Nayeli had wanted to believe that making it back here, back home, would be the end of her worries when it came to the loners. Her goal since returning had become rebuilding what was lost to her, and moving on from what had happened. But Skadi's message at the borders had shaken that hard-won sense of security. Nayeli found herself listless, tired of her recuperation, wishing to stretch her still-aching limbs and reassure herself that all was well, for the moment at least. She was reminded of a her childhood on the isle, of carrying tiny creatures from the shore to "safety" before the patterns of the tides could touch their lives. Were her hopes now, to protect her children, to see the Bend thrive and reclaim her place within it, as futile as they'd been when she was a naive pup? Could anything, ever, be safe, and for how long? And still, she wished now that she could pick up the pieces that had fallen like the leaves beneath the snow, to put them back as they had been, once a verdant green and upon the now-bare branches of the great oak trees that wove together overhead. Fitting the old back into their places was impossible - they were trampled and sodden and had decayed over the long winter months. But as she scrutinized those boughs, she could see the ends of the twigs beginning to bulge with new growth, a promise of spring to come.

One sharp ear flicked, lost in in thought as she pondered the leaf-buds. She didn't need to see them to know that a new season would soon arrive, she could feel that in her bones.

Steam escaped her muzzle in a puff as she turned her back on her contemplation, resuming her walk of the borders. The scents here, which she occasionally paused to add hers to, provided a myriad of information to the starred woman's nose - which other members of the pack had patrolled or crossed the boundaries recently, whether her enemies had resurfaced... many things were written in the minutia of tracks and scents and tiny disturbances to nature's usual pattern. After a while, she found herself following one particular scent. It was him she found herself turning to more often than not since her return, and as always. And yet as the sun warmed her back and brought steam up from half-melted stream she ran alongside (that very stream that she had once feared she'd drown in, and they'd both laughed a such an idea), there was something more that made her seek him out today.

It did not take long before Nayeli discovered him, a short distance away from the stream's thawing bank. When her gaze eventually rested on her dark king, the scene was not at all eyesome. Triell's back was to her, his hackles dancing angrily as he worked to tear a great scar into the earth - it spread black and awful across the pale snow.

The last few months had tightened the lid which Nayeli kept on her emotions. Instead of going straight to his side, she halted at a fair distance, watching him for a long moment. A strange mix of expressions warred across her face - something was certainly bothering him, and a great part of her wanted to simply rush to him, to pull him away from this vain destruction. She could certainly begin to guess at what nettled him so, but what did she really know? Maybe he had come out here to be away from them all, from her, so that for once he did not have to keep up appearances any more. Perhaps there were other things troubling him. She did not for a moment think that she knew the entirety of his mind, but she hazarded to believe that pain was easier to bear if tone didn't try to carry it alone. Once, Triell had helped her find healing that she had sought and failed to find, alone, though she had searched her way across countless leagues. And once again, he had welcomed her back when she knew not all would have been willing to hear her out, lightening her burdens by helping to shoulder them rather than casting her out to face it all on her own. She owed the same to him in return, if only she could find a way.

"Triell," was all she said at first. Having broken the spell of silence, she strode forward to join him. She was unable to hide the slight signs of worried curiosity, as well as something else deeper and instinctual - they were plainly written in her body language for one who knew her as well as he did - the slight extra sway in her step, the twitch of ear and tail, the way her eyes searched his. "Digging a new hiding place for a cache?" she asked simply, somehow she didn't think that was what had drove him to tear at the earth so powerfully that it looked as if he was attacking it, rather than simply working at the task. "You look weary, perhaps I can help. I've been wishing to test my strength a bit," she aid as she came to a halt next to him, reaching her muzzle out to gently touch his shoulder in a moment of greeting. She inspected the muddy depression as if it were not a tangible sign of the clouds that loomed around the both of them of late, scraping her claws through the cold mud speculatively. She had her own reasons for looking for him, though she said nothing of that matter now. As Triell had said, they were a dark storm themselves... and even a storm was not without it's breaks in the clouds, it's moments of sunlight, if one knew where to find them. She wanted to leave this current business behind, and try to find something brighter, together. Being close to him always brought a feeling of warmth to her, but lately there was an extra current of electricity in the air between their forms, and with proximity and solitude, it only intensified now.