✾ — The darkness of the night was a perfect cloak, a perfect way to hide without the heaviness or the heat that extra clothing afforded. The sound of her small, gentle feet picking their way through the forest was so natural and common to her that for many, many moments, Romy did not remember her new life – the one back at the inn with the wide-eyed, shaking children, and the man they called ‘father’ and she called Vater.
The woman was walking in silence, light eyes captured by the ground, following the smell and feel of the world beneath her outstretched fingers, her hesitant feet. She could hear the sound of the wolves in the distance, could already feel their heartbeats syncing with hers once again, begging, reaching, scraping, clawing their way back to her…
Come home, Romy. Vater’s voice echoed against her skull, even as she moved, fingers dancing across the tree barks. Come home.
Not yet. For the world she now lived in, while lovely in itself…
Romy was beginning to lower herself to the ground, walking carefully and gently, near like a crab, when she heard the sound of a branch break behind her. Her body tensed, her heart began to race and, without any hesitation, she spun around, slung her bow from over her, and leveled an arrow in the direction of the noise.