Things had been rough for the pack as of late. There was a great deal of unrest both inside and outside the pack, and a part of her she didn't even know existed ached for the first time for the comfort of the familiar, of family-who-were-not-family. Raisa, her children, they were more to her than anyone had ever managed to be. The knowledge that her sister had foreseen her own death, that she had dreamed of Jaeger's... Katja could return to her family, and yet... and yet. Raisa. Valeriya. Sigmarr. Svetlana, Kassander, Sindri. Ebony. Even without her oath they were family now, bound as surely as if the gods themselves had come before her and declared it. She could not abandon them simply because... what? She was homesick? Anyone who knew her as the stoic viking would have laughed to see her thoughts.
Such were the things tumbling through her mind as a familiar scent touched her nose. At first she dismissed it as fanciful foolishness born of her own maudlin thoughts, or some trick of Loki's. But no, there it was, the scent of the eldest Xanilov girl. Returned? Perhaps. It may yet be some trick of Loki's.
Cautiously, silently, the viking stalked the scent through the steppes. There, on the border... the shape of a wolf fast approaching adulthood, who shared coloring with Kassander... and the Xanilov mask was a giveaway.
"Ah, litt valkyrie," she murmured in the language of the norsemen. "Synet av deg gir meg glede." Stepping closer she added in Val's own language, "Glad I am that you have returned."
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