How many times had she dared to dream?
She had been far from the borders when the call rang across the lands, at the far end of the Pass with @Nova and @Aponi, attempting to teach the girls about the different uses of scrub pine and it’s similarities to the white fir trees which were much more plentiful on the low lands. The girls had other ideas as children often do, and so far had been far more intent on games of ‘catch me if you can’ and the branches she had collected to show them the difference between the two were quickly turned into chew toys and tug ropes... Not that she expected any more of them, her own early lessons had taken the same path and it was through the difference in taste that she later learned to identify many of the plants she now knew by sight and smell.
Still her heart skipped a beat at the possibility. Would this encounter be as... joyful as her reunion with Kanosak?
An apologetic smile was offered to her girls as she gathered them up to return to the den where hopefully @Taima or @Datura could be snagged to watch over them until she managed to return. While her son had been keeping himself busy, thankfully the girl was often easier to find. Her encounter with Ava returned to the forefront of her mind and she added a discussion with the girl to her list of ‘must do’s’. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day.
While she knew that @Mapplethorpe would no doubt beat her to the stranger (and she was more than happy for him to do so usually), there was something about this particular call that she simply had to investigate for herself. She would not need to travel nearly so far as she initially thought however. Turning back to the open expanse outside the entrance of the den after tucking her daughters safely inside, her most trusted advisor crested the horizon with a dark shape in tow, and for that moment her world froze.