Coming back around again

The way Mercury's face lit up when he realized she was there eased the anxiety she felt and her grin widened as he picked up the pace to join her where she was standing. She returned his hug without hesitation and gave him an affectionate squeeze of her own. "Mercury!" she greeted just as eagerly, her tail wagging gently behind her. It hadn't really hit her how much she had missed him until she actually saw him again, but just seeing a familiar face when there were so few faces that felt familiar any more felt really nice. As she stepped back from him again and he asked how she was she replied, "I'm... okay." She smiled to reassure him and added, "I didn't make it back home. I don't think I fully grasped how far from here it was. I guess I just thought that if I had floated onto the shore then it surely couldn't be that far, but there's still some gap in my memory in-between when I got washed away from there and ended up here so..." She gave a little shrug, obviously disappointed by the lack of results from her time away, but happy to see him regardless.

"I got back to Auster several days ago. I've been staying in a cave over by the river in Cedar Falls," she explained gesturing back over her shoulder in the direction of the cedar tree forest that sat just beyond the garden behind her. "The time away did give me a chance to see a lot of Boreas and Auster though so I guess it wasn't a total loss." There had to be a bright side to everything in her mind and if she had a chance to really explore this place she now found herself calling home then it couldn't have been a waste of time. She refocused her two-toned eyes on him with another smile, looking to him expectantly. "How about you? How've you been?"

"Anthea Dásos"