"Oh, Nymeria, I rarely make mistakes and I dare never repeat them,” she sighs into the cold mountain air. The wind is picking up. She can feel it scratching across her face with it’s long icy fingers. She can hear the voices in the air, begging her to go back home, but she can’t, there is no home to return to. Her ears idly flick at the insult that she was losing her hearing, but words were just words at the end of the day. Only the mark of fang on skin was worth anything these days. She permits the dragon to take a free insult or two. She had earned that, after all.

Hietala returns to cleaning herself. She’s thinking about the family she has lost while she half listens to Ashitaka speak. A grin twists through her lips. He speaks quite eloquently, and it appears as though his training was going well. Her eyes flash dangerously at the deliberate mispronunciation of her daughter's name. And she freezes mid stride while she waits for the final resolution.

So, that is it then. With a grunt, Hietala lifts herself from the ground. Her body is in a worse shape than it was before the fight. However, she will probably survive tonight, but tomorrow and the day after that? Only the Moon Goddess knew the answer to that one. She spares one last longing look towards her little brother, and the last thing she had in this world. The fight wasn’t worth it, the ice queen has lost too much as a result. I failed you little brother, but the snow beast is too proud to say that aloud, certainly not here, not in the open for all to see.

“The boy has told you everything you need to know. If I was misinformed, it’s because one of your kind fed our family a pack of lies.” She shakes out her neck as she slowly takes a couple of staggering steps back towards the border. She’s wondering if she will have an escort or two? Wouldn’t that be an honour. Suddenly she stops. Tail raising a few inches from the ground. Her mind had ticked over and she couldn’t hold her tongue any longer.

Hietala straightens herself as best as she can “Emmelie,” her name is the only thing that she can say with any true emotion. The ice queen's heart is broken, and it takes every ounce of her remaining strength from breaking into tears. She will never shed tears in public. “Emmelie was my first and only child. She died between my paws, her neck had been snapped by one of our enemies.” Reaching down Hietala wraps her teeth around her ankle and bites into it. The crushing pain is enough for the unfallen tears to start to freely run down her nose. After a few moments of heavy breathing, the ice queen releases her own leg.

“Take care of yourself and your family, Nymeria,” The broken wolfess shakes her head to clear the droplets from her face. “There are forces in this world that even you are not strong enough to defeat.” Her vagrant eyes stare at the blurry shapes standing behind the mountain queen, her own brother was now one of them. She’s not seeking sympathy and she will never beg for charity. Stiffly and in so much agony, she continues her long trek down the mountainside towards the valley far below. She is alone again, but she was used to being alone.

Yours Sincerely,

Hietala *, The Fallen Ice Queen