Where the Brave Will Live Forever

Alfrun wandered contentedly at her mother's side. Neither of them had any inclination to go anywhere in particular, but the warmth of spring had called to the pair and lured them into the forest. The deep loamy scent of warm earth and awakening plant life curled around them in a rich emerald mist, traced through here and there with color-trails from prey and predator alike as they too made their way through the forest - some shining bright and new, others faded and worn. There, the bright gold trail of a young fawn recently gone leaping through the trees for pure joy, there the faded minty-green of a wolf with the soul of a healer who had passed that way some time ago. There, the alarming orange-umber of a newly awakened brown bear who'd gone lumbering through in his search for food to slake his winter hunger. And there, the sullen glow of red beneath a rock where a wolverine denned, one she was careful to guide her mother around at a cautious distance. Everything, she described aloud to Katja, generously sharing the Other-world the gods had given her the ability to see. Age had robbed Katja of the ability to see any world at all, not the gods, and surely they would not begrudge her this glimpse.

The priestess paused suddenly, both in her meandering and her speech, as a pulsing red tendril of scent-sight seemed to drift down to curl around them. It was something she couldn't quite place, but her hackles rose in alarm and she saw that Katja too, had raised her head to scent the air uneasily. The cheerful spring day felt suddenly menacing and vaguely darker. She hadn't thought before that perhaps they might have been wiser to invite along one of her more physically capable siblings on their wandering - even with so long to grow used to her mother's blindness that knowledge could not erase a lifetime of absolute trust in Katja's ability to protect them from anything untoward. Her tongue slipped out between crooked fangs and gaped lip to touch the side of her muzzle in apprehension. She signaled with her tail silently for Katja to remain where she was, and the former warrior waited with her slender body tensed warily.

Head tilting and rotating back and forth to watch carefully to either side, Alfrun continued forward. A single pace. Two. Five paces.

Perhaps she should have looked up.

A faint crack of twigs overhead and a shadow where all the warning the priestess had before a heavy weight crashed down on her and sent her sprawling.