Loneliness was beginning to eat away at the delicate flower from the inside out, starting at her core she could feel the rot slowly making its way outwards. How long before it was over? Before it dragged her under into the darkness and silence she had lived in for all of her life. For such a young girl her shoulders were already heavily burdened by the sorrows to heartache and pain. And it wasn't even for her father who had abandoned her or her mother who had disappeared or brother who was probably dead. No. She had left him. In the night she had snuck off without a word because her fear had been too much to over come. Fear had tightened her throat to the point where she could no longer speak and sometimes even breathing was hard. Sighs had slipped off her tongue before but words, howls, barks, whimpers eluded her. Still too afraid of failing to even begin to try. But now he was gone and she had nothing. The fear was spreading, reaching into her mind and screaming at her that solitude was the only answer there was when in fact all she needed in life was company. All she wanted was a friend, family and she had no way of knowing how to express such feelings. Instead all she had was the solitude of the north. Mostly there were only pack wolves here and they stayed to their territories so she was left alone. And ever alert it was easy to slip into the shadows to avoid contact with others. She wasn't ready. She had never felt ready. She needed him, needed Aeron and she had left him. At one point she had even gone pack to the once pack they had joined only to find it gone. Gone. Everything was gone. She sat quietly, the moon almost full above her and larger then usual with an orange tint to it casting an eerie light on the frozen woods below her. Idly a paw would lift and nails would scratch at the ice surface as if maybe she could dig up the massive trees below but it was all a fantasy. Baby blues would blink back the tears that were threatening to form in her eyes. Day in and day out she hunted for herself, took care of herself and all for what? Was there a purpose? Was she simply to float through life like her parents without having any real purpose? Would she one day have children and abandon them like her mother had? She had no warm memories of her mother, having been too young to remember the times she and Luce had cuddled beneath the moonlight while her mother had cooed stories of old in a foreign langue to the attentive pup. Once upon a time Silana had loved meeting others, had even been sad when her mother had shooed her and her brothers away when the pack members had come to visit. But that was all gone. Maybe not all, some small part of her still wanted that, wanted to be loved and accepted rather then fearful of everyone and afraid of being judged. It was as if it all built up all at one, a swell of emotion that started from a tightening of her chest and gut. It was a similar feeling to when she had eaten some bad berries and spent the whole rest of the puking up her stomach. Hind legs forced her up, and for a moment her back arched while her stomach convulsed. Ears pinned and then suddenly it happened. "Ack!" She coughed out the sound and eyes went wide. She had made that sound? Dainty paws began backing up, immediately looking around to see if a) someone else had made that sound or b) someone else was around to confirm that she had made that sound. Lips curled for a moment, teeth chewing on them as tongue flicked against the roof of her mouth. Should she try it again? What if she failed and that was a fluke? But then again. What if she didn't? Again eyes were cast around cautiously, looking to make sure no one was around before sitting down like she had seen so many others do so many times before. Drawing in an extra large breath she tipped her head back and closed her eyes. The sound flowed out as easily as her breath, tentative at first but then stronger. No particular message being carried, simply a howl to the moon, a greeting to the light. She carried on until her breath was gone and then finally her head dropped, eyes still wide in disbelief before she looked up at the moon and smiled for the first time in her life. She sounded like her mother.

The northern lands were home to him in ways that other places were not. The young male had spent most of his time growing up here - and although it wasn't entirely visible from his less than muscular frame, it had made him quite resiliant. It had also made him cold - not in a callous sense, but in one that made quiet, comfortable in silence, slow to feel anything that could be noted as remotely passionate. Or perhaps he had gained those qualities from his only known kin - Silana, it was surprising how often his sister crossed his mind. A vast expanse of everything and nothing at all, the male was often lost in thought, but even among his mental wandering she was there. Lingering in a way that was both empty and all encompassing, so different from the relationship that he was slowly forging with Sibelle. While Silana was quiet, was cold - the russet lady was warm, her presence was much heavier than either he or his sibling, or anyone that he had ever thought to try and get close to.


She was crossing his mind more often lately too.


He would triapse over the still snowy area, only to pause as his senses once again played tricks on him. That scent - it was enough to get his breath to hitch just so, a slight reaction to the trickle of emotion that would surely grow larger if he allowed it. If this was another old trail or mistake, which he was nearly sure about at t this point because Silana had been missing for quite a few seasons now - he would be two at summer's end - and he had not seen hide nor hair of his sister in far too long. Still, he felt the nagging urge to let himself down - to squash any lingering feelings of hope at this nearby lupine being Silana. And so he would briskly carry himself forward, a surprising amount of hesitance in his stride - which was something that had not happened previous. 'Silana?' Perhaps his body, was a step ahead of his mind? Perhaps this wasn't some sort of trick?


Aeron would pause as he caught sight of a female, small framed but hauntingly familiar. He would watch, frozen into place as she tilted her delicate crown to the sky and s a n g. His eyes were wider than they had ever been, and he wasn't sure what it was, but there was something caught in his throat because he could feel it there. He would wait until she finished her song, before sweeping toward her, the expression on his visage unreadable. Not blank though, not as per usual - he simply felt a few too many different feelings for it to convey correctly on his face. A mixture of relief, surprise, anger, and pride trickled within him, swelling as he moved to close the distance between he and his kin. "Have you been 'iding zat voice from me, Silana?" There were few things that Aeron saw beauty in, but it seemed that she had managed to strike a chord.


