There was a little sunlight playing on his nose, teasing his eyes each time the wind blew to shift the trees. It was one of those wintertime joys, blissful moments between overcast skies and early sunsets, and his northerly birth had taught him to appreciate them. Thus, he was laid out on his side, thick fur insulating him from the coldness of the snow, and let the warmth play across his body. Now that some time had passed.. Triell leaving didn't hurt quite as keenly, and the beckoning voice of the Wildwood had grown fainter, turned from ragged screams to the peaceful breath of sleep. He didn't doubt that it would wake again, that something would cause his longing to flare up, like an old wound, but for now, that deep, secret desire was dormant. Ice preferred it that way. He wanted to live a few years here, in peace, before the dragon's call became too great and he crossed the mountains one last time.

All in all, he felt.. content, for the first time in many years. Mostly everyone was gone, but he still had a little left—and he had that which was new, a blessing disguised as a female yearling. Among the snow and trees, with breeding season just around the corner, he actually felt hopeful. Perhaps, this time around, life wouldn't be a disaster. For once at peace with the world, Ice remained motionless in the snow, suspended halfway between waking and sleeping. He could live like this. Friends, family, sunshine.

A call split the serene morning, and Ice's eyes opened. In one smooth motion he had risen halfway—he was a Guardian of this pack, it wouldn't do to doze off when someone was at the borders. But.. the moment he had made it to standing he nearly fell over again. What? That voice... He looked to the borders, breath smoking into the air. He knew that voice and it had cried out for him. Not Serach, not Aponi, not just the pack, but him—Ice Aesir, of swift rivers and old oak trees by crooked creeks. But what was she doing here? She should be to the north and west, playing with her daughter, and having fun with that old badger Askan.

He barked, loudly, and tore up the snow as he set off in the direction of her call.

She was a piece of his past, a fragment of another time, of another wolf. She had been through heaven and hell with him. She had been the one to find Rissa. It was her sister he had been hunting.

The trees shifted as he moved, until he could see her between their trunks. She was somehow smaller than he remembered, silver gray and green-eyed. Keen and fierce, merciless and warm. Smiling, he slowed from his dash, to a jog, to a walk, until he stood in front of her, tail swaying proudly—happily—over his back. He wanted to fall down, elbows and chest to the ground, to yip and hop and prance, but something about seeing her again filled him up with light and a kind of overwhelming solemnity he couldn't shake. He needed to see her a little longer, draw in the scents of the northlands, touch her.. "Hello Jessie," he breathed, silver eyes twinkling, and reached out to touch his nose to hers.

More than three years ago, Ice had disappeared from Oak Tree Bend, for, as the months stretched, had likely seemed to be forever. A pack time and again abandoned by their lead male did not easily hold on to hope, not when the nights stretched long and dark and lonely. He's not coming back, Ice, and why would he, when he had taken two of his sons, and merely left? A ghost in the dark—

I came back. Stubborn, and afraid, oh so afraid, of how he would be welcomed, but love and longing had been stronger. No matter how hard the return, if he hadn't even tried, he would never have forgiven himself. Old and lonely and steeped in guilt, he would've died on some mountain, no longer able to justify the breath whistling in and out of his lungs.

What remained now was to trace the threads of his past, back to their core, and then, away, into whatever future they had found themselves in. Some were out of the question—dead, or too far away. And some.. well, some, he just had to justify leaving the pack for a while to find, and.. with them so few, now, and winter still holding on hard to their lands, he hadn't wanted to. It was cowardly and stupid but it was the way things were, and thus, Jessie and Kisla had had to wait. It hurt, and he was ashamed, and he did his best not to think about it lest he go mad from it, but sometimes it came to the forefront of his mind, like now.

Kisla had visited in the winter, but Ice had been away, just a few days—scouting, hunting, dreaming, trying to forget. She had been gone when he came back, and it had taken him days to stop thinking about her all the time. How was she faring, in this vast, cruel world? She had been so fragile, so timid, so.. so afraid.

And now, Jessie stood before him—small, fierce, beautiful, and so alive. Their noses met, and he inhaled sharply at the electric jolt of years arcing through him. Here, finally, at last—and things begun to resemble what they should've been. He sighed, heard his own name breathed, and made to press this cheek against hers, if she'd let him.

