This woman saw more than she let on. Knew more than she acted. She felt miles away and yet had the wisdom of ages. That was how the dream was sometimes. The wolves had that knowledge but she was not Kin. She was not pack.
"Like I said it doesn't matter." Sierra reiterated when she said she loved him for a long time. Tristan wasn't hers -- he was a pup she was helping. He was pack. If she could leave she would. He wanted her to stay -- it was the only reason she did.
She tried not to be bitter and she gave the woman a friendly smile. "He's pack and I doubt he would even notice, not that I did anything useful." Elyse and her friend had done the work. She only had a minor connection. Sierra sat down and waited for Tristan to call for him to wake it wasn't like she had anywhere to be. She was no where near him, she should go back to Moscow. Not that anything there really called her there either. Her only home was with the wolves and she had Never.
She was feeling a little sorry for herself in that moment but she'd get over it, Never would be back soon and she would wake after Tristan came -- or Tenzin woke her. But for now she sat with the strange woman and waited.
Love, for Nimeda, was almost always distant. Unreturned, or sometimes unnoticed. You have been satisfied with too little, Noctua had said to her once. It was why she spoke at all. But there was bitterness behind Sierra’s smile, and a reluctance to share even that much of herself. The gratitude had been sincerely meant; Nimeda understood that though they were not looking for her specifically, her waking body was likewise reliant on the search she had witnessed tonight. She would remain here in some form, even if that connection was severed by death, and so she felt no true fear. But she understood her thanks to be meaningless nonetheless. “As you say,” she said, soft and thoughtful still. Sierra was not unfriendly. But she let the topic drop because it seemed the kinder thing to do.
Another woman joined them then; dark hair braided over her shoulder, arms corded tight with muscle and bright tattoos. Her gold eyes stripped Nimeda to the bone in a single offhand glance, but it was Sierra she turned to, tense in the way of a predator looking to another before deciding on threat or unimportant scenery. A juvenile wolf bounded at her heels, and another larger paced a step or two behind. She knew its dark, shaggy fur, and pulled her arms around her knees. But she only watched.
Never relayed communication between them. The world shifted again a moment later, the dark subterranean halls replaced once more with desolate landscape. Tenzin frowned deeply, testing the scents in the air with her nose. Nothing felt odd now, though it did not soothe the fine hairs on the back of her neck. The search for Wyldfyre already had too many oddities, and she did not like another to add to it, even in the wolfdream where things did not always follow sense.
But Sierra was safe, and another of the kin had come. It meant she did not need to hurry back.
She let her mind stretch out. There were no wolves here, but it was not local packs she was looking for, rather the old wolf himself. In answer to her call Thornpaw came on grizzled paws, tail swishing across the snow in displeasure of the cold. Tenzin watched him wrestle patiently with Never while she told him Wyldfyre had finally contacted Long Eye through the dream. “He is here. Somewhere. Once more in a land without wolves,” she said. Thornpaw growled low in his throat, but it had the sound of a long sigh. At least he is found, he said. There was a weary relief to it, like a father who had spent too long fearing for a son.
Never was in and out. Soon he began exclaiming a sending Tenzin had trouble deciphering, though it had something to do with the new kin – Silent Fang was her name. But he sounded pleased and hopeful even if he didn’t quite understand why it was so. Those were unimportant two-leg things. The important part was the part he was excited about. Tenzin glanced sideways at the old wolf, subduing a smile as the pup bounced and leaped impatiently around them. He was a cantankerous creature sometimes, but the young ones always mellowed him.
They followed to where Sierra waited. Tenzin glanced at the woman sat a short distance away, but all she did was curl into herself under the gaze. She was not Silent Fang, nor kin at all. Protection was always Tenzin’s first instinct, but if the woman had been a threat Sierra would not have also been sitting on the ground. She looked askance but did not comment. Never seemed unperturbed, jumping straight to wiggle in Sierra’s lap. Thornpaw’s lip curled as he stalked, but he did little more than place his large body between them. “His message was difficult to understand. Have you news?” she asked.
Sierra smiled as Tenzin and Thornpaw joined them with Never in his ever excited stages. She calmed the pup in her lap and looked up when Tenzin asked about the news. "Silent Fang, Elyse, a friend of mine, was able to soar like an eagle and get the lay of the land and relay the information to a friend of hers who can send word to the humans nearby that Tristan and Thalia are at." She smiled soflty. "I'm gonna wait for Tristan to return." She said matter of factly.
Sierra smiled at Nimeda. "This is Nimeda, she is a friend. Her other self is with Tristan. She is a friend." She spoke mostly to Thornpaw who seemed to know her. He was keeping them safe and she didn't want to presume to know the history. She knew things most did not. She was a strange artifact of the dream that did not know itself in the real world. She was a lost one.