"Talk" "walk" She had been thinking about Sparrow a lot lately, thought of the Risen Empire where heavy in her mind, and she thought she understood why Sparrow had taken the paths she had. Angering the Risen Empire seemed a sure way to crush everything and everyone you loved, and keeping them happy was a difficult balance to find. She was also thinking about the coming winter, her first as an Alpha, of the activity within the pack and how to encourage everyone to contribute to the packs needs. She had been making a lot of alliances lately, which left her with a lot to juggle. She was very, very glad that she had Rhyme at her side, but she couldn’t help but think… what if Sparrow had lived? She knew the woman hadn’t wanted leadership, she had stepped up to it to look after what she had loved. She wished Sparrow was with her now, a guiding force within her life. She wished for a lot of faces, those of her parents and uncle and loves she had lost. But it was Sparrow at the forefront of her thoughts, when she woke to a world different to the one she had fallen asleep to. It was Abaven, but it was different. She looked to the trees and sore that many of them were smaller then they where now. Things where like.. Where like her childhood. This was Abaven when Shaye had been a pup. She got to her paws and began to investigate, wondering even as she did so. Was this real, or a dream?

Sparrow had been drifting between a state of nonexistence and consciousness. Occasionally, she felt like she could hear voices speaking about her. They spoke of the bear. They spoke of her time in Abaven. Only in those moments did her awareness return, although it quickly seemed to fade afterwards.

Tugging at her mind, Shaye's thoughts brought Sparrow's existence towards Abaven. Trees started to manifest and memories began to flood Sparrow's mind, filling her with life. And then there was Shaye. She awoke and moved and Sparrow followed, not by will, but she didn't resist. In this moment, her very being was tied to Shaye's thoughts alone. With Shaye's active dreaming, Sparrow's body began to appear, wispy and transparent at first, but slowly gained form.

Sparrow found herself looking at Shaye through her own eyes once again.

"Shaye...?"

"Talk" "walk" There seemed to be a quality to the trees around her, like if she concentrated too hard on any one thing, it stopped looking real. But this was unlike any dream she had ever experienced before. She was starting to wonder if someone had slipped her some type of hallucinogen when she heard a voice. A voice that brought her heart to her throat and begun to squeeze it. She couldn't breath, it hurt. She turned, and she found the wolf standing there, her familiar brown patterns, her kind green eyes. Shaye’s throat closed up, she couldn’t find the words. This was a dream, or it was something. Something not real. Shaye stepped forward, slow and hesitant as though she was afraid that movement would scare away the apparition. She cleared her throat, but the word that slipped through was dry and quiet, fill of unshed tears. “Sparrow?”

Shaye spoke her name and ushered her form into its full existence.

"Shaye," Sparrow repeated, her voice filled out and robust once more. "I'm so sorry, Shaye. I failed you- I failed the pack."

Her eyes closed and her form shuddered as if a stone had been dropped into water. Though she didn't cry, her image wavered as if it were.

"But Lark lived, didn't he?" she asked with a soft smile. She already knew than answer somehow. It was as if she was able to simply know some things, while others remained a mystery. Even though she herself went in and out of being, snippets of knowledge drifted by, embedding themselves into her consciousness.

"How's... everything else?"