Let Us Come to An Understanding

The weak morning sun glanced off the snow and into Adelaide's den, startling her awake. She blinked away the sleep in her eyes for a few moments and stretched leisurely, a wide yawn parting her maw. Voro had already gone, he started his day much sooner than she, and she didn't want him to hover over her like a mother hen when he could be out enjoying himself. She emerged from her little oasis with a smile, giggling like a young pup when a snowflake landed on her nose. She went cross-eyed to admire it, only to watch it melt as soon as it had appeared. Shaking off the condensation on her pelt, she trotted off to begin her work: gathering herbs in the slightly more temperate regions of the mountains.

It was rare for the little wolf to travel anywhere alone, but the horrors of her recent past were starting to fade from her waking memory now that she was in a safe, stable place. She and Voro had left all the horrors and wretched wolves of Sanatorium behind. Her only worry now was running into...

Dammit.

Aeri approached her from a distance, she almost hadn't noticed her arrival, but her excruciating eyes gave her away. Adela's smile slipped into what most would consider a perfectly placid countenance, but to her was an outward expression of distaste. "Good morning, Aeri," she called to the other woman, halting her steady plod downhill. "To what do I owe the pleasure? If you're looking for Zagreus, he stepped out." Of course she was looking for Voro; the pair of them had some invisible string tied between them that Adelaide feverishly itched to sever. He felt at home here, but there was more to it than that: he felt at home with her. Jealousy was not a good color on Adelaide.  

She didn't quite understand why her ear-tips turned green whenever the ivory-pelted woman was near. It certainly had something to do with her's and Zagreus' undeniable connection, but it also flared whenever the more graceful wolf walked, spoke, did anything really. She was fierce and formidable where Adelaide was short, round and altogether non-threatening. She wished to be tall and powerful; Voro certainly didn't hold back when he called her fat, and although she knew he didn't mean it... still, it hurt. Aeri was simply the epitome of what the girl wished she was. 
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terrible tired post sry

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[narrow width=800]feeling no more part of the living as she had the dead, the sotaherra absconds into the pressing blue of early-dawn, preserved and unlovely. lungs full of funeral breath as she marks her way down the lowland perimeter in these formless hours. even though the festal press of autumn had only just laden the boughs of cedar and aspen, had only just burnished climbing ivies, cloudrest had in its company a faint snowfall. it is welcome, of course; although the same might not be said of her presence in the regard of the sugarplum who stands before her in due time.

"adelaide."

aiano — stranger; just as much as the crowfeather that hadn't crossed either mind or concern. was it a good morning, after all? as of yet, she couldn't say; there was an edge to the other's bearing that made ill her insides with how well a thing she knew it to be  ( or, could only presume to know. )  but it matters little to her, for it had not been why she had crossed this off-kilter distance between them.  "you seem to have fared well in your search,"  the faint trace of comraderie bitten through in a level, surveyant tone; mirrorbright eyes sidling down to what green had been gathered thus far.  "it has been some time since last we spoke. i am here to ask after you, and as to whether or not you have made a decision on including your work as one with the tribe."

only if she could withstand the trial intended for her, of course, if she eventually agreed  —  but not before.

aėrith would allow several days' contemplation, yes; but not those who would loiter away the length of their stay. the nightingale did not think that she was such a sort ... but, as with anything, it remained to be seen.[/narrow]

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Adelaide was genuinely surprised that Aeri asked after her. She had not expected the woman to take interest in her at all, the only ones she cared about were those she could not see, shrouded from all of their eyes, but apparently present nonetheless in the woman's dreams. In truth, the lass thought her to be a bit mad, perhaps all the time spent in the sunny peaks of cloudrest had addled her brain. "I know not what you assume I was searching for, I haven't found anything yet. I was simply taking stock of what I have left." It was a few feeble bits of sweet grasses and berries that she had managed to drag with them across the great expanse of Canis. "I want to make use of myself while I remain here. Whether Zagreus and I are staying permanently? The answer to that evades even us. But he does have a connection to this place." 

The snow queen's suspicions were correct. The small wolf was not one to sit idly by while the world went on without her, and she had to admit, the world was beautiful here, so far above the turmoil that rested below in the shadows of the great mountains upon which they had made home. A thin layer of powder had dusted the girl's coat, making her sparkle in the early sun's light, now she truly looked like an angel, glowing a soft gold with a halo of ice. She didn't fit into Aerith's biblical imaginings of a new world, but she was a vision of divinity in her own right. 

With a deep mental sigh, she proposed an activity she dearly hoped she wouldn't soon regret, "Would you care to join me while I look for remedies today?"    
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[narrow width=800]a stout ear twitched at the mention of usefulness, her waxen face set into quiet impassivity as the sugarplum spoke; if she took offense to her flyby quips, she did not show it.

when adelaide had risen to meet her some days past, speaking with such sound defiance in the face of her own self and jurisdiction, the nightingale had been pleased; pleased, to see that the she-wolf before her on that eve was not some witless, quibbling thing but a healer who held reason within her own mind  —  and would not cower into a corner to keep her thoughts secure and safe. even now and here she showed potential; the means to rise beyond her shuttered sense of self and reach into the climes of all that she could yet emerge into and be.

let her not smudge it with indecision;
let the answer elude her no more.

"that i would,"  the sotaherra acquiesced, stepping aside so that the other could make way.  "but you will tell me each plant that you pick as you do, and their uses, and why you should use it rather than some other."

be of use; as a herbalist like i. and she would watch one of the first of hers  ( if hers she so decided to be, in the end )  work her way through the lands, and see what foraging trails she had come to acquaint herself with. no  —  idle would she not, nor any of them.

not here.[/narrow]

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