There's little comfort, these days. Björn has been out on his own, exploring, scheming. Stewing in his poor feelings and his anger. The bitterness that lived in his chest, aimed at his father. The loss of his mother, still hanging around his shoulders. Though he wouldn't say it out loud, he missed her. He missed the man his father was, in those days, too. Funny how things could change in a year... funny in a sad way, not a genuine way. You know how it goes. Padding carefully up the mountain that mirrored his childhood home, Björn looks out over it. The porous stone beneath his paws scraped the pads, dug in awkwardly. Though he's just in the foothills, the destruction that called this place home was clear. Ghostly outlines of trees, buried beneath the cooled lava. It's a wasteland. What had it looked like in its heyday? The boy is curious as he explores, trying to push the lurking form of the Maw from his mind. You can never go home again, after all. BJÖRN Ragnarök awaits.

No one had ever been able to give her a straight answer on Mount Volkan. An eruption had been the basic explanation, but why did nothing refuse to grow back? Why did it continue to be a wasteland? There surely was a reason. Or maybe it was the same as her heart. Cold, desolate, empty, and unwilling to look back.

She would never go back.

Even looking across the expanse of valley and forest to her puphood home, all she felt was barren nothingness. No emotion flowed from her as she stared upon the very peak she was born on. There must be something better for the future, and as much as she feared the future her brother would give, she didn't want to accept the other one waiting for her with open arms. Her beloathed would not get even a single piece of her.

"Do you think there is precious stone beneath its surface?" Lumine questions Bjorn, turning to her brother to see him staring at Mount Volkan. She can see pockets of caves masqueraded in shadow and lumps of sharp volcanic stone jutting up here and there, but not much else. Boring, but maybe important.

"speech"

coded by NachoMumma

Watching the mountain, from this peak, gives Björn a sense of scale he's not sure he likes. Had it always seemed so small? They hadn't necessarily been sequestered, but they'd certainly been removed. Removed from the goings on of the world. There's a whole world out here. There's a world beneath his feet, buried beneath the pumice. It grips his paws in a way he doesn't necessarily like, though it would likely wear down the ragged edges of his nails... for the best, actually.

"All things beneath are precious, that's why they're buried." Björn's words are cryptic, though he doesn't necessarily know what they mean himself. Not entirely. There was a whole world that the volcano had taken away, the shadows of it clear on the surface. His gaze sweeps the land, as he leads the way further up. Trying to get a better vantage point, a slow and grim exploration. "There's some glimmering a bit further up, maybe your precious stone." Canting his antlered head toward his sister, her companionship enough to bring him back down to earth, at least for a time.

"You don't have to go back home, you know." Björn makes the comment offhandedly, not wanting to make direct eye contact with the Maw. It's an olive branch extended, though the boy doesn't like admitting that he misses his sister when she's not here. They strike a delicate balance, storm in a bottle. He's better with his sister by his side, and Björn would need all the help he could get.

"speech"

coded by NachoMumma

Lumine follows her brother across the sharp volcanic rock. She dislikes the way it pokes and prods at her paws, leaving tendering in its wake, but she doesn't make a face about it. Ignoring the pangs of irritation, she too notices the glimmer ahead. Something at least for them to investigate and explore the volcano some more. Keeping pace with his longer legs, she glances about their arid surroundings. Life doesn't exist on this mountain anymore. Just rivulets and indentations of rock upon rock, burying what life may cease to exist below. Sad and almost how she feels about her own life now.

She knows Bjorn speaks cryptically, but in a sense she understands it. She feels like she is that gemstone buried beneath the surface, waiting to be discovered. It allows an excitement to elicit, cracking through the turmoil of her expression. Approaching the glimmer reflecting off the red sky's light, she peers at the vein poking through the rock. "Hm, it might just be precious stone," she says thoughtfully, ignoring his comment about home for a moment. Picking up a paw to scratch at the rock, it doesn't appear to want to budge. Was it so greedy that it would not allow them to take even a small piece?

"I think it might be time to depart from said home," Lumine speaks wistfully, a sigh extending from her parted lips as she focuses on exploring the formed rock beneath her paws. Eyes firmly on the porous surface and uneven ground, dull nails picking and prodding at this rock as if it was the most fascinating thing to exist.

"speech"

coded by NachoMumma