Winter was a season those who’d lived on Tinuvel longer than a year were entirely familiar with. Maziel was no exception, though winter on Tinuvel was not such a hardship for her to endure as it was for an islander unfamiliar with it. This, her fifth winter, was much the same as the other cold seasons were. Ice was growing thick over the inland rivers and even the Bay, dancing and bobbing among the waves in large chunks, not yet cold enough to freeze over entirely. Soon though… soon.
Maziel knew Mariael would turn them to the mountains soon before the snowfall could rest feet-high. The caverns had been checked again and again, finding the wolves of Tinuvel were nowhere near it. Mariael had leadership business to tend to before the Bay herd turned in for the season and that left Maziel to wander with the rest of the herd, searching for what little food they could scavenge. Anything to help survive the winter.
Maziel walked along the line of trees, wandering idly toward the subtle incline and sharper decline that’d meet the pebble and shell shoreline. She had her reason for sticking so close to the beach and suspected Mariael knew why, but it remained unsaid between them. She inhaled deep and exhaled, the familiar brine of her seaside home filling her nostrils and suggesting peace. She could feel the little snowflakes sticking in her long, thickly grown out coat and wondered how much would blanket the world by the next morning.
The Bay breeze reached toward her as she stood wondering about the snowfall, stirring her dark hair and bringing a smell as familiar as the ocean and as happily welcomed. Maziel snorted, head jerking upright and ears twitching, excitement already worked over her expression. “Paradiso!” She cried out in absolute glee, gathering her hooves quickly underneath her and moving carefully down the slope to the beach. She stumbled, hitting the pebbles and sending them scattering, but had no time to worry about a tiny slip.
Whinnying, she moved toward where his smell was the strongest, hoping he might make a noise so she could set herself on a more direct path to him. Either way, Maziel was determined to make it to him as quickly as she could.
“Paradiso,” she sighed with a smile, not stopping with as much distance as she had in the past, extending her nose to gently huff warm, sweet breaths over his chilled skin. “You’ve been missed.”
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