Walk | Talk | Think
Anais grinned as her tail wagged, feeling almost like a child again. That same sense of adventure and fun that had swept her up in her younger days returned and made her giddy with the possibilities. Maybe she could find a quieter spot in the river and try fishing again. Maybe she could try to locate her old den and see if anything from her days here remained. Had the trees here been marked the same way they had in the real world? She could hardly recall from her sudden run, but she assumed they would have been. It brought to mind memories of her father, her mother, of her family when they had been whole and together. Maybe if she found the den, she could reconnect to that part of her life that was so far behind her now.
She tried to steel herself before she went to search for it, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out slowly from between her lips. It might have fogged a little in the air, but the cold failed to reach her. All for the better; she had little ones to think about. The thought made her smile, lifted her mood immediately, though sounds of paws beating against the snow behind her pulled at her attention. There were others here? Perhaps it was her brothers, drawn from her memory, ready to drag her away on a hunt. She felt no sense of worry, no nervousness, even though she had not glanced behind her to see who had approached. This was a dream - her dream - and she knew these woods were safe.
A voice spoke her name, but while it held hints of her brother's tone she knew it was not him. But she recognized it, instantly, and felt her heart constrict. Her face falling blank in a moment of shock and disbelief, Anais quickly spun her head around to peer over her shoulder, the rest of her following suit so that she turned to face the grey and brown wolves standing behind her. "Dad?" Her voice was barely a whisper and half whine, and her yellow-gold eyes began to fill with tears. "Mom." It was them. How could it be them? Two years - two whole years - she had missed them, longed to see them again, to hear their voices. Could they really be here now?
Her mother reached her first, not hesitating the same way that Bane had, and as the woman pulled her close Anais let herself crumple against her chest, burying her face into her mother's fur like a child as she sobbed. The feel of Tahlia was not completely the same as Anais knew she ought to feel, but she chalked it up to the conditions of the dream. What mattered was that she was here, she could touch her, hear her speaking her name, and knew that she had been missed just as much as she missed them. She could not think of any words to say, and was not sure she could have said them as she continued to cry and sob against her mother. She whined her longing for them, stepping closer as she nuzzled into her mother and opened her watery eyes to peer at her father, still not quite able to believe that she was with them after so much time apart.
"I missed you," she finally said, her voice still broken as the tears coursed from her eyes and she moved in to bury her face next into her father's neck, "I missed you both so much."
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