E.D.Y.X. Smoke

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀e c h o s • d r e a m e r s • y e w • x a n a d u

The nights are long and cold in the grasslands winter. There are days his paws dont want to lift and he lays with his cheek to stone and moss. The undergrowth survives in the frost and it begs him to do the same. Why did I leave? is the question on his mind. To find my way, is always the answer. The rains mix with the snow and soon the landscape is barren and endless, a hopelessness growing in his blonde chest. There is no one and nothing but there is still tradition, and when Dahvym finds the Yew tree on his journey, the dull in olive eyes suddenly finds an ember. It stands like a spiraling beacon, enclosed by abandoned human walls that crumble around it, worn with age.

So he can pray. A lonely coo against the bark, a warm nose pressed to nature's skin. There's a whisper in the back of his mind, echos that belong to wolves from the past, across all this distance? Across this time? So you can still hear me? When the snow is thick and only the warmth of his makeshift den is there to keep him company, he begins to dream. Many nights he sees another with fur like a soot-covered glacier, a mask of dainty charcoal and beautiful gray eyes. She is wary for many of them, and the first few times she approaches, he backs away, suspicion and wariness reminding him he's tired and weak. He wakes himself up, blinks reality into his eyelids, and realizes, it was her again.

Snow no longer falls by the time they make true contact.
'Come to the Yew tree,' he asks of her.
'I will find it,' she responds.

Another six moons before he wonders what illusion he's cast upon himself. Visions of her gray eyes, but surely they were never anything more than a dreamer's fallacy. He presses his forehead to the Yew, head bowed, "take this from me, so I can be free of hope where it doesn't exist." The breeze picks up and there's the scent of someone he hadn't noticed coming from the only exit, hackles raising as he turns to defend, teeth showing beneath the wrinkle of fearful muzzle.

"Dahvym?"

She stands in the center of the entrance archway, only the faded black patches in her coat giving her away against the snowy background. He remembers the name from his slumber, "Valiee?"

The Yew tree sighs, and its branches lift to the heavens in celebration.

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FIRST YEAR
❦ Third Moon: Dahvym and Valiee meet
❦ Fifth Moon (beginning): Dahvym and Valiee find Nayon suffering wounds from a mountain lion attack. They lick her fur dry in the warmth of their shared den, and Valiee keeps her warm while Dahvym hunts; NAYON JOINS EDYX
❦ Fifth Moon (middle): Valiee births 2 pups