Reclaiming Pack

[Tenzin]

A cold snout shoving up urgently under her chin was what woke her. Tenzin groaned as Never’s excitement stamped all over her chest. Not that he wasn’t being careful, or as careful as he ever was. Shoving him off far enough to breathe, it took Tenzin a moment to unpick the dizzying train of his thoughts. He crouched close beside her, still wiggling amidst the blankets, tongue hot and lolling, and couldn’t resist the small nips of unrestrained joy and the demand to hurry! Hurry!

Sierra, and dream, and Wyldfyre all blurred together, but fortunately Tenzin understood enough.

“I go I go,” she groaned, resorting to just shielding her face now with an arm draped over it. “Stop jumping! Need a moment, pup.”

---

When she opened her golden eyes next, it was in the dream. Never was still wriggling around joyfully on her lap, and she ran her fingers into his fur and smiled a little for his enthusiasm. “Lead on, then,” she said, and let the wolf take her to Long Eye.

[Sierra]

Never was excited. Sierra found Wyldfire. And the pack would be back together. It took him only a short while before he was back with Sierra. She smiled at her new friend. "We found Tristan. He's in an outpost, he needs help. they don't know where we are. If we span out we can find the nearest settlement and then tell the authorities where they are."

"Do you think the wolves will help find more humans? We could use the help." There was a bit more worry in her voice now that she wasn't trying to show Tristan how worried she was. They were in the middle of god knows where frozen from the bottom of a lake with some weird shit going on. And there were no wolves for him to call on. That meant it was even worse than the middle of no where.

[Tenzin]

Sierra’s relief and joy was palpable, but her scent also held a swift undercurrent of worry. Tenzin’s brows slashed low, not in ferocity, but simply because she was thinking. How Wildefyre had ended up lost from the bottom of a lake was not the question she paused to consider. It was how a brother could become so lost it’d take this long for even the wolves to find him. Thorn Paw’s worries lingered in the back of her mind, although Sierra’s certainty had soothed them. Tenzin wanted to see for herself, though – if Tristan were simply the kin she claimed him to be, or something else.

“I will help,” she said simply. In the dream, there was no barrier of language. Her tone held comfort and certainty, as it always did. Tenzin could not promise result, but she could promise her steadfastness.

“The wolves may help us search, if they can. But they should not risk revealing themselves. Unless you mean for them to seek others like us to aid the hunt. I do not know how many there are, though. Most wolves I have encountered have never met a two-legs who could communicate with them.”

She reached to place her hand on Sierra’s shoulder. “Show us where we must start.”

[Sierra]

Sierra was grateful for the help but more so for the comfort. "Tristan said there were no wives there. He'd reached out already. I meant here in the dream. They know where they should avoid. Where people live. I'm sure Elyse and Marta and maybe Calvin will help but I don't want to bother them. I don't know what time it is back on Moscow."

Sierra showed Tenzin where Tristan had taken her. "They are here in the waking world. No food, no heat, and only frozen water for ice. Tristan estimates only a few days if the can stay warm."

"I'll go this way. You go that. Never can relay messages between us. Hell enjoy the game." Sierra point east and west and hoped that was the right directions to go.

[Tenzin]

Tenzin nodded. “If tonight yields no answers, you should ask,” she said. “If Wyldefire has little time we may need the help. If they do not come, they do not come. If they cannot, they cannot. But they are kin, and together we are stronger. I know no others. You are the only like me I have ever met.”

From asking the wolves to search