As the sun began to set, colouring the wintery landscape with warm hues, a thick-haired grey wolf padded quietly through the forest. Like a drifting spirit, he wandered in and out of the trees, travelling swiftly, lightly, leaving only his paw prints in the snow behind. The wind had dropped to a murmur, a brief calmness between blizzards, and the wolf was taking his chance to lead his pack of two into a familiar land before the weather rolled in again.
 
A few minutes behind followed Ghost, not a real one, a fake one, a cadaver returning to her place of birth. A hybrid of species she was tall and skinny, dark in colour except for her ostentatious wings that blared violently red and white, destroying her wish to be a literal shadow. The snow crunched beneath her cloven hooves, she wasn’t nearly as quiet as her nimble companion, no matter how much she tried, it had taken six years of her distressing life to realise there were some things, things she desired to be, that were best forgotten. Ghost did not travel with ease either, nor with lightness, if it wasn’t the weight of her thoughts dragging her down it was the heaviness of her compass. The old and scratched trinket had been tied to her for some time now, she had gotten used to carrying it, but it still didn’t change the fact it was disgustingly heavy for a little thing. Yet, it was ever so handy once you accessed its secrets.
 
Scents, oh so familiar, bombarded her on her entrance into Helovia, a place Ghost had never left before, until a few seasons ago. She followed Fantôme, the wolf, as he led her further into the claiming arena where Helovians often came to do battle with their alluring words, looking for converts to their causes. The Cadaverous presumed it to be the same, even though she had been gone, why would it change? Truthfully, she didn’t know why she was here, other than it was home in the end, and she didn’t think she needed a better reason than that. Even more so, what was she going to do now she had returned? For her entire life, Ghost had been the thief who loved the shadows, never to speak much, but always watching. Her bitterness towards her mother had driven her in search of power she did not deserve, even the Necromancer had trusted her with leadership, and Ghost had spectacularly failed in that role. Life then pushed her southwards, into the desert lands, where again she became a spy only to leave the role as her mind grew weary of its thoughts.
 
Now? Now she had gotten to the point where she cared less, she didn't know what she wanted, it was nice for a change to just be Ghost. Without the weight of the anger she felt towards her dam bearing down on her and with hindsight serving as her wisdom, Ghost embraced a new kind of ease on her return.
 
She found Fantôme in a snow laden grove and proceeded to join him there, her thoughtful grey eyes cast skywards, watching as the clouds began to roll in.