Heal me, baby

Rhyme had told her where Rhythm could be found, that she was in the den she had once called home in territory once owned by Valentine. Shaye knew the way, she had made the trek often to Rhythm’s den, to learn healing from the older wolf, or to simply sit by her side and chat about the world.

Valentine had once given her an open invitation to enter the lands to visit her Aunt, but still it felt weird, to approach what had once been the start of the pack borders and to find nothing there. She continued on with a touch of trepidation, making her way over land that had once been familiar to her, and was now much changed. The scents where the most obvious thing gone, but also parts of the land had grown differently, without the constant tread of paws wearing them down.

There was a wildness to the land that hadn’t been here before, and she found her gaze snaking back and forth as she took it all in. her pace her had been quick, but it slowed now that she almost to the den. What would she find changed in her Auntie? The woman who had been as stout and supporting as the sun was present in the day.

But she wouldn’t linger for long, a touch of her younger self rising up inside of her as she caught a glimpse of brown on the boulder over her den. Then she was flying across the ground, and skidding to a halt beside Rhythm, her breath quick in her throat as she took in Rhythm. She might never see her mother again, but Rhythm was still here. Rhythm was always here, when nothing else in her world was the same. She blinked back tears, lowering her head and digging it into her Aunties coat without a word, breathing in the scent of her, and trying not to let her past overwhelm her.