[o] upon whom the pale moon gleams

With no one wearing their real face It's a whiteout of emotion

She could picture it, perhaps too well. The terrible cold and darkness of Halo when the blizzards covered the land. Rooms where the heart fire burned out because none came back to tend them. A small child passed between households, because no one would really abandon a kid but everyone also had enough with feeding themselves. Maybe it was a well of kindness that made the trapper take in the orphan - maybe it was simply convenient, an extra pair of hands in a land where you either worked together or starved. He sounded a bit like her father. Even more like ger grandfather, except she'd never had to doubt the love at the center of that wrinkled old man.

Now she understood better the weight of leaving the piece of antler behind. Except, she thought she noticed a discrepancy between the action and the words this man led with, like he was still trying to convince himself that this was the right course of action.
"You don't need proof anymore?" It was a brave thing to do, she thought. Like tossing yourself out at sea in a sailboat, without a lighthouse to remind you which way led back home. Forcing change to a point of no return - again, something she was well acquainted with. Courageous indeed... and perhaps a bit foolish, if done entirely without roadmaps or plans. "What will you do next?"

And I've only got my brittle bones to break the fall

Maea