8/9/2026, 5:07 AM
her thoughts have gone soft around the edges, dulled beneath the steady hammering of her heart and the thinness of every breath. she watches a gray girl unfold from among the gathered bodies and cannot immediately remember what she means to do with it. greet her, perhaps. straighten herself. hide the trembling in her forelegs before those searching eyes find it.
fa’liya manages neither.
her pace falters once, then resumes. the grasses whisper against her belly as she passes through them, and somewhere beyond tatsaaye' she finds the pale gleam of iglux̂ upon the black stone. familiarity gathers piece by piece. saatsine. home.
a breeze comes sidelong across the grove, gathering water and damp earth and the thick animal musk of caribou. beneath it, something more dogged. coyote. the scent is faint enough that another breath might lose it entirely, but her body recognizes something within it before her exhausted mind can make sense of why. the fur along her spine lifts one slow ridge at a time.
snow.
for a moment she can almost feel it packed beneath her paws again. the endless white. the starved cow laid open upon it, then standing whole where death ought to have been. bone-white antlers branching outward until there was nowhere left to look. something behind her.
fa’liya’s gaze drifts past the bodies before her, unfocused. her ears turn backward. there is nothing there that she can see, and still that same peculiar awareness settles between her shoulders—the unmistakable impression of attention resting upon her from somewhere beyond sight. not close enough to touch. not distant enough to ignore.
her heart gives another unpleasant stumble. she slurs the silver's name as she inches closer, wispy.
fa’liya manages neither.
her pace falters once, then resumes. the grasses whisper against her belly as she passes through them, and somewhere beyond tatsaaye' she finds the pale gleam of iglux̂ upon the black stone. familiarity gathers piece by piece. saatsine. home.
a breeze comes sidelong across the grove, gathering water and damp earth and the thick animal musk of caribou. beneath it, something more dogged. coyote. the scent is faint enough that another breath might lose it entirely, but her body recognizes something within it before her exhausted mind can make sense of why. the fur along her spine lifts one slow ridge at a time.
snow.
for a moment she can almost feel it packed beneath her paws again. the endless white. the starved cow laid open upon it, then standing whole where death ought to have been. bone-white antlers branching outward until there was nowhere left to look. something behind her.
fa’liya’s gaze drifts past the bodies before her, unfocused. her ears turn backward. there is nothing there that she can see, and still that same peculiar awareness settles between her shoulders—the unmistakable impression of attention resting upon her from somewhere beyond sight. not close enough to touch. not distant enough to ignore.
her heart gives another unpleasant stumble. she slurs the silver's name as she inches closer, wispy.
...iglux̂.