The caramel marked woman wandered aimlessly over the bank of the rapids, a habit she had picked up that she enjoyed most every day. It was after her morning patrol, the day was well underway and she was enjoying the warmth of rare sunlight on her back. She was often brought to the thought about what her life should be like right now. She was happy and content living here in Abaven alongside hermate. Corvus was the light of her life. She adored him in every way but it was easy for sadness to creep back up in her soul. They should have been parents, and they should have been raising their children together now.

Twig shook herself as a cold breeze drifted over the land, it rustled the bare branches and what grass was poking up from beneath the thin layer of snow. She’d entered into another heat season with mixed feelings. She wanted to try again with Corvus, she wanted to take every precaution and prayer to make it through her pregnancy. At the same time she was scared, she wasn’t sure she could take losing something so special a second time.

She sighed softly and watched the freezing water rush past her through the ice crusted banks, thinking about how her life was passing just as quickly as the water flowed before her.

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.