Honey, I'm Home!

Theory would be lying if she'd said that she hadn't noticed. By the very first afternoon she'd tracked Thalia's scent to the borders and stared off, brow furrowed, as the trail dissipated out of the territory and back towards her home. Not a single word of her leaving had been exchanged between the two of them. She was... hurt. Confused. Angry. Had Thalia retreated so soon? Fled like a coward? No, her heart and her mind told her that was impossible. If nothing else, the Abraxas was too prideful to slip away in the night like that. Which meant something happened. Something big enough to draw her away. Was Eligos readying soldiers? She couldn't quite pin his intentions yet which made this whole thing such a gamble. Theory knew she was flirting with a dangerous fate, god-influenced or otherwise. And so she stared after the trail Thalia had taken despondently before she continued her on her patrol. Every time she passed that path over the next few days, she did something very strange. She prayed. Theory wasn't sure to whom or what, but she'd close her eyes briefly and think: Please bring her back to me. Please explain this. Make it make sense.

The weather was just chilly enough this morning that her breath fogged as she strode along the familiar, well-worn path that she took to round the Rapids. It had still been there when they returned, in part because it had been overtaken by deer as a footpath. Their dainty hooves had cleared out soon enough once they'd reclaimed this place, but occasionally a print or two could still be seen in the undergrowth. Theory was more alert than she'd otherwise be on a routine morning patrol because of the fog that hovered everywhere. Everything smelled wet which tended to obscure the true nature of her surroundings. Aside from blizzards, fog was her least favorite condition to patrol in. But because her ears and nose were on high alert, she scented Thalia and heard her pawsteps before she saw her. For a moment her ears flattened in confusion and anger, but by the time she found her they had tentatively hit half-mast. "Where were you?" she said in hushed tones. It felt too strange to speak loudly this early in the morning.