"I never zought zat I vould see you again." It was a struggle, to seperate his thoughts and feelings this way, but he would do his best, each flicking subtly over his face and through his body - the scrunch of his brows as he wondered why she had left, the twitch of his lips into something akin to a smile as he realized that she was here. "Vhere 'ave you been?" His gentle, accented tones would seem hushed though, for he never had to speak loudly with Silana - at times he barely had to speak, because it seemed that in her silence that she was always listening. Idly he would wonder whether that would all change.

It was like all the memories of her younger years came flooding back in extreme clarity. Her mother lying with her late at night while her brothers slept, telling her stories in her native tongue. She had had such a beautiful voice, so beautiful that it had seemed to continue instilling the fear within her that she could never sound like that. What if she had spoken and everyone had laughed? What if she had not been able to speak at all? It was as though all those fears that had started off as small things had eventually grown to such a big crippling social anxiety that had left her voiceless for almost two years. Two years of silence. Not even a squeak. She felt both a deep need to thank her mother and scream at her now that she had found her voice. Her mother had never pushed her and had never scolded her as a child, accepting her silence without a word but now Silana wished that her mother had pushed her. She could speak! She wasn?t a mute. Her vocals had been paralyzed with nothing more then a deep fear and shame, how had she not known that? His scent would hit her almost as harshly as running full tilt into a brick wall and it was like all of a sudden her smile was gone and her ears were flattening against her skull in a deep shame. Aeron. Oh how she had imagined this day, over and over in her mind she had imagined their reunion. Like before she had imagined it to be silent and tender, with him simply accepting her presence and her following along as she always had. Not like this. She turned slowly, the sounds of his paws on the ice echoing like thunder in her skull. She would stand, lifting herself to her paws and face him and taking a deep breath to prepare for whatever words he was ready to throw at her. But instead of his usual tones he spoke in a heavily accented tone, still pleasing but foreign to her. He had always spoken the language of their mother to her. It had always been something that had kept their mother alive in a way. Still she forced a bit of a smile, a shameful and nervous one but she didn?t respond to his comment right away. Could she respond? All those insecurities came trickling back and for a moment she lowered her head, gaze casting to the side. It was his next words that drew her back to the present and forced her to bring her gaze back to him. ?Ould ?ever leave long.? Her voice was barely a whisper, tongue struggling to form the words her mind was already well accustomed to. Even as she said them she found a frown furrowing her brow, that wasn?t what she had wanted to say. At least it wasn?t in complete clarity. He spoke again and she was brought back to the present. ?Been ?ere.? She said softly, tapping her paw against the ground to show that she meant this place, it was her favorite place and she rarely left it. For a moment she choked on her tongue, trying to make it form the words she wanted it to form. ?Je suis d?sol?.? (I?m sorry.) She said, the words flowing off her tongue easier then she had thought they would. Spending her childhood repeating her mothers word, mouthing the words to test them without sound seemed to have paid off. She didn?t really know how else to say it. She couldn?t say it enough, she was sorry for leaving him ever. Tentatively she would step forward, closing the distance between them and moving to push her head against his shoulder tenderly. ?O? avez-vous ?t??? (where have you been?) She asked softly, he no longer smelt like a pack and didn?t smell of any specific territory. Where had he been adventuring off to?

He thought more in English than French nowadays, simply because it was what he heard - what he had started to understand as well as he did French from his younger days beside his mother. No longer did he struggle to understand feelings in both languages, it was only the feelings themselves that tripped up the apethetic creature. And yet when it came to his kin it seemed that his apethy was replaced with more than he could properly understand. Staring at his sister for the first time in what felt like forever and that he simply knew as a time frame of too long, he would struggle not to gasp, to jump at every word that came out of her mouth. That voice was so painfully familiar to him, but he had never heard Silana speak before today... but it didn't matter, this was Silana, his sweet sister was speaking to him - it was a moment that he would remember for the rest of his life. Her whisper elicted something sharp and warm from within him - joy? Despite her not looking pleased with the words, he was proud of her, and felt he understood. The two of them would never be apart forever, she knew that, he should never have let himself forget.


As to where she had been, she had lingered in this very area. The submerged woods that they had met before - he never thought to return here, how had he missed this place! He had scoured the north while staying in Amenti, wandering listelessly, aimlessly, hoping that her scent would caress his senses. He was so sorry, for missing her, for not coming here - because he should have known, he should have understood that "Je suis d?sol?. Je suis venu ici en premier. Je suis venu ici en premier. Vous l'attendiez pour moi. He would not let such a thing happen again, he would wait here for her, knowing that she would show from here on. "Ne vous excusez pas." He would tell her once she approached him, moving to meet her half way. He would move his head to wrap as well as it could around her neck - a hug. He had missed her - when she was near what was frayed about the pieces that fit him together seemed to stick a little more firmly. "Tu m'as manqu? aussi."


She would speak again, her final sentence before she quieted for a moment - and he would breath in her scent before replying. "Je te cherchais." He would answer her question, still in shock at the smooth tones of her voice. When she spoke in their mother tongue, he would immediately realize exactly why her voice seemed so familiar to him. Memories of their mother would linger in the back of his subconsciousness, and the voice that he had forgotten in the angelic creature from his past - seemed to have found their way to Silana. "J'ai fait un ami. Je pense que vous devriez rencontrer deux." Friend didn't seem to cover what Sibelle meant to him - but he would save that pondering for a different moment. Imagining the two of them talking seemed almost too much - they were both his world, and there was always the chance that two worlds colliding would create a very good end result. Aeron didn't seem to see the issue with it though - they had accepted him, he was sure that they would accept each other.