Home is Where the Heart Is

Several days had passed since Chimera brought her to his no longer secret hideout, but she wasn't entirely sure how long she was there. For the first couple of days she did little more than sleep, only waking up when Aliana came to check on her wounds and reapply any herbs that they needed. It was rest that she had needed though and even though it was hard to be away from her daughter and her love she was glad that she did. By the time she was ready to come back to the others the bites on the back of her neck had begun to stitch themselves together so they were no longer noticeable with the thicker fur of her scruff around them and the bruises and damage she had in other places had healed enough that it wouldn't show in her walk. She hadn't let herself consider or address what the toil would be to her mental state, but she knew that once she got the physical healing out of the way she would have to turn her attention to that sooner rather than later.

Once she was ready, she cleaned herself up and did her best to make it look like she had been on a short vacation instead of a stint in a makeshift ward. She stepped off of the ship and carefully made her way around the island so that when she approached the estate that she shared with Chimera and the others she would be walking in from the direction of the ferry that crossed from the main shore to the island. There was a rush of relief as she stepped into the familiar structure and she had to pause on the wooden decking for a moment to collect herself before she moved on. It was a feeling of finally making it, of knowing that she had survived, and was able to come out on the other side with her pride in tact. Whether other parts of her were still in one piece or not were yet to be seen, but right now her only focus was on making it to her room and finding the two wolves that she had been dying to see.

Luckily, she happened to catch Siren and Ruse both within the suite and as soon as she walked through the door her daughter was bounding toward her, practically tackling her and making her wince a bit, which Ruse luckily didn't see. She laughed lightly and hugged Ruse tight, affectionately nuzzling her daughter who was getting taller than her by the day. "Oh I missed you so much, my darling! I'll tell you all about my trip in a little while, okay? Give me a little time with Aunt Siren. Why don't you go tell Aunt Ali that I'm back and find some lunch for all of us?" Ruse reluctantly accepted her tasks and Dalila gave her another squeeze followed by a kiss on the head before she let her go and watched her spit fire of a daughter walk out of the room. That's when she turned her pale blue gaze to Siren and the emotion that she had been doing so well at holding back and keeping firmly locked behind a wall of determination and stubborn will broke free.

"Siren..." she breathed once Ruse was out of ear shot and she hurried across the room, wrapping her love up in a tight embrace and letting herself bury her face in Siren's long, silky fur. All of the feelings of not knowing if she would make it home, of knowing that the brute that did this could have just as easily killed her instead of letting her go, of feeling helpless against the situation she was in all came crashing down on her while she held Siren for the first time in what felt like ages and she started to cry tears of relief and release into her fur. She honestly had no idea how much Siren knew about where she had gone or what had happened. She hadn't asked Chimera to warn the others, but she also wasn't sure if he had or not. Either way, there was no way for her to hold back this flood of emotions and she would rather it happen now than while Ruse was around to see it.

"Dalila Vista Klein"