The tiny wolf had thought herself clever, a mighty spy in her own right. She had been exceedingly, wonderfully careful, each step done with exorbitant care, putting in full effort to remaining undetected as she wove her way between thick, dark trunks and slicks of ice and brittle bracken and newly-blooming, beautifully red blossoms. Mother would not be let down by a clumsy daughter, even if she had an awkward son! And thus even her scent, all roses and iron and the faintest hint of decay, had been pushed away by the breeze, sent tumbling downwind to wherever the wind went; her face, turned downwards, lest the bleached-bone white betray her.

Elusive, nimble, Nymeria, a fleeting puzzle through the trees, a will-o'-the-wisp in the swamp, or mayhaps a feather drifting down to earth—brought low, with her cloak of purgatory subtleness neatly shredded by the all-seeing eye of the unicorn. Lips curl downwards into a distinctly sullen scowl, brows pressing downwards haughtily over her wine-red eyes. Unfair. Fear is pushed away, crushed beneath the weight of disappointment and reluctant admiration, bones fracturing, crumbling, and eventually dissipating into the merest hint of scattered dust.

To go or not to go? Shall she wait here, and see if Arya was only bluffing at her being here, or flee into the forest, or find some words to suit her purpose? Hesitancy softens the edges of her chagrined discontent, and the rigidness in the muscle of her jaw flexes, melts, away.

Finally, she steps out, agile ballerina on the tips of her toes, a doleful deer approaching the maid, a spider quivering, staying, waiting for whatever's pushing on it's net to escape. Chin tucks, head lifting proud, gaze upturned beneath ashen eyelashes long and wild. She strikes a feral and lovely picture, a tiny and fragile foal with all the haughtiness of her mother painted unto her frame, slender as a whip and the curl of her neck sharp as a knife's blade. After a terrible moment, she blushes warm, glancing down towards her hooves and shivering a touch down to the tips of her dark hooves, embarrassed yet pleased with her performance.

"I'm Nymeria," she mumbles, poetic in her shyness. "Sorry ta spy on you." Mother would cuff her over the head for her sloppy language; but she murmurs, slurs on, unable to overcome the crippling nature of nerves.

Nymeria & Lilómiel

In the darkness I will meet my creators
And they will all agree, that I’m a suffocator