Following the curve of the land, Thor journeyed with no end destination in mind. He roamed to simply roam, his heart not quite satisfied with what he was doing but unable to find a better solution. The brute traveled because sitting still wasn't an option. He was purposeless and with nothing to anchor him, he aimlessly floated. Sinking to his haunches, the brute looked out over the valley as he attempted to chose a path. There wasn't much to see. With snow covering every nook and cranny, the terra was flat and bland looking, and had no real identifiable features to it. That didn't help him in his decision making any. Thor huffed, his ears flicking back as a gust of chilly wind assailed him. Now what? Speech

Walk | Talk | Think 
 
Bera was considerably disappointed. She had struck out on her own, deciding to take a chance and make her own decisions for the a change, and she had been so sure she had chosen correctly. Yfir had been led by the same black masked woman who had led Ebony only seasons earlier and the way she had run the festival had seemed so promising. Even joining, she had felt promise in the air after reuniting with Freyja and gaining herself a mentor in the shape of her elder sibling. Everything had been going so well, everything had been on the right track, and it had all been taken away so easily. 

Yfir was no more. Another wolf had won it, altered it, and let it fall apart without a care. The loss was deeply felt; how could the earth-colored wolf accept that her decision to leave her family, to pledge loyalty to a pack to gain what fighting knowledge they could bestow upon her, had all been for nothing? 

She had stuck around, watching and waiting, half hoping that those others who had made up the pack beside her might still linger and band together to regroup, but there had been no such gathering. They had scattered, leaving her behind alone and somewhat bitter over the events that had transpired. It was only made worse by the changing seasons; the Emerald Valley, which she had long since decided was her favorite location outside of the pack's territories, no longer sported the verdant stems of stalks and grasses. It was nothing but a field of white, covered in snow and devoid of the rich color she had grown to like about it, and it was starting to lack the animals that had used the fruitful valley for the sustenance. 

Hunting was tricky but not impossible, it just took a little more time, a little more care than before. Her paws, large and somewhat over-sized now that she had reached her first year, carried her at a brisk trot, her green eyes panning left and right while her nose worked to seek out a scent. What she found was no prey, and no stranger either. He stood starkly against the snow, a coloration that was practically a mirror of her own, and the sight of him so unexpectedly there after all their time apart stopped the yearling girl short. The scent, so familiar and comforting, caused a grin to quickly spread across her face. 

"Thor!" Without thinking, tail wagging rapidly and excitedly in her wake, Bera raced toward her brother and did not stop even as she came upon him, only slowing slightly as she neared so that she could leap at him without worry of injury. "It's you, I've found you!" she exclaimed in obvious delight, licking at his cheeks and chin happily. She had thought to go search for him, her sisters too, but after venturing off on her own she had lost all sense of where they might have been. To stumble upon one of them so suddenly out of nowhere was a wish come true. "I've missed you," she mumbled into his thick coat as she nuzzled his chest, closing her eyes as a sudden well of emotions hit her. Homesickness had been a thing she had been able to set aside in the face of duty and training, but now, faced with one of those that she had missed so dearly, it was much harder to keep it all away. 

The sound of his name over the wind drew the brute out of his musing. Suddenly Bera was there, crashing into his chest and peppering his face in a shower of affection. Stunned, the hefty brute remained frozen for several seconds as he tried to process what was happening. "Bearcub?" She was so..big. How could she be so different? So little time had passed since he'd last seen her. How could months make such a big difference? "You have," he confirmed warmly. Bera buried her face in his fur and in response Thor shifted his weight so he could raise a forepaw and wrap it around the girl's shoulders. "I've missed you too."  Wait a second... she'd wandered off in the first place. Him missing her was entirely her fault. Unwilling to let go over her completely, the brute craned his neck back so he could tilt his chin down and look at her. "Where the hell did you run off to?" Speech

Walk | Talk | Think 
 
As his forepaw curved around her, Bera wiggled further into his embrace, so grateful to be with him again and missing his brotherly affections. She had been without it for so long, been without any of the support that she had apparently taken for granted while she had lived with him that she was hit strongly now by how much it had actually been missed. She felt at home again, more at home than she had ever felt in Yfir, and more comfortable too. She might have found Freyja there, might even have begun to work with her for training, but nothing could compare to this here. 

She would have happily skipped the storytelling but it was really only a matter of time before the right questions were asked and she was put on the spot. If she had had ears, they would have fallen back against her head, but instead what remained of their stumps mimicked the gesture as she continued to hide her face in a moment of shame. "A pack," she answered nervously, honestly, unable to say anything but the truth even though it pained her to admit it. Though he still had not drawn back aside from what he had done to look at her, Bera lifted herself away from him to stand on her own, understanding that she needed to own up for her actions no matter the consequences. 

"I'd been thinking for a while that I might learn more about fighting in a pack, and I thought back to the lady who'd run that festival." Surely he remembered - she did, clearly, and still often thought of the spar she had been witness to. "It turned out she was leading a pack here now - that way," she added with a turn of her head and motioning of her muzzle, "so I went there. She said she'd let me train but...I had to join the pack to do it. It was hard, and somehow I did it - Freyja was there too, she was my mentor - but then someone else took the pack and everything fell apart." It was not at all the tale she had hoped to live through when she had set out. 

Still feeling ashamed, embarrassed, and guilty for not valuing Thor and his knowledge more, the tall brown yearling ducked her head slightly, staring downward. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."