It seemed that the mention of her fateful encounter triggered some sort of recognition, and Valeska's eyes flew open in shock. The way Teodora spoke so casually of the demon and his kin disturbed her - for who could live in peace over such a monster lurking about the lands, clearly possessed by some evil spirit in his desire to wreak pain and suffering upon the innocent? Still, her mild-mannered acquaintance gave a brief summary of his pack as if she were only speaking about the weather.
“Tact? Pah! Did not need battlefield to experience his wrath. Only thing that saved me was size of space, and that I am very fast,” she snorted, glancing ruefully back at the haunch he had wounded then. “And you - your pack knows them? Are you not... disgusted, or put off, or at all bothered by these Nightwalkers? What could they have offered your family to be on kind terms?” She could little hide the incredulousness in her tone, but it was not directed toward the stranger herself. Teodora was gentle and sweet, and likely she had little to do with the greater plans of their two packs coming together in whatever unholy alliance they held, distasteful as the thought was. The Nightwalkers could only be a festering disease that deserved to be stricken from the earth, if its followers were anything like the brute she had encountered.
Their discussion turned lighthearted once more, however, as the maiden ventured a shy compliment toward the Priestess. Valeska grew hot beneath her cheek-fur, smiling and looking off casually into the distance as if it were of no concern, and failing. Since the dawning of her relationship with Amaranth, she was apparently not immune to flattery when in the company of a pretty lady - not that it would ever come between them. Still, it was a pleasant feeling. “Oh, you are very kind,” she responded playfully, dipping a paw in the pool before them and splishing it about as a distraction. “I will say, though, it is very beautiful. Would love to have you for guest someday, if you find yourself near; then you may experience snow, and the joy of rolling around in it! Amara and I love to play-fight, even if she does not like the cold.”
Teodora then spoke of her family, wistfully, as if reaching for a memory that now lay just out of reach. Her eyes had softened and her voice grew quiet as she began, gaze searching her paws and the waters beneath them as if its depths held the answers to her longing. “I am sorry you miss them, and that you are apart. It is a special kind of pain, and I felt it when I awoke here without my friends and my pack - though the Five were merciful and helped me to find them, even if I feel I do not deserve it,” she said softly. The terror of waking in an unknown land without a single familiar scent to guide her was not something she ever wished to repeat, and hearing that Teodora still suffered her own loss was heartbreaking. Valeska felt for the girl - loneliness hurt more than anything else on earth, and her dear friend @ "Annika" was a testament to that.
But nothing prepared her for the earthen woman's sorrow for her Knight.
She, too, had had her own dalliance with a star-crossed stranger, a dark man with an icy gaze called Rhelenso. They had met by chance in a sun-dappled grove in the Land Before, and one thing had led to another amid playful splashing in a pond until they had passionately... danced, together, the act itself binding them in a torrid relationship doomed to failure in the end. His duties to his pack had torn him away, and she had not seen him again until they chanced upon one another here, with the meeting only to end in sorrow. Valeska's heart had changed in his absence, and what he had to offer was a matter of too little, too late.
Yet she still remembered him, and there would always be a little piece of her heart that held his memory close.
Her eyes misted, and she fought back tears. “I will pray for your Knight,” she managed eventually. “My heart breaks for you, but I do not believe you are meant to be alone. The gods, they allow others into our lives sometimes forever - sometimes only for a season. It is not for us to force fate, but to allow ourselves to be guided by higher power to where we were meant to be - and I know your path does not end in loneliness.” Valeska sniffed once, then straightened up, blinking the wetness from her eyes as she cleared her throat to speak with more intent. “You are smart and lovely and nice, and you will find your Knight again, whether it is the same or a wolf of a different name. And you will have your... your puppies.”
Her heart twisted for a moment, pain flickering across her expression. Something she yearned for more and more as the days grew on with Amaranth, yet foiled by their own biology - how the gods were just, how the gods were cruel. To find the love of her life, only to have the dream of a true family ripped away by the limitations of the flesh.
“I, too, wish for children one day, but... I do not know if it is possible.”
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