01-29-2023, 07:16 AM
She'd woken to a silent morning, in the middle of nowhere, so deep in snow that she couldn't see until she lifted her head. Not that doing so gave her any more information — the tree lines were so far away, so obscured by the opaqueness of the snow as it fell, that she could've been in purgatory and not known the difference.
Disoriented, she struggled to her feet. The last thing she remembered was following that dark woman, of strangers and crashing water and the sun as it broke through the clouds. All of it seemed so far away now, long ago out of reach, and as Mauti looked around her further, she — she didn't know what to do. Where to go. Who she was anymore.
Something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, something that drove fear through her as she leaned to examine it — blood. A small amount of it, splattered thinly over the crystalline snow, glistening menacingly in what little light there was. She stared for a long while, tried to put together a meaning. Checked herself for cuts, scrapes, bruises — nothing. She felt perfectly fine, alive, content. But as she backed away from it and from the Mauti-shaped hole in the snow, her stomach twisted.
Disoriented, she struggled to her feet. The last thing she remembered was following that dark woman, of strangers and crashing water and the sun as it broke through the clouds. All of it seemed so far away now, long ago out of reach, and as Mauti looked around her further, she — she didn't know what to do. Where to go. Who she was anymore.
Something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, something that drove fear through her as she leaned to examine it — blood. A small amount of it, splattered thinly over the crystalline snow, glistening menacingly in what little light there was. She stared for a long while, tried to put together a meaning. Checked herself for cuts, scrapes, bruises — nothing. She felt perfectly fine, alive, content. But as she backed away from it and from the Mauti-shaped hole in the snow, her stomach twisted.