no sh#@, sherlock!

With the meeting completed and a swift check of Ashen’s borders to listen and hope they were getting out as well, Aurielle had set out at a brisk pace, forging her way through a night that was swiftly blackening under the cloud of ash the volcano that lay in the east was belching into the sky, spreading its ominous darkness across the sky like blood in a pool of water.

Her pale form was barely visible in the blackness by the time she reached the Dancefloor. Thus far, it seemed relatively untouched to her eyes, but with the blackening night, and day still a few hours off, one could hardly tell. Her pristine coat was greyed with volcanic ash, blown on the winds high, high above in the sky to sprinkle down upon the earth.

It all stank. It reeked of a hard winter to come. Valhalla’s homelands were right on the edge of the impending danger, but only just. She’d been certain to let none of the pack remain in the Moorland, just in case—her instincts cautioned against remaining any longer than it took to gather as much of the herbs as the pack could carry at once, to store it in the plains, but bundled and packed, in case the pack needed to leave.

Aurielle was among those sent west to scout new lands. She had a hope the Sweetgrass Basin and the Dancefloor could make a good home until things settled, but it rankled to think of leaving the Plains.

Her brisk, flowing trot slowed as she spotted a form ahead, and she dropped to a walk as she came closer to the stranger she’d come upon. He was heavily striped from what she could see in the ashen night, and she nodded, almost brusquely, as she greeted, “I would say good evening, but this is anything but. How fares the weather to the west of here, do you know?”

She paused, then added apologetically, “I am Aurielle Adravendi, Spirit – or Alphess – of Valhalla. My apologies for the curt tone… things are a bit stressful at the moment…” Her head twisted to gaze back toward the east, where the sullen glow and flicker of the volcano, still in its throes of fury, bruised the sky blood red.

Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think