It's wild like the river It's warm like the sun

Ari was sprawled messily in her den, not doing a whole lot of anything. It was her rest day that Tansy always insisted she take in pack lands before heading iut again, but there wasn't anything she particularly wanted to do here. She wouldn't beg Asla for fight training and there wasn't a trained healer except Gossamer and their schedules never seemed to line up so Ari had stopped putting in the effort to look for her sister and suspected Goss had done the same. Gloom had settled over the pack lands as far as Ari was concerned. Felt like a cage these days, when all she wanted was to be out looking for her mom. Restless energy twitched her limbs and she nearly popped to her feet to just take a stroll towards the border. You know, just to... take a look around? But Tansy's grouch cat face popped up from her tail to frown at Ari and it was easier to not bother making Tansy upset when the gloom was dragging her down into lethargy again anyway. She sighed and flopped over on her other side instead.

A sound drew her attention and habit more than anything had her trudging out to see what was going on this time. More fake bodies? Maybe pretend Gossamer this time? Not having any real concept yet of how people could delude themselves into believing things that weren't true, she could only assume that he was lying to them on purpose and she couldn't fathom why when she'd loved him so much yet he'd do that to her, the feelings of deep betrayal it engendered in her, the hurt, so it was difficult to muster the enthusiasm to answer the call. Yet she did, because there was always hope, even if you were a hurt, rebellious teen girl.

Until first a familiar scent had her lifting her head with a frown, then her eyes widening as the small form came into view. "MOM!" The shriek of joy tore free after a moment of stunned disbelief. After months of insisting that Zee wasn't dead, it was almost unbelievable that she stood there, large as life. A cloud of dirt ripped free of the ground beneath her paws as she threw herself in ecstatic joy at her mother with the full intention of slamming into her chest, wanting to wrap her small arms around her mother's neck to cling with paws and claws and tears to the mother she had spent so long looking for.