Below her, not far but a decent ways, Karsi was finding his own path and, from time to time, throwing a look upwards to see where his bonded was.

She was higher, climbing and leaping across gaps that others might find too treacherous. And the way she moved made her look like she was truly made for this. Her grandsire had told her when she had met him, that his kind called the mountaintops home. They lived their entire lives up the top, rarely descending below. She was less like him than her father, but she was far more like Minas than Nylah ever had been.

And it showed as she laughed as she leapt. Scree fell as Ciaran’s movement ruptured the shale she’d been standing upon, her previous place she had been standing disintegrated as it slid down the mountain. Ciaran heard it but was not alarmed. She had made her way to a safer precipice, one that was lit by the sun and warmer her deep into her bones. The wind came surging up the mountainside, her feathering flattening against her head as it shone in the sunlight.

Ciaran looked around. It seemed this place was a path more regularly used. It was a safe path, she knew, but Karsi would find her again on the other side. She looked out behind her, Novus extending out beyond where she could see, and then to the front. Denocte opened up, ringed by these mountains, the Arma Mountains, and where Ciaran would more than likely find she preferred to be.

She grinned as she looked upward. There was a path opening to her eyes, made of rock and shale. For now, she recovered her stamina and drank some a small pool formed from water as it ran down in small rivulets and creeks along the mountain’s flank. It was cool and tasted somewhat stagnant but it was water none the less.

As she finished the drink and looked up, she smiled to herself.

Very little came to surprise her at any time anymore. It had been a long while, since she had been a child, when something had made her feel alarmed. So now, as Karsi had finally found his way to her side after finding his own trail up the mountainside, Ciaran was taking pause and drinking, and drinking in the view from the precipice where she had drifted to. Karsi remained far from the edge, with no desire to peer over and perhaps find himself sliding too far.

Ciaran, on the other hand, often pressed her luck too far. She felt the ledge shifting a little and stepped back and it was in this movement that she saw she and her bonded were no longer alone. With her feathered crown resting atop her head and pressed back by the wind, she turned her blue eyes from the canine to the woman who had come up the mountain path.

“Hello to you, and to those with you,” she brightly greeted them all, as Karsi flanked her.

“I am Ciaran Zhaoiani. Just Ciaran will do - this is Karsi,” she says, indicating to the bear who merely exhaled and continued to watch.

“We have not met, are you from the court of Night?” She asks, for she was still learning all the new and strange scents and smells. Finding her own path was one she was always a little strange about, but it helped when she found others who she was able to talk with...

@Luvena

At the slightest twitch, she would fly. A crumbling of rocks beneath hoof would signal her and she would react quick, but that time flew by. She was upon solid ground. Karsi at her flank meant she was in a place he did not find uncomfortable. Ciaran was glad for his company, as she ever was.

From the moment he had found her, trapped in ice. She had seen him through eyes clouded by terror. Alone, no one coming to help her. The bear loomed like the spectre of death over her, but he had not struck. Instead, large paws broke ice and released her from the prison she had been held in. Ciaran had been free, and the bear had named himself. Karsi.

And he had been there since.

She looked fondly to him, as the memory played out and faded back.

Blue eyes returned to Luvena, bright and content.

“A pleasure it is to meet you all,” she says, a small bow of her head following the words.

“I am of the night. The mountains are where I feel the most comfortable, beneath the wide open sky. Enclosed spaces make me somewhat … uncomfortable,” she admits, for it was a part of herself she’d realised now till recently.

Along with another.

“I have. I have been drifting, long before Novus and the Night. Aimless, so hoping to find something to hold on to more here. Have you been in this world long?” She asks, curious as always - pushing boundaries of others without pausing to wonder if she should inquire at all.

@Luvena