melancholy and hope

The arrival of winter marked a full year that had passed since their loss. It had been a strange year - uneventful, mostly, which was probably a good thing given how much grieving he'd had to go through, both with Twig and privately. He'd always struggled with feeling like he was enough, but losing his future children had taken an surprising blow to his self-esteem. For so long he worried he'd been the reason it had happened. Maybe he'd pushed Twig too hard, maybe he hadn't seen the signs that others might find obvious. Maybe he just hadn't been enough. But over time those feelings lessened and he was able to come to terms with an even harder fact. That sometimes, bad things just happened, often for no reason whatsoever.

It wasn't exactly an encouraging thing to realize, but he couldn't blame himself forever. Life was too short, too unpredictable. Today those thoughts were far from his mind though as he woke a bit after Twig and decided to trail after her scent. A thin layer of snow coated the land, and with it came a feeling of renewal life. Winter had a way of making it feel like everything reset, especially when it snowed enough to deafen the lands almost completely. So far they'd avoided the brutal weather that the previous winter had given them but Corvus was okay with that. He picked up his pace as he closed the distance between the two of them, paws dragging in the snow as he made to greet her, moving to bury his nose affectionately in her scruff. "Morning, you," he murmured as he leaned into her, wondering what was on her mind today - or if she was still just waking up like he was.