was it fair of her, after all this time, to come down from her safe place? To show her face? It kept her up at night, at first, the sight that she and Leilan had come back to. The charred bits of her home, the havoc that had invaded the North. She had slipped through the portal he had created unseen in the anger transpiring between Leilan, Lilli, and Yanhua. At first she had felt exhilarated, maybe even liberated, at what her and Leilan had accomplished. But, it had not escaped her ears the words that fell from her friends mouth directed at their king. The guilt was immediate, as if Lilli had been looking straight at her too. She shied away carrying her guilt with her.

She had found herself tucked away in the Northern most region of Taiga. The waterfall that had cemented her mind in staying here when she had first arrived in Beqanna blocking out reality with its white noise. She knew she couldn't escape everything,  it had not taken long for Owin to track her down, Clarie in tow to make sure she was okay, but it was secluded enough for her. 

Despite her efforts to douse the smallest of saplings, it had still gone wrong - completely and utterly wrong. Inadequate. She had gone to the mountain, she had tried to find a gift that could help, and yet she stood there unable to do anything right. Conflicted. She had gone with Leilan, no questions asked and she had taken action. Nothing inside of her told her that had been the wrong move, and yet the thought of staring Lilli and Yanhua in the eyes made her chest pull tight. 

The blanket she had kept so close to her had broken, ripped in two, from the efforts of trying to protect her home and take action. When she had reached her waterfall all of those emotions she had kept locked away for years had tipped her apart. Not only once had she found herself jumping the falls, but many of time over and over again. 

Anger. Loneliness. Failure. Inadequacy.  Abandonment. Peace. Happiness. Determination. Strength.

They were all apart of who she was now. It was not an easy thing to descend with out her familiar peace clouding those things but her she finds herself, feet planted and shoulders wide, chest out. Ready to face what she must.

Her amber and chocolate scales descend from the tips of her ears fading into the mid of her back, the purple glow sharp and tight around her. Her muscles had become hard and strong from jumping and climbing, jumping and climbing. The extra layers of fat and skin from previous years of childbirth and age shedding from her body. Her purple, stormy eyes search the oncoming treeline infront of her where the trees begin to thin out, most of the saplings she tried to protect charred and broken, a film of smoke coating the ones she had saved that had not had the luxury of being bathed in the storm that had followed. Though now snow had fallen taking with it some of the soot as it pressed gently against those redwoods lucky enough to stand before settling permanently on the ground. This is where she should have faced the chaos months ago.