The ruins of old ebony were almost as heartbreaking as the ruins of the Ebony her mother had created, yet Valeriya felt strangely numb to it all. The dawn of her third year was upon her, and already she felt so old, and she fought every day to hold the bitterness at bay. She did not want to be cross or hateful or hold grudges, she wanted to hold herself above all of it and face anything that could come her way with head held high... But it was hard sometimes.
She had ventured far and farther yet, tracking in reverse the path her mother had taken to Alacritia. She was running blind for quite some time, until she had crossed more lands than she could count. Raisa had traveled far before coming to Valeriya's own homeland when fleeing hers. The pack that had struggled to take the Xanilov's place had crumbled, and only loose warring bands remained, attempting to control the others with brute force. She had not stayed there long, and as she turned for home Val couldn't help but wonder what had prompted her to leave in the first place. It was the same drive she'd always known, but perhaps she had been hoping for some sort of validation. Some sort of reason that would help her make sense of Raisa.
And now she stood on Yfir's border. Ebony had been long forgotten, the pack moved, but luckily for her they had made quite the name for themselves. Katja's pack had not been hard to find, and that brought a smile to her face. She hoped the dark woman was every bit as fierce as she remembered, but it was her brother she had come for. She needed to tell him everything, she needed to find Sigmarr and Sindri as well, and Svetlana. The wayward siblings would come together again sooner or later, she knew it! Val felt more peaceful than she ever had before. Their time had come.
It was a familiar scent that caught her attention, and she lifted her head with studied caution as she sampled the wind. Valeriya, her little Valkyrie. Always she had felt closest to Sigmarr and to Valeriya, who had shared many of her own ways. Sigmarr had passed to Valhalla in glory, and she had not thought to see her Valkyrie outside of Valhalla either. Pressing forward, she closed the distance between them until she could see the dark auburn coat of the valkyrie. "Valeriya," she spoke with a soft sigh, seeking to brush her cheek against the youth's. Raisa's children were the last connection she had to the once-monarch, and it was good to see her eldest daughter once more... though she had less than palatable news to share with the wayward Xanilov. "Have your travels treated you well, oskabarn?"
