Katja's returned to Ebony lands was a slow, limping ordeal with the wounds in her leg and the stiffening bruises. It was difficult to drink with her mouth so battered as well, her tongue swollen and the cut on her lip breaking open often. It was fitting this would be her first visit as alpha of Yfir - here, to Ebony, the pack that had given her shelter and purpose when she'd lost hers, the pack that had given her a taste of what it was to be an alpha, the pack that she had given oaths... so rare for her... not once but twice, where she'd been released from the first and fulfilled the second.
Coming to a halt before the border she lifted her head and called out to Val, her valkyrie, an acknowledgement of one alpha to another, equals, requesting her presence at the border. As she waited, she took a moment to read the scent markers. Ebony was holding together beneath Val's leadership despite her youth, and in fact had grown. This was good - Valeriya's time on her own had strengthened her and tempered her, and she was proving herself as an alpha. This was good. Would she blame Katja for abandoning her to her fate?
The border she'd chosen was as much out of nostalgia as it was anything else. The lake region was where she'd held the festival. Where Auora had been sacrificed. Where she'd been buried with great honor. Where Katja had been granted that one brief moment of clarity, of knowing that this pack, her pack, must happen. She had been tempted by the urge to pass the border and walk like a ghost among the old places, to visit Auora and to speak with her, but she was an Ebony wolf no longer and never again would be. So, she remained at the border as she waited upon the new Xanilov of Ebony.
Would Val hate her for fighting to take the pack that had been Raisa's lover's? Or for keeping Virgil's children against their will? Would she be surprised? Katja was surprised - surprised to find that she was actually uneasy, almost nervous about this meeting.
"
|
