OOC: Finnvi thread, for any family members interested It had taken some time and care to return Katja to health from the skeletal wraith she had been when her daughters found her after her return from their homeland. She had yet to relearn how to hunt without her sight, but she had not been neglected, and she did not need to sight to indulge in that time honored meal of lone wolves everywhere - scavenging. Her children tended to drift without the structure Yfir had provided the family, even little Runa wandering on her own pursuits when she was not needed, but their shared blood always drew them together again, drifting in by ones or twos before they left once more. Still, she had great pride in them. They were something god-given, a gift to carry on her legacy into future generations, and they had been worth the sacrifices the gods had asked of her. Every one of them. This evening - she knew it was evening by the change in temperature, the way the air seemed to get thinner and felt lighter and sharper against her exposed skin - they were very much on her mind as she made her way to the stream nearby to drink. This required a bit of doing, in part because she needed to make certain not to take more steps than required so she wouldn't step into the stream and get her paws wet - dangerous in this cold - and in part because it was already beginning to ice over when the night was coldest, and the delicate layer of ice would need to be broken before she could drink. Winter was coming quickly to the north, and with it would come very hard times for a blind loner. It never once occurred to her to consider migrating to the south, though. Katja was a northman to her very bones, as her family had always been, and pragmatic about her fate. If she died, she died, and there was no place she would rather lay her bones than in her snowy lands where she had raised her children beneath Yfir's banner. There was ice on the stream tonight, but she delicately broke the crust with a dab of her paw and bent over it to drink. "Talk" "You" Think

Her path had taken her on its meandering way southward over the year, but always she was drawn home once again to find relief from the strange lushness of the southlands. Nowhere did she feel as connected to the gods and her ancestors than here, in the lands where the cold came earliest and hardest, and survival was a constant struggle for those who did not know its secrets or respect its dangers. It did not encourage, nor allow for, the slothful negligence of the south. It did not truly bother her to know that this land could very well claim her mother before the winter was out, regardless of what they willed. It was a hard land that created a hard people, and she knew that, did it happen, her mother would return again through her descendants, lending her strength and wisdom through her blood again and again. Still, her mother's knowledge and experience would be greatly missed, so Alfrun was taking pains to remain near enough to help care for her as winter approached. But there was something fluttering in the back of Runa's mind as she followed her mother's tracks through the hoarfrost to the stream. Some inkling, some hint from the gods, the seed of an idea. She did not see the whole of it yet, only the faint sense it was there, so she simply left it alone to germinate and grow. The gods would speak when they were ready. Her mother's prints were lined in bright red in her Other Sight, the shifting fog of darker color filling them like the darker red of old blood. The residual heat of passage, the pulse of a heart's blood. She was not far behind. And so she was not, for Katja had only just broken the ice on the stream and begun to drink when Alfrun ambled over the ridge to see her, then paused to cock her head to the side at something only she could see - the fall black soft black feathers like a gentle snowfall. The tip of her tongue passed delicately through the gap of her crooked teeth and cleft lip, the gesture a thoughtful one, her expression serene as she watched both the feathers and her mother.

clouded dream on an earthly night, hangs upon the crescent moon, voiceless song in an ageless light… all for the love of you

Naudir woke with a start, gasping for air as a shiver ran down her spine.  Peering out of her den on the waterfall peak at the evening sky she had a sense that she needed to visit the Red Forest.  Well, if the dream was any indication.  Stepping out of her den she took a moment to breath in the cool night air.  Winter was beginning to settle in the north as the days grew colder and darker.  In the tree above her Branwen and Bathalzaar turned.  "Naudir, why are you up?  I thought you weren't feeling well."  A mild headache still pounded in her skull but it wasn't enough to stop her from answering the dream. "I will be fine, I'm going to the Red Forest."  She started down the path, ignoring the ravens as they looked at each other before taking off into the sky to follow after her.  

Naudir moved swiftly and carefully until the roar of the waterfall faded in the distance as she entered the Red Forest, one of Yfir's old homelands.  She visited the place every so often to check on her mother but wandering was in her nature and she felt constantly pulled away.  Sometimes she wondered if that made her a poor daughter.  Alfrún was the one who mainly looked after Katja while the others went where they would.  Naudir would alert Katja to the presence of the new pack in their old lands though she debated what the older woman would think of joining such a pack.  It differed in many ways from Yfir and the leader still needed to prove himself worth of his title being only a yearling.  A pack could certainly care better for an older wolf than the meandering children and there was another blind wolf there, perhaps they might find common ground?  Naudir set the idea aside for the moment.  She couldn't see her mother agreeing to something like that.

