She opened her eyes and saw stars. An entire ceiling of them in stunning blue, pink, and purple hues. There was something soft, warm, and heavy on her chest, and when she reached out a hand to run her fingers across it, it rumbled beneath her palm. Her other hand was occupied, locked in the familiar embrace of another. When she turned her head, she saw the freckles dusting her cheeks, the little flecks of green in her eyes. She was smiling back at her with such an overwhelming expression of love and adoration that it physically hurt.

It was a scene both comfortably familiar and unmistakably foreign. She saw the stars and knew they were hers, and they were fake; merely a colorful projection of the real thing. She saw the girl lying beside her and knew that she loved her, and was loved in return, though she didn't even know her name. She looked and knew she should remember but couldn't. She looked and didn't understand why.

The girl's eyes creased with worry. She followed them with her own as they sat up, her mouth moving soundlessly. She brought her free hand up to her nose, watched it come away slick with blood. She frowned. There was a hand on her shoulder. She looked and—

Someone knows about you.

—

Bragi opened her eyes, for real this time, startled awake and gasping desperately into the stillness and silence of the old den. No one used it anymore but her. What? She gasped deliriously into the dark, empty space. There was a small puddle of blood at her feet. She wiped her nose absently with the back of her paw and cast her gaze frantically about, searching the shadowed corners for the source of the voice that had jostled her from her dream.

Hello? She tentatively tried again. No response. It was only her. No one was here. She trained her gaze on the inky blackness at the entrance and stared until the sun began to illuminate the meadow beyond. Her fur fell. Her heart beat slowed. The longer she sat, her trailing limbs aching from the lack of movement, the more she just... chalked it up to a bad dream. She couldn't even really remember what had woken her up in the first place.

The world was quiet today. Quiet in the way that you could hear the breeze playing in the blades of frozen grass that stood out above the snow and frost. Quiet in the way that her fur rustled as she pressed through the meadow, her gaze turned up at the sky rather than on where she was going. Hopeful, perhaps, for a change of the weather. It was cold, but the snow didn't really bother her either way. It did make her nose dry and she licked it again as she hummed her way along.

Bragi's voice was faint. Muffled by snow, and the den, but Tove heard it either way. Her plush ears perking as she lifted her head curiously. The scent of blood was faint, too, mingled with that of the earth. It brought her to pick her pace up a little bit, debating on whether she should call someone. Mostly, she wanted to see if her sibling was okay.

Approaching the old den, which only really smelled of Bragi now, she eclipsed the entrance and dropped her head down to look inside. Everything alright? her voice was soft and inviting, hoping for an answer that wouldn't spurn her to seek out an adult, though the iron-rich aroma was stronger now.

A shadow passed over the den. She blinked in the sudden change of light, ears flicking back as the dark face of a puppy materialized at the entrance. Was everything alright? I... think so? There was a feeling. In her chest. An odd one, she couldn't quite place it, but it was fading even as she focused on it. I thought I... Never mind. She shook her head. No, it was stupid. There was no one here but her. And... Tove? She supposed? But the voice she had heard was... It sounded like...

It wasn't her.

She stood, shakily, her limbs protesting their sudden use. The den felt stifling, all of a sudden, with a heart-shaped face blocking her only exit. She made no attempt to push or otherwise slip pass to freedom. She merely stood, meek, waiting, for the pup to move of her own accord. I'm okay, she said, decidedly, her tail giving a single swish of reassurance that in no way reflected on her face.

Because someone knew about her. Her visions... or, memories, or whatever. The secret that was never supposed to get out.

Someone knew.

Mint eyes surveyed the movement inside the den, searching for signs of injury and finding only the darkness of her siblings pelt. Her nose twitched all the same at the acrid odor of the blood mixed with the soil. Bragi stood but didn't seem quick to want to leave the safety of their natal den.

You can talk about it, she offered. She stepped back in case the darker girl wanted to exit. The reassurance that she was fine sounded solid so Tove gave a little shrug. Ignorance was bliss, as they say, and it was hard to be overly concerned if Bragi truly seemed okay.

Or uh, I guess you don't have to either. Why do you still sleep in there? It seems so... small now, she was eyeing the entrance to the den, thinking about how they'd all fit in there together once, with an adult. Weird.

Would he tell? Would she have more of them? Another episode... vision, fit, that would leave her crippled, gasping on the blood-soaked ground? How was she supposed to explain that? That it was just memories of a life that she'd never lived but which felt so much more real than the one she was actually living. How was she supposed to—

You can talk about it.

No! Her head shot up, eyes bulging with fear for the few, agonizing seconds before she could wrestle her expression back under some semblance of control. No, she repeated, softer. Don't freak out, she chided herself. That's what got her in this whole, awful mess in the first place. It's fine. It's nothing, really. It wasn't nothing, but she couldn't tell her that. She couldn't tell anyone.

She huffed out a soft breath as Tove moved back from the entrance and changed the subject. She felt her tail swish back and forth a couple times at her heels and tensed, trying to still it, her skin prickling. I don't know, she murmured with a somewhat helpless shrug, looking around the den. She could still see the little imprint in the dirt her motionless body had once nestled perfectly within. It looked so small now. She placed a paw within it, feeling something like nostalgia threaten to overcome her. It's... familiar, I guess.

The shock at Bragi's response was evident on Tove's face. She didn't argue, though, simply splayed her ears a little and offered a reassuring wave of her paw to coax Bragi out. She gave her sister a chance to reorient herself without Tove prying into her business. It wasn't really her style, anyway. If Bragi said it was nothing then Tove wasn't going to press the point too much.

To the notion that the den was familiar, she nodded. Well, yeah, of course, she answered. But we have to let go of what's familiar eventually. Other things will feel familiar. Like... the sunlight, or the feeling of the rain. It was a little corny, maybe. She was a bit too young to have a better frame of reference but she knew her words were correct. There would be other things that felt familiar.

She puffed softly, looking at Bragi now from the corner of her gaze. I miss mom too, you know, the words fell easily and she didn't regret them. Though, maybe, she misunderstood.

Bragi