Frozen snow bit her fingers, but the little maiden did not notice as she dug through it, reaching frozen ground below. Here! Her companions peered at her from the edge above. It has to be here. All of her searching had led her here, all the creatures of the underworld had pointed here. The one vette cackled at her and what she was doing, and she turned her head abruptly and shot it a passionate warning look. It dared offend her? Rage swelled in her to the point where she almost rose and strode over to scold it, but the task at hand reeled her back in and she remembered her priorities. She could deal with the creature later, and she ignored the nervous giggles of another.

She was all focus and power as she dug, striking and elbowing her way, chipping the pieces of ground that would not yield. There had been no burial, no one to care for this preposterous scene. No one had done anything after that day when they had found her. Too dangerous they had said. Well! Look at her now - there was nothing for her to fear! There were no one around to care, either. Would she have relished the challenge of them? The dress she wore was sodden and trodden and torn, spreading around her kneeling form like a wilted flower. What would Emwe had said if he saw her now? She found herself cackling, a string of sharp tones that were nothing like the soft hum of her mother's voice. Frosted breath came in jagged rhythms as she dug and finally - there they were, bright white things that were not snow or ice. She uncovered them tenderly, piling them next to her, uncovering more and more. Here was a rotten piece of string and she laughed loudly as she folded even this and laid it softly next to the pile. What treasures! What a magnificent sight it was, could they not see their beauty? Perfect imperfection, flawed and glorious, rotten but polished. There was no understanding in her mind, for the need that had brought her to come here, to seek this. No understanding for what she was doing, for mer mind was in another forest altogether. Vesle wandered into a wilderness and returned in a winter flurry, bringing with her another wilderness entirely. Her bright smile was genuine and broad as the treasures kept coming, her claws numb from the cold but somehow still working. There was genuine longing and desperation in her actions, but she saw them only as an expression of power.

In the end, she sat there in the middle of night to watch her complete pile of treasures. This was what she had sought, and now there was the matter of guarding them, and guarding this place. The forest was her place, and she had an army of powers behind her to aid her. For the oddest of reasons, in the midst of her bliss, Vesle could only sit with her back to the cliff's wall and stare at the pile of bones, misty-eyed. There was a contradiction in her as there had been in so many in her bloodline. This grating sound in her inside, as if someone slowly rasped away her existence with some crude instrument, echoed from her throat in both laughter and sobs.