"I've missed you too," he breathed, drunk on the scent of her fur and of memory. Bodies flashing in the sun. Light arcing across a mountain, glittering on the snow. Corpses. Hunts. Just days spent on the banks of the river. Hotei. He inhaled, and pulled back a little, just to be able to look at her. He was proud. He was proud that she had stayed, for a while at least. Proud, that she had found herself a mate, founded a pack. A small smile curved his lips. "I heard you have a daughter now. Congratulations."

Triell leaving had closed the book on a chapter full of philosophical ramblings and questions about morality, doubt, passion, and need. It had sealed the fate of so much, at last, once and for all, demanding that Ice make a stand, and take a side, but in a way much more subtle than his thoughts had ever made it sound—it was simply a decision to understand, and to not hate those who left to find their own fortunes. He could be at a loss without them. He could be sad they left, and that he would not really see them anymore. And he could be irritated with their timing, though he guessed that there was never a good time for leaving—but he would never doubt the fire flaring deep, the need to get away and cry their own names to the sky. Make their own place in the world.

And for that reason, he could never hate Jessie for leaving. And from what he had gathered, it had been a better time—Triell strong and proud at the Bend's helm, Serach so passionately advocating a stay.. Spieden around... The small smile on his face grew softer as Jessie's eyes changed. Don't be afraid, he wanted to say, even as he wondered, had she been afraid? —of him, and how he would receive her?

If he believed himself worthy of Serach's forgiveness, even if only just barely, then she, too, was forgiven.

"I'd love to," he promised quietly, even though his heart pricked with guilt. There was so much do to.. so many places to be, but he was just one wolf, and as his world had grown larger, he found it increasingly hard to prioritize. "I might not be able to get free until the summer months, though, but I know where to find you. Your ray of sunshine told me," and the wry smile curving his lips told that it was, perhaps, not a ray of sunlight, but rather a lump of charcoal, although one Ice was oddly fond of despite their tense meeting.

Then talk turned to Serach, and it was Ice's time to have his eyes soften. Serach was.. everything and more, his mother's son to the bone, and each time Ice watched him his heart ached with pride. He didn't know if his first days of leadership had been fumbling, but he was good at it now—not too demanding, not too lax, wanting function but also family. Hurt, of course, by Triell's behavior and Spieden taking off, but not broken. "I am," he said after a moment, "and he's taken Aponi as his mate, if you didn't know." It was on his tongue, a hesitant confession that he wasn't sure of Aponi because of her heritage, but he swallowed the words. This was the future. It didn't need past sins clogging it up. So in the end, the only thing he said about it was "I approve".

There were gaps in his knowledge—what had happened to Jessie, and why? How had she met Drestig? How had that bond formed? Had they left for the same reason Aponi had challenged Spieden? And was she happy over there, in her golden field of rye? Well, soon to be golden; it was still winter.

She had been with them in Swift River, and thus, she had suffered with them. Just like everyone else in that pack, she had carried those memories with her. Ice had struggled to find happiness in the midst of it, and had struggled until oblivion had clobbered him senseless. Distance had healed some of the hurt. A parent's love had healed more, and given new things—he was home, even if home wasn't really home and everything had changed.

There were things she weren't saying. There were things guarded by her bright green eyes. He was older, but so was she.

"Her only redeeming factor," he said with a snort. Aponi was damned by her heritage, but the love he saw in Serach's eyes each time he looked at her wasn't something he could question, or challenge. He hadn't approved at first. He.. well, to be fair, Aponi had a kind of dark grace and competence that reminded him of Corinna. In time, he was sure he'd forgive her her birth, and come to appreciate her as more than just his son's wife.

But things were going darker. Bleaker. Sadder. Something changed in Jessie, and—it felt like he had known her for years, but how long was it, truly? It couldn't have been much more than one a half year when he'd gone missing. He hadn't even spent two whole years with the wolves of Swift River and Oak Tree Bend. He swallowed. It had felt like so much longer.

"Did anyone tell you about what happened to Hotei?" He stilled. He couldn't remember what about Hotei had rubbed him the wrong way, but whatever it was, it had been deep and instinctual and compelling. He had been ready to tear the male apart on several occasion, and Jessie was the only thing protecting him from Ice's wrath. It was familiar; it had been like that with Naira and Triell, too.

Either Ice was a judgmental bastard, or else everyone else had really, really bad judgment.

Slowly, he drew closer, and put his nose against her cheek. If he had a good guess in his body, Jessie had loved Hotei, and Hotei had met his end, somehow, somewhere. Whatever it had been, Ice certainly had no clue. "No," he replied softly, something sad in his pale gaze. He knew what it was like to lose your loved ones.