Ava had had a somewhat off feeling about the day, even before she roused herself from her make-shift den that morning. Standing at the base of the Mountain of Dire the feeling intensified to the point where it nearly constricted her lungs. And in a few minutes, she would never be more sure that she should've just stayed her ass home that day.

She'd battled with the idea of returning to the mountain for weeks even before she'd crossed the border of the Lore. Not even to revisit the Poisoned ones, just to approach her old haunt. Nostalgia did not call her forward, but something certainly did. It almost felt as though she couldn't feel solid until she returned to her roots in even the smallest sense, like she wasn't back in Relic Lore unless she saw proof of a place she once belonged to. The only problem was the sheer amount of effort it would take to simply take a look at the Lost Lake. It took hours to climb, hours to descend, and it was a tiring labor for a she-wolf unfed. It almost took more ability to come up with the sheer gall to do it. There was no such thing as baby steps, in truth. How could she be expected to meander up the mountainside at a comfortable pace? Mountains were not made for comfort, and she was no longer a wolf of stone.

And yet she found herself at the base of it all anyway, a black figure against the iced grey surrounding her, with two legs in the dirt and two legs on the rocky trail. It felt like years that she stared up the beaten path, but finally the decision was made and she pushed off her static stance to begin the journey up. The stone was cold and slippery beneath her traction-less paws but discomfort was to be expected with such a long time away. The coal-pelted female moved slowly, almost delicately, with far less grace and speed than she used to tear through the foothills. But her blood was flowing, her senses were engaged, and it seemed that conquering the alp would turn out to be a good idea, after all.

It happened suddenly, then. Out of thin air the very stone itself shook beneath her paws and the summit growled at her approach, trembling so cruelly she nearly toppled over herself as she scrambled to a halt. Hackles raised in alarm she looked up the path to find the sky undulated downward - and a millisecond after that she'd come to the right conclusion. Time stopped, her amber eyes wide and plastered to the sheet of white that started overtaking trees high above her, and a cold realization washed over her that she'd just been rejected by the mountain. It'd felt her through her pawpads on the stone, read her traitorous heart, her betrayal in her bones, and turned against her. It knew, just like she did, that she did not belong here. And it fully intended to run her off.

Blind panic tried so very hard to steal control. Her dark limbs tangled with one another as the she-wolf whipped back around. The avalanche was still far ahead of her, but it gained with a fury she could not conjure even in her most venomous moments. As she leaped and slipped and tumbled away Ava felt her heart spasm, starting and stop in her chest, unsure if it ought to race to get her legs pumping faster or just stop and steal the avalanche's thunder for credit of her death. In the smallest window of clarity Ava understood she would never outrun the avalanche, but perhaps she could run its width before it swallowed her whole. Instinct swung her body perpendicular to the snow's path. The pale demon in her peripherals was all the motivation she needed to keep her legs from turning to jello no matter how weak terror made her. Like an ant she scurried, desperate and full of regret that she was even there in the first place.

One thing was certain; if the mountain found it in its heart to spit her out instead of swallowing her, she'd make damn sure not to make a symbolic trip near it ever again.

Overwhelmed by alarm, Ava would not have even noticed the other she-wolf had she not very nearly barrelled into her. In fact she wasn't entirely sure there had even been another wolf - with Ava sprinting to save her sorry life and the other female whirling around as she passed her it seemed like a mere trick of the nose and an odd brown spot in the corner of her vision. Had she not turned her dark head over her shoulder (almost tripping in doing so) to see a wolf's form gracelessly heaving after her in the distance she would've passed it off as a figment of her wildly inactive imagination, and yet there she was, another wolf betrayed by the mountain.

She had, obviously, no time to notice that the she-wolf bore the mark of one pale lady Ava had once followed, much the same way she had no time to notice a dark form watching them from further up the mountain, to whom she'd also sworn allegiance almost a year prior. The black-furred female knew not a damn thing of the turbulence that had only swelled on the mountain, and had she known a recent history lesson was emerging as she raced across the mountainside she might've acted a little differently. But that was something she'd have to consider in hindsight.

As she ran she scanned the surrounding stone for something that might give her a leg up on the impending doom. with every passing second the ground beneath her shook more violently, threatening to uproot rocks and block her in so the snow could claim a victim - or perhaps just to steamroller her into a wolfy pancake, who knew? So when Ava spotted a boulder much like her once-beloved sunning rock in the Heights, flat on the top and of a decent height, she wasted no time and pivoting on her heel and heaving herself up the side. Her blunt claws raked against the ice that frosted the top and it was without poise that she tumbled onto its surface, but she'd made it up there anyhow. They were nearly on the outskirts of the avalanche, almost safe, and with that in her grasp she had to swallow the metallic taste of fear in her mouth. Opposite of the rock there was a crest of mountain, a slightly higher peak that she could reach if luck favored her. There she might endure the afterthought of the avalanche, but it was a far cry from the full rage that had not yet made it to the bottom.

Ava turned her head, in case the she-wolf was still behind her. At the very least she had to know if she'd seen Ava's escape route, lest her death be bloodied on her dark paws. It was then that she finally saw him, dark and lean and unmistakable, leaping hotly after the other she-wolf. Rhysis? Of course, from her distance she could not see the fury in his cold eyes; how was she to know that he was driven by bloodlust rather than fear? Now this was a personal matter. He'd saved her life once before - and her debt could be repaid by saving his (or you know, so she thought).

