What is dead may never truly die

Walk | Talk | Think

Tahlia wandered, seemingly without direction, through a wood that was both familiar and strange to her. She thought she recognized it, felt as if she had strolled through it  or one similar to this wood before, but then again it felt different enough to make her second guess it. It was like some warped, twisted version of the reality that she knew, something both changing and reflective of the stationary and stable. How strange, she wondered, viewing it all through two functional, dark golden eyes that should not have given her the clear picture they did. But then again...things were often strange in dreams. 

She walked on, oblivious, and only altered her course slightly when she came upon the river. Even this held some familiarity but it was not an exact enough replica of anything in her days to make her think she had been here, in this exact spot before. Her thoughts were beginning to come back to her, to make her wonder and puzzle over the world, her, and her place in it, when she thought she smelled it. It was a scent she knew well, one that she had been chasing in the waking world to no avail. Thinking she might have better luck here, the russet she-wolf took off quickly in pursuit, tracking and following the scent to its source. 

She found him standing before a tree, his antler within his jaws, working away at the trees as she was sure he had countless times before. Tahlia's heart constricted at the sight of him, whole and healthy, his coat that had once been grayed out now whole and rich and dark again. He still wore his scars, proudly, but there was a youthfulness to his stance that she had not seen in some time, a wholeness about him that brought tears again to her eyes. This was how he should have been all along. 

It was not real, none of it was, and yet she felt unable to help herself. The golden-eyed wolf broke out into a brisk lope, calling out with a quiet bark to get her husband's attention, and did not stop until she was upon him. She bumped against him as she practically stumbled to a stop, ears tucking as she roughly nuzzled her head against his neck and chest. His scent, oh his scent...she could smell it at last. Unable to trust her voice with words, she barely managed to get out a whine as she continued to press against him, wanting in that moment never to leave him, to never wake up and go back to the world as she knew it without him.