Winter rose

She laughed at his joke, when in the past she had normally acted more offended than amused whenever his humor shone through. He found himself grinning back at her, and planted a kiss between her ears. It was easy to reach the shorter wolfs head, and he ruffled his nose through the fur there for good measure.

It was clear from her reaction to him, running to greet him, falling into his arms, from what she said about how she felt about him... She was his. A few days ago, if someone had foreseen this outcome, and told the brute, he would have socked them in the face. He had lost all hope of ever seeing her again, let alone what their reunion would look like if he did.

He knew she was deflecting, but she had told him where she had gone those many years ago, and now it was his turn. “I spent a little longer looking for my sister, and now it’s almost like she was a dream I thought up as a pup. She’d always been hard to find, with a penitent for wondering, but this was different. She was gone. You were gone, too, and i realised I didn’t want to stay here anymore”

It was harder than he thought it would be, to tell her about those painful months when he had realised he was alone. He had never told the gypsies his past, he had been a mystery to them, a stranger who had slipped into the role of joker, teasing and humorous, but never real. He never told them anything substantial, had never grown close to any of them, and now that he had left he would me mist on water, and it would seem like he had never been at all. “So I left. I joined a pack of wandering wolves, and stayed with them for years. Until your feather-brain over there called me away.”