AW but Fa'liya Orator 1/5

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the coastal wind breathed in long sighs through the ancient woodland, stirring the canopy in silver shivers. beneath, where the sea met forest in moss-softened hush, morwenna stood alone — a dark shape amid the towering driftwood and bramble, her eyes set not upon the sea, but the quiet places between roots and memory.
veksar slept, or at least he did when she last passed by the mouth of the den where she’d laid him. his healing would take time — bones reset, spirit steadied — and the work of it had been done with silence and touch, not speech. not yet. anore hunted beyond, her pale figure ghosting through trees, fierce as ever.
and morwenna… she remained.
salt clung to her fur. her breath misted as she exhaled.
communication. that had always been her weapon, her balm, her banner. in evenspire, her voice carried kingdoms. now it was smoke, ashes in the throat. her tongue longed for precision, but the wild did not require grandeur — it asked for truth. for simplicity. for new words shaped by need and closeness. and so, she began to consider: how to teach her tongue again. how to speak not in titles, but in warmth.
fa’liya. her daughter. her little star.
she pressed a paw to the earth, as if to feel the world turn beneath her. somewhere, her child walked this same land. somewhere, the thread remained unbroken.

the cold was very different here. it was no mere breeze nor chill. it was bone-deep and sinking, creeping into her fur and clung to her flesh. a mere babe when she'd been dropped into this new life, fa’liya did not know how to manage it. she ran on instinct, instinct to keep moving. to keep warm by way of will, when her thin coat and smaller frame did not.

she could feel it, that something important was near. a tug in her chest. not the pull of hunger, or the cold, or even the ache behind her ribs she hadn’t yet learned to name. this was different. it led her through moss and bramble, through frozen fern and pine-scented hush. following, following the breeze.

she didn’t call out—her voice wasn’t much, and she'd startled when she'd first heard it. her ears perked as she stumbled into a clearing, clumsy paws skidding on slick bark. Her breath came out in white puffs. blue eyes—bright, too large for her face still—latched onto the figure ahead.

she stood, chest heaving, little body quivering like a reed in the gale, watching the shadow of a wolf approach. closer, closer. they have her mother's star, her mother's eyes, her color. the scent hits her like whiplash, and suddenly she's awestruck.

her feet carried her faster than she'd gone in days, maybe ever, all to the woman she'd come from. “m'mma!” her tail gave a that shook her entire body.

morwenna froze.
the wind had carried something to her—no, someone. a note, a sound, a call that pierced her soul deeper than fang or spear ever could. it was not a hallucination, not a grief-drunk dream conjured by snowblind sorrow. no, it was real.
a cry.
m’ma.
the world melted.
her limbs moved before thought could catch up. she ran, vaulting across the brittle undergrowth, snow flying from her paws, breath caught in her chest like a bird trapped behind bone. heart hammering, legs burning—none of it mattered.
nothing mattered but the voice.
and then she saw her.
a girl, small and trembling and perfect. the wind had not taken her. the gods had not taken her. he had not taken her. her ribs cracked wide around the flood of disbelief and holy recognition that roared through her.
fa’liya. the name burst from her lips like a sob, like a prayer too long unsaid.
she stumbled forward, choking on the air, and fell to her knees before the child. her child. hers. all the strength drained from her limbs, all at once. she reached for the girl with shaking paws, drawing her close, burying her face into fur that smelled of pine and survival and the sacred bloodline between them.
by the stars, she whispered, voice hoarse and broken with awe. you’re here.

the girl made a soft noise, almost a whimper, as morwenna fell before her, trembling paws scooped her in, as breath and warmth wrapped around her tiny frame. she squirmed a little, pressing closer like she sought to burrow into the cradle of her mother's chest.

her nose tucked instinctively against her mother's throat, breathing her in. home. she was home.

fa’liya's paws scrabbled weakly against a bigger chest, reaching, pressing, needing. a thin, broken chirrup fluttered from her chest, a purr or a sob, she did not know the difference.
m’ma, she whispered again, this time a little surer. stronger.

morwenna bowed her head over her daughter, the world shrinking down to the frail, desperate heartbeat pressed against her chest. she tightened her hold until she thought she might crush the little thing, breath hitching against the crown of fa’liya’s head, arms folding her in as if she could shield her from every cruelty that had ever touched the world.
shh, star of my heart, she murmured, voice cracking open around the endearment, too rough, too raw. she curled herself around fa’liya as a lioness might curl around a wounded cub, a shelter of flesh and bone and fury, her nose burying into the girl’s downy ruff to breathe her in.
when fa’liya’s tiny paws scrabbled and pressed, needing more, morwenna answered by pulling her tighter still, as if she could stitch the broken pieces back together through sheer force of will. when the whisper came — m’ma — stronger now, a thread of hope wound into it, morwenna choked on a sound that was not a sob but something deeper, something from the ancient place inside her that had never, ever stopped calling for her daughter.
yes, she whispered back, forehead pressing to the small, trembling brow of her child. yes, i am here. i am here, little light. never again will i lose you.