break my stride

SKILL: ORATOR (1/5)

Svajonė had not meant to sleep so deeply.

The mountain cold always made the den feel smaller somehow, warmer too, especially with Reid tucked against her and Vidarr's steady heat at their backs. It was the sort of comfort she had once gone years without, and because of that, she had learned not to trust it fully. Even now, with the wind moaning beyond the den mouth and the pale blue cast of that strange light staining the clouds, some part of her had remained lightly strung through the dark like a thread pulled too tight.

So when she woke and found one warm little body missing from the pile, sleep left her all at once.

At first there was only the sharp, ugly plunge of a mother’s fear that stilled her heart. Her head came up fast, ears pitched forward, breath caught halfway in her throat as her dual toned eyes swept the den. Reid’s scent was fresh—fresh enough to soothe the panic before it could become something uglier, but not enough to settle her entirely. He had gone recently. Gone alone. Svajonė rose without a sound, careful and quick, the ache in her healed leg little more than an old ghost now as she slipped from the den and into the brittle mountain air.

The world outside was washed in silver and blue, cold enough to sting the lungs. Reid’s tracks were easy to follow, stamped bright and small across the snow in a line that made her chest tighten despite herself. Determined little thing. Brave little thing. Too brave, sometimes. She moved after them with quiet precision, pale coat gathering frost at the edges while the wind combed through her fur. The trees swallowed her for a time, pines standing tall and dark around her, until at last she caught sight of him ahead—a tiny russet and white shape planted in the snow, staring at something much larger than himself.

And then she saw the elk.

Svajonė stopped at once, every line in her body sharpening. She did not rush in wildly, did not call out and risk startling either creature. Instead she stepped forward with the deliberate calm of a woman who knew fear had teeth and that panic more often than naught sharpened them. Her head lowered slightly, posture neither aggressive nor meek as her gaze flicking once over the cow before settling on Reid. There was a softness to her then, even through the tension, something almost exasperated and fond all at once. Reid, she called gently, her voice low as snowfall, puiul mamei ... my sweet boy. Her eyes moved once more to the elk, then back to him. You do love to find company where you ought not to, da, dragule?

By the time she reached his side, she pressed close enough for her flank to brush his, shoulder, a quiet anchor of warmth and presence as she stood next to him. Her nose skimmed over the top of his head in an instinctive check, as if to reassure herself he was whole, before she let out the faintest breath through her nose. Vai de mine, copile, you gave Mama a fright. There was no bite in it, only the lingering tremor of a love stretched too thin. She kept herself between him and the worst of the wind, watching the elk with a measured stillness before letting her mouth curve into something small and tired and unbearably tender. It was the look of a mother who had learned to guard her little blessings close, as though fortune itself might grow jealous and steal them if she boasted too loudly.

Come then, inimă mică, she murmured, brushing close in that old, instinctive way a women soothed with touch, warmth, and nearness long before words ever came. You may look, but not so close that your courage outruns your sense. Her flank stayed firm against his shoulder, shielding him from the worst of the alpine wind as her pale double toned gaze lingered on the elk. Some beauties are meant to be admired with respect, nu atinse. You watch with gentle eyes, yes? Like a good boy. Then, softer, nearly under her breath, as if spoken half to him and half to whatever listening spirits haunted mothers in the snow, she added, Hai, dragul meu. Stay near your mama.

SKILL: ORATOR (2/5)

The apology, soft and dutiful as fresh snow, pulled something in Svajonė loose that she had not realized she was still holding on to so tightly.

Ah, pui mic ... The words left her in a hush of breath as Reid rose to press that tiny kiss to her cheek, and the tension in her mouth softened all at once into something warmer, sadder, and fuller. There was an old way to women like her—an old, bone-deep instinct handed down quieter than any song and older than all denfire—that answered fright not with sharpness, but with a type of closeness. With touch. With the pressing-in of one body to another so that the heart might remember it was not alone. She bent her head at once to him, brushing her muzzle along his brow and down the soft curve of his ear, fussing over him in that half-mothering, half-checking way as if he were still small enough to fit tucked beneath her chin. E bine, dragul meu . You are here. That is enough. Yet even as she soothed him, her pale dual toned eyes moved once more to where the elk had vanished into the dark ribs of the pines, watchful still, because fear did not leave a mother all at once. It only loosened its shawl from her shoulders bit by bit.

At his playbow, a faint sound escaped her—not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh, but something fond and helpless between the two. Nu, not half so scary as a bear, she agreed softly, and this time a true smile touched her mouth—small at first, then warmer, curling with the sort of private tenderness that only came when Reid said something that reminded her of Vidarr. Ah, so his tată had been telling stories. Of course he had. The thought wrapped around her heart like warm hands. She could almost see it: Reid tucked against that great dark body, listening with bright eyes while Vidarr, in that grave and patient way of his, recounted how his foolish mother had first stumbled into Mythris only to be chased by a bear and driven straight into freezing water like some half-drowned woodland spirit. Her smile deepened, touched now by quiet amusement. She wondered if Vidarr had told him how he had hauled her from that bitter water, all stern concern and rough strength, and how Svajonė—shivering, half frozen, and entirely unashamed—had demanded a date from him as recompense. Vai, ce femeie . Even now the memory made warmth bloom under her fur. And then, because life was a circle and the old stories never stayed one-sided for long, there had come the fire after, and his pain, and her turn to keep him safe, to mend what she could with patient care and steady hands. Strange, the roads love took. Stranger still, the way they had led her here, to this little boy speaking of bears as if they were old family legends.

So when she looked at Reid again, there was a glow in her eyes that had nothing to do with the eerie blue staining the clouds overhead. Mm, iubirea mea , you sound just like your tata when you say such things, she murmured, lowering herself a little nearer his level, snow powdering the pale fur of her legs. Her gaze studied him with that dark, luminous softness of hers. The blue, da? You wished to see what frightened you in the dream? There was no mockery in it, nor any kind of dismissal. Only a yearning to seek understanding. In her world, dreams were not only dreams. Not always. They clung and they followed you if you were not careful. They brushed at the heels of the waking world like caravan ghosts. Her nose nudged lightly at his shoulder. That is brave, inimă mică . But next time, you wake Mama first, da? We go see the strange things together.

He tucked himself obediently against her side, all high-stepping energy bridled into something careful, and Svajonė’s expression gentled with a quiet pride that felt almost painful in its sweetness. She shifted to make room for him without losing that shield of her body against the mountain wind, her tail curving instinctively nearer as though to gather him in. Then, with a glance cast toward the pale smudge of sky beyond the branches, where that eerie blue still ghosted the low clouds, she began to guide him forward at an easy pace. Not back to the den just yet, but not farther into foolishness either. A compromise. A mother’s art. Tell me what you saw, then, she murmured, the words low and intimate, as though they were two travelers alone beneath a thousand listening spirits. In the dream, and now. Was the blue moving? Did it hum? Did it feel wrong in your little bones? She brushed his shoulder again with hers, warm and solid and real, before adding with a low hum of amusement, And this elk—was she as beautiful up close as she looked from afar, hm? You tell Mama everything. I must know whether your eye for beauty comes from me, or from your poor lovestruck tata.