If they didn't get out of the way soon the sheet of snow would cover them all, hiding the path they'd taken beneath several feet of snow dotted with hunks of ice and rock and all sorts of things Ava didn't really feel like diving head-first into. They had to go, now. Words failed her, so with an urgent bark she directed attention on to herself and hoped that would be enough that they'd understand. Then she turned her back on their fate and tumbled forward, hobbling over protrusions and jumping over lesions in the territory to reach the precipice. Only once she was there would Ava turn her head to see how many wolves would be behind her - if there would be any, at all.

The moment came and went so quickly it was like it hadn't even happened at all. One second Ava was standing, certain they could make it where she was, and a blink later she was all alone, surrounded by absolute silence and piles of snow and ice . She tried so hard to piece together the snippets she could recollect from her panicked memory: The poison she-wolf leaping toward Ava, only to topple topple forward without even faltering in motion. The roar of the avalanche growing louder as she skirted closer to the edge, cautious not to be shaken off her safe peak by the ever-growing ferocity. Rhysis, somewhere down the path, headed desperately for an overhang. And then the roar became deafening and she turned her head before seeing if he'd made it to safety to watch the fury of the pale devil swallow everything. The coal-pelted female shirked, lowering herself to the ground and jammed her eyes shut. The entire mountain felt as though it were crumbling, everything was so loud she couldn't hear a god damn thing, and suddenly it was all over.

Immediately she opened her eyes wide, amber gaze sweeping across the setting before her just to make sure she was alive and on the Mountain and not somewhere in her own spit of heaven. When she was certain that the quaking she felt came from her shaking legs and not the stone beneath her paws she stood and eased her way toward the edge. Ava had not seen the she-wolf's paw miss its grip and slip across the ice-frosted rock so she had absolutely no idea where that wolf went. Rhysis, on the other hand, seemed as though he'd flat-out melted into the stone. Last she'd seen of him he was running for it and now she truly could not fathom where he could have found shelter. Regardless she knew she would have to find them both, and she could do no such thing if she didn't remove herself from the ridge of safety.

Ava inhaled deeply, hoping that as her lungs filled with air she might find herself filled with courage as well, and delicately approached the gentlest slope downwards that she could find. Aided by the snow she pointed her toes and slid downwards, tail quivering with uncertainty. The more she moved toward them, the higher the mounds of snow became, and by the time she felt solid rock beneath her paws again she was nearly chest-deep in the cold substance. She felt overwhelmed with the chill, blinded by the sheer amount of white in her vision, and positively irritated by some weird scratchy sound that she wasn't even sure if she was hearing at all. How the hell was she expected to find two wolves in this condition?

Flustered she bellowed, "Rhysis," hoping that he could hear her somehow. She scanned her surroundings for any sign of recognition. If only she knew the girl's name, she could try and draw her out too. The fall had to have injured her; what if she was in no state to recognize anything but her own name? Still, Ava had to try. "Hey," she shouted once more. Ava declined to act any further until she saw some god damn thing at all, for fear that if she placed one more paw forward the snow would collapse underneath her and she'd disappear into an abyss much the way the other two had.

The silence was haunting, her ears abuzz with the incomprehensible sound of paws against snow that she mistook for the rush of her own blood. A frown etched itself deep within her features, teeth bared against her own anxiety. Her call had echoed through the mountainside and it'd been only seconds, surely, but the lack of response was downright unnerving. Somewhere beyond her vision the Poison Path she-wolf broke through the tomb of snow that had encompassed her, and with her freedom came the reek of fresh blood. Unlike that of a stag, which would've driven her forward, the stench of wolf blood made her feel nearly sick. In the cold, it smelled like death, and the threat of such an absolute end clutched at her heart. Her fear was so intense that when a response finally broke the tension in the air she felt herself jump, eyes flickering immediately toward Rhysis's voice.

One moment? She didn't have a damn moment to spare and neither did he and neither did that other girl, wherever the fuck her broke ass had landed. Frustrated with the situation all together a haughty snarl slipped from between her teeth and she propelled herself forward through the piles of snow, paying little regard to the shards of ice that tugged on her skin and threatened to draw her up with little marks. Her paws bumped against rocks on her path, slipping on ice and snow and lack of mountain savoir faire, but she pushed on regardless. If there was nothing more to be said about her skills on the stone paths it was that Ava would not roll over and accept that she was far from the Mountain wolf she'd once been. She had always been quite resilient, a fact self-appreciated as she dragged herself forward. Through the blinding light and the obstacles she could still catch Rhysis's lanky form, his long legs devouring distance that she struggled to make up for.

A break in the mounds of snow gave her enough room to leap forward, sinking into the fallen powder and gaining steadily on the male. The further they went the more sickening the red in the air was. Ava could put two and two together - Rhysis was following the wretched stink of blood in the air - and yet she only came up with three. There was no way she could foresee his intentions; if she had she surely would not have trotted up beside him. The air around her former king reeked of adrenaline like a hunt did, but her veins were flooded with the stuff as well. There was no calming her either, especially as they approached a ridge over which she could spot a patch of red crueler than any other. It was bright like a fire, shimmering in the overwhelming sunlight, and it could only belong to one wolf.

Momentarily she forgot Rhysis and averted her course, slowly finding a way down among the slippery slopes. Still she could not see the female, but her scent was all over the air and her blood all over everything else. With a grimace she barked again, hoping for any noise in response just to prove she did not seek a dead body.