Naudir moved through the evening, marveling at the stillness of the air here.  She spied her mother and her sister Runa and she swiftly moved to approach them. "Good evening, mother, Alfrún.  The gods sent me a vision that you might be in this area tonight.  How have you both been?"  Her ravens settled on a branch nearby, their dark eyes taking in the scene.

Ræsa had woken days past with an odd feeling in her bones. It wasn't something she could quantify or even remotely explain. She'd risen amidst the frost and fog of a late fall and struck out for the north with little to no explanation for her actions. Bodolf was understandably confused, but he'd quietly accepted the fact that his friend was a bit short of words at the time. Asking for explanation would earn him nothing but an icy stare, so why bother? Anyways, it was obvious that the wolf was preoccupied, and so they travelled with haste. Near the Red Forest Ræsa caught the scent of her sisters and faintly beneath them another familiar scent. She gasped, recognizing what might have brought her here. She picked her gait up to a steady lope, tracking their scents easily once she entered into the forest's grasp. Her search led her to the side of a small stream, finding her family situated there on it's bank. Her sisters seemed to be in fine condition, and Katja seemed to be in about the condition Ræsa would expect, but of course it was difficult to know without actually interacting with them. Of course, that is not to say she wasted any time doing so. Ræsa rushed forward, never quite as reserved as she liked to imagine herself being, but mastered herself once perceiving what she felt to be a more somber mood. Even her best efforts had carried her far afield, and she was gracious for whatever had inspired the urge to travel north. She was glad to see each of them, and keenly aware that time was a friend to no one, having a tendency to get away from you. "Mother, Runa, Naudir," she said gently, nodding to each of them in turn and offering wide smiles. For all of her attempts to affect a cold, distant persona she had come to respect in others, she couldn't quite bring it to the surface when faced with her family, nor did she really bother to try. "Talk" "You" Think

It'd been a long while since Ásvor had seen anyone in her family - and truthfully she had not seen her mother since she was quite young. Some time ago she'd ran into both Naudir and Ræsa, and though they'd discussed vague plans to travel to the north together nothing had ever come of it. Such was the way of fate, weaving itself in ways she could never quite understand nor did she particularly bother to. Such things were better left understood by wolves like her sister Alfrun, wolves who somehow had a grasp on a world beyond their own that she'd never quite had an innate ability toward. Traveling to the north again to spend the winter in the lands of her youth was a plan that had been brewing in her mind for quite some time, and as soon as the temperatures started to plummet she headed north. Ásvor hadn't had the luck to procure anything to carry any herbs in, so her meager stash had been left behind, buried in a spot familiar to her but unlikely to be found by anyone else - not that they'd last the season, but she'd attempted to dry them out and hoped some might be left by the time she returned. At least it'd give her a reason to head back south someday, though she wasn't sure when that time might come. The gods always seemed to have plans of their own for the Finnvi clan. It made sense for her to head to the Red Forest, a place as familiar as any to her even after all this time away. Somehow she had almost anticipated catching a hint of her mother's scent here, mingling with other familiar scents. Reuniting with her family was always less of a surprise than she expected it to be. It was hard not to feel as though she was being pulled along by some invisible string by some god whose name she did not know. What did catch her off guard though was when she realized this gathering was larger than she'd anticipated - from a distance she spotted her mother's inky black coat, followed by three of her siblings, all lingering nearby. They were recognizable even in the dark, even from a great distance, and she made no effort to conceal the grin that brightened her features suddenly. She knew nothing of her mother's condition, though it would become slowly apparent as she easily closed the distance that separated her from her family. Returning once again to their mother, as though they were merely children again, was quite the thought. She was reminded of a common element in stories her mother had told her, that fate was cyclical, turning into itself rather than outward - perhaps that was why she wasn't surprised that they had all come together once again. Her smile hardly faltered as she settled somewhere nearby them all, gaze turning to her mother. "Time has been kind to you, mother," she said simply, knowing that it was only because of their strong blood that her mother had survived odds that most would simply crumple beneath. Her gaze was impressed, rather than pitying. "And it seems it's treated the rest of you well too." Sky-blue stare lifted to seek each of them in turn, lingering on Alfrun last, wondered if she was more in this world or the other currently.