Being back in the Hallows again felt a bit like coming back home after a long trip. Syanna had greatly enjoyed her time out roaming and adventuring with Ezra and bringing Aylin along with them, but there was a calming sort of normalcy that came with being in a pack. She was able to return to her work as a healer practically seamlessly. She'd even taken up a side project helping one of Artorias' children with her knowledge and experience from the Long Night! Wandering and exploring had been oh so much fun to get back to, but being in the Hallows and doing the work she loved to do had given her a daily purpose back to her.

The pack had done wonders for Aylin as well! The young woman seemed to be flourishing under Artorias' tutelage in the ways of the blade, and even Ezra walked around with a little more sense of self purpose now that he was a councilor again. She was very proud of her husband, even if he was kept busier these days helping to advise the Lord of Cinder with all the grave matters going down across the world right now. It was a high stress job helping to run a pack, and it was exactly that degree of stress that had prompted Syanna to plan this little special evening for the pair of wolves.

Syanna was laying down beside a crackling campfire out on the plains, enjoying the warm summer evening as the sun began to finish setting over the western sea. It was still twilight, the stars just now beginning to show in the dusky sky. Those strange auroras started to appear as well, dancing across the cloudless canvas of the sky while Syanna laid back and enjoyed the show. She'd never seen auroras so clearly down here before! Everything about the evening was perfectly calm and peaceful, exactly what she felt her husband would need after a long day. She'd snagged a few choice cuts of meats and a fresh bottle of summer berry wine from the castle to set up their little dinner date out on the plains, hoping to bring back a little bit of the vibe they'd shared while roughing it out in wild lands. Now she just needed her big dopey dire wolf to show up and join her, which judging by the time would likely be any minute now.

"Syanna & Ezra"

Falling back into the routine of living in a pack and the responsibilities that his best friend entrusted him with was so much easier than he had expected it to be. He thought that he would struggle to adjust back to the daily expectations, but in some ways it felt like he never left and in others it felt like he was more prepared for it all than he had ever been. The year he spent away with Syanna and then with his father and Aylin had taught him more than he realized and he was really happy to have had that time to figure out who he was and what he wanted from life. Not to mention the fact that he had been able to finally make Syanna his wife and really cement this relationship with the woman he loved so much. Aylin was doing so well here in The Hallows and Syanna seemed so happy to be back doing what she loved with the other healers in the pack so the decision to come back to his home pack felt like one of the better decisions he had ever made.

Still, he did sometimes miss the way he and Syanna had been able to spend all of their time together while they were on their vacation. They were both so busy during the day that they hardly got to spend even a fraction of that time together now, but every once in a while they got to carve out some time for themselves. Tonight was one of those nights and he eagerly made his way out to the plains as soon as he was done with his final meeting of the day so he could meet Syanna for their date. She had said she would prepare everything for them and he just needed to show up, but he still took just a second to stow his armor and pick a little bouquet of flowers from the castle's garden before he trotted out across the plains to where he saw a fire burning in the distance. When he arrived he gave her a grin around the flowers he held carefully between his teeth and sat them down by her paws so that he could give her a tender kiss. "This all looks amazing, beautiful," he complimented as he settled down beside her, slipping one of his forelegs across her shoulders to pull her much smaller frame into his as he playfully nuzzled her cheek. "Not as amazing as you though."

"Syanna & Ezra"

It didn't take long before Syanna's emerald eyes picked up the large form of her husband coming across the plains in her direction. Just that thought and realization stirred up the happy butterflies in her belly again. Her husband! Being mated and married had felt like such an impossible daydream to her once upon a time, but Ezra's kind heart, endless love, and saintly patience had earned him what no other wolf could have attained: Syanna's commitment. Life had tried to break her but Ezra refused to back down from the challenge of picking up the pieces of her and putting them back together. It was no small feat, and Syanna recognized it. She loved her speckled boy so, so much, and she would until the end of time. Greeting him with a smile as he came closer, she took note of the bouquet of flowers in his jaws, her smile widening at the sweet and romantic gesture.

"Aww, for me? Thank you, handsome," she replied as she took the flowers from him, giving them an appreciative sniff before setting them safely aside where they wouldn't get crushed. Knowing Ezra the way she did, she suspected there'd be quite a bit of physical affection that would have them rolling about on the blanket before too long. She returned his gentle kiss, then settled easily into his side when he lay beside her and scooped her up in his strong arms, moving her lithe body as if she weighed nothing. "Eeeeasy there, big boy! Don't get too riled up before dinner," she teased him with a playful swat at the end of his snout. "I thought we could do with a date night to ourselves, so I wanted to spoil you a bit."

Reaching for the bottle of wine, Syanna uncorked it with her teeth and took a slow sip of the semisweet red liquid. "How was your day? Not too tiring, I hope." The playful grin she flashed up at him betrayed her reasons for her question; she wanted to be sure Ezra would have plenty of energy for dessert.

"Syanna & Ezra"

Ezra couldn't help but grin as Syanna scolded him and warned him not to get too riled up before they could eat their dinner with a swat to his nose. "Fiiiiine, if you insist," he replied with a joking, defeated sigh as he reluctantly released her, but not before he planed a big, playful kiss on her cheek. No matter how long they were together or how old they got he never lost the silly, adoring affection he had for his little foxy lady. "That is exactly what I needed. It's like you can read my mind," he added when she mentioned how she thought they needed a date night. She was truly so good to him and everything he could have ever hoped for in a mate and so much more. He had fallen head over heels for her immediately after they met, but that love had only grown deeper in their time together. He never needed grand shows of affection or anything like that. Just finding little moments to themselves like this made him happier than any brute alive.

Ezra started to reach for a piece of the meat to begin helping himself to their dinner while Syanna began to open the bottle of wine. To her question about his day–with a quite obvious insinuation about how tiring it might have been–Ezra returned her grin and dipped his muzzle to teasingly nibble lightly at the edge of her ear. "Never too tiring to enjoy my wife, beautiful," he assured her in a low rumble, chuckling as he pulled away and went back to the food in his paws. "It was pretty uneventful, luckily. Just the usual patrols and meetings and a quick hunt this afternoon," he added. The Hallows was a fairly peaceful place so it was pretty rare that anything of real note happened, not that he was complaining. More often than not their threats came in the form of other predators that tried to push their luck and infringe on their territory, but those were pretty easily dealt with. He reached for the wine Syanna had opened after eating a couple bites of the tender meat she had picked for their dinner, giving her a grin as he added, "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't rushed through everything a little to get to you sooner though." Taking a long drink of the tasty wine, he passed the bottle back to her with a content sigh and took another piece of meat while snuggling up closer to his wife.

"Syanna & Ezra"