She was hollow.

It grew inside her, a dark emptiness, a void which couldn't be filled—like something was missing, she would think, before realizing she already knew what was gone. She wondered if she would ever feel full; if she could ever fix what was irreparably gone, if she could ever understand her mother's choice in leaving her in the storm and ash, the desolation of Gaucho's destruction. Somehow, she doubted it. And so instead, she seethed; she stormed, and raged, against the clouded uncertainty of past and future, and dreamed of a better world, one with her mother and brother, Argen and her fabled father—a wolf pack, reunited.

For now, it was all nightmares and black daydreams. And she—privately—thought that would be never cured.

Lilómiel tilted his wings, banking left above the ocean currents. More and more often they had taken to residing on the coastlines. It was never as cold on the shores, and the snow rarely found a sizable foothold on the temperate weather—or the snow-absorbing sand. Surprisingly enough, this restriction on her roaming range hadn't bothered her as much as she would've expected it to; the water had become more a home than even the Ancient Rotunda now, with her magic abilities improving and growing every day. The water—the churn of water against the shoreline, the crescent waves pounding against sand and rock—had become a mother's hymn in Confutatis' absence. It felt natural to be here, like she belonged among the steely water and gray sand.

Her shore, she had begun to think of it. Her world.

The yearling shivers, goosebumps springing up beneath her winter skin. The wind off the ocean was biting, snapping and whipping around her ankles vociferously; Lilómiel, black scales soaking up the slightest bit of heat and periodically setting himself on fire, seemed cozy enough. Occasionally he would swoop downwards, flame licking off his ebony sails, and his warmth would crackle and curl her hairs, frizz her mane and tail. Were she not connected to his mind in an intricate mess of imaginary wires, she would've thought him to be attempting to set her on fire. A courteous thought, perhaps, coming from something that couldn't be burnt, but unnerving nevertheless.

They turn south, moving along the shoreline at a stately pace. Although she had never been ingrained with the same sense of rigorous training Volterra had, she still needed to move, still needed for her muscles to work and slide in adjacent pairings against bone.

And this was how she saw him—Volterra.

"Brother!" Nymeria cries, leaping into a high-kneed canter, each step an conceived effort. The sand breaks and crumbles beneath her, sucking at her legs, but she fights on anyways, ignoring the precarious footing beneath her. It has been so long; how could she deny her brother her full and giddy presence? And was that—that red she saw gleaming like blood a dragon?

Her heart pounds, blood rushing through her arteries faster and faster. Nostrils flex wide, her smile curved and barbaric and full of youthful antics, and she runs to him like she might die otherwise.

Maybe I would.

Steps slow and steady beneath her as she draws herself back to a collected trot, then walk, head lowering and ears flicking forwards hopefully. Above, Lilómiel sways and surges in the testy breeze, following her in only the most general direction; and then he flickers out to sea like an arrow shot from a bow, black ash and sinew swirling into new patterns, hard and feisty patterns deigning aggression. The taste of his bitterness is on her palate, but she ignores his queer antics.

"How are you?!" Nymeria inquires, grin wolfish. "Where have you been?!"