She's everything the devil can't be.

“Aunt @Keres, look!”

Eyes wide with intrigue, the raven youth pointed her muzzle in the direction of a small group of large herbivores that grazed on the spring grasses at the base of the hill that the wolves had found themselves atop. Their differing costs fascinated her: some pale, some dark, some with splashes of colour on a pale base, even one spotted. Ciri had never seen a horse before, nor would she know what to call them, but she stared with unbridled curiosity as they longed together beneath a midday sun.

“What are they!?”

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“Shhh. You don't want to startle them.” Alerting a herd of anything was always dangerous, and Keres would not allow Ciri to put herself in such a situation. The valkyrie was on a mission to reunite the girl with her mother, the pair of them with their entire family, and it would not do for them to arrive in anything other than pristine, if travel-weary, condition. “They are horses,” She answered finally, looking from Ciri to the herd that stood, grazing at the plains that stretched below them. “You must always be careful around them. Never find yourself behind them, or anywhere near their hooves. They kick with immense strength.”

Laying there with the girl was a short reprieve in their travels, heading towards the mountains. How she knew which peaks to head for, Keres could not have said or explained, but there was a pull. A draw that she would follow until it either proved fruitless or beneficial. Fortunately, they seemed to be making good time, so taking a break was not terribly concerning to the woman.
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Aunt Keres hushed her, though not unkindly. Ciri turned her head to regard the ashen wolfess only briefly before she returned her bright eyes to look upon the herbivores as they continued to graze beyond the hill on which the young wolf stood. Her tail waved excitedly and she kept a raven ear trained on her companion, keen to show that she was listening despite her focus remaining primarily with her newest find.

“They look huge,"” she said, quieter this time, but with no less enthusiasm as she settled in alongside her aunt, “have you ever hunted one?”


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The notion of hunting such creatures was laughable, almost. She had hunted deer, elk, even moose, but never horses. She never would, either. “No, Ciri. They are mean. Aggressive. They will bite and kick the moment you get near.” She couldn't imagine getting nailed with one of those hooves, the force behind all that muscle. Keres decided it would be wise to instill caution in the girl, and so she spoke again, turning her gaze from the equines to her niece. “Once, a long time ago, a good friend of mine, @Malkamitu, was kicked by one. She died almost instantly, and the loss of her hurt many of us.” Her voice was somber, serious as she regarded the smaller wolf. “Do not ever hunt them.”

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whoops added back story for Malkamitu LOL

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Her enthusiasm was dampened considerably at Keres' words of caution, and Ciri's expression shifted to one of wide-eyed horror at the mention of another's fate at the hooves of horses. Her bright eyes lingered on the dappled hide of one below the hill and her immediate thought was that they didn't look so threatening from afar.

Attention turned to the sterling adult as she rose her muzzle to look upon her face; “that's awful,” she commented, eager to show some level of sympathy despite her own feelings of being indestructible. This fate could not befall her, surely, but Ciri would heed her aunt's warning.

She made to move off then, to begin their avoidance of the herd, when a faraway call brought her raven ears forward. “Listen!” Ciri beamed at her aunt, recognition in the sheen of her bright eyes, “it's them!”


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She, too, heard the call, ears turning to listen to the voices that she knew so well in her heart. Her own voice rose then, startling the herd of horses into thundering away from the pair. She called to them, called to @Hydra and @Dirge, to @Nyx and to @Āzon and @Desdemona. To all of them.

"We're here," She said. "Keres and Ciri. We are coming."

When her voice finally died away, the valkyrie nudged the girl's shoulder with her nose, a soft smile upon her face. “Ready to head home?”
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As the voices if their loved ones tapered, Keres' own rose in response. Young Ciri stared out over the rolling field below, across the water, and longingly toward distant snow-tipped peaksthat rose far beyond. To get there would take time, but she she'd travel even farther if it meant making her family whole again.

Her dark tail waved excitedly as her aunt reached to bump against her, and with a beaming smile she turned her bright eyes in search of her own. “More than ready,” the girl chirped, and wasted no time in racing off down the slope with a joyful bark of encouragement for Keres to follow.


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Wrapping this one up and joining the one at Empyrean!

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Keres only smiled as young Ciri bounded off, veering away from the direction the herd had gone in. As long as she was within sight, the valkyrie had no issue with her distance, easing in to a smooth lope to follow the girl's path. Her heart, too, soared at the thought of being reunited with them all, and this spurned the Ostrega woman faster, catching up with her niece in no time at all, their destination the peak that rose in the distance.

Fade!
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