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Description
Ripple trudged, shivering, through the snow-capped hills at the base of the Crystal Mountains. Snot dripping from her nose was remaining frozen on her face, and even the snowflakes collected on her eyelashes. Behind her, down the mountain, was a past filled of haunted memories and time-wasting regrets. Ahead of her was a vast, uninhabited land of bitter unforgiving frost. The frost seemed better, so she trudged.
There was a lot of time in her hiking that allowed her head to go through all seven stages of grief. The surprise at what had happened with Kale before had long passed, but since she had seen him again in Ohaine, she wasn't sure if she could handle all the information. She went from, "he wasn't actually there, it was all in my head," to "what gives him the right to-" to "well maybe if I just listened to him...," to "I can't believe he did that," to "well actually I can, running away and begging for forgiveness is all he's ever done."
The snow whipped her creeks, gnawing at her ears and toes despite her massive cloak and awkwardly-heavy pair of fur-lined snowshoes. As promised, Princess's mum, Irris, had given her the money and sent her by way of airship back to Hemlock, but Hemlock was still relatively far away from the dojo, where she was heading back to. In stubbornness she stayed the night at a local inn and set off by foot, in a more direct path, rather than the paved one, to the dojo first thing in the morning. And her she was, hours later, the moon starting to rise in a beautiful, magenta sky, shivering her tail off. But she was still more worried about her social problems than about getting frostbite. It had been a good five or six years since they ran away from the dojo. She could only hope her old Sensei would take her back. And proving she can find her way through this mess in the middle of the night without getting eaten should count for something, right?

(346 words)
4 / 895

Description
Ripple trudged, shivering, through the snow-capped hills at the base of the Crystal Mountains. Snot dripping from her nose was remaining frozen on her face, and even the snowflakes collected on her eyelashes. Behind her, down the mountain, was a past filled of haunted memories and time-wasting regrets. Ahead of her was a vast, uninhabited land of bitter unforgiving frost. The frost seemed better, so she trudged.
There was a lot of time in her hiking that allowed her head to go through all seven stages of grief. The surprise at what had happened with Kale before had long passed, but since she had seen him again in Ohaine, she wasn't sure if she could handle all the information. She went from, "he wasn't actually there, it was all in my head," to "what gives him the right to-" to "well maybe if I just listened to him...," to "I can't believe he did that," to "well actually I can, running away and begging for forgiveness is all he's ever done."
The snow whipped her creeks, gnawing at her ears and toes despite her massive cloak and awkwardly-heavy pair of fur-lined snowshoes. As promised, Princess's mum, Irris, had given her the money and sent her by way of airship back to Hemlock, but Hemlock was still relatively far away from the dojo, where she was heading back to. In stubbornness she stayed the night at a local inn and set off by foot, in a more direct path, rather than the paved one, to the dojo first thing in the morning. And her she was, hours later, the moon starting to rise in a beautiful, magenta sky, shivering her tail off. But she was still more worried about her social problems than about getting frostbite. It had been a good five or six years since they ran away from the dojo. She could only hope her old Sensei would take her back. And proving she can find her way through this mess in the middle of the night without getting eaten should count for something, right?

(346 words)
4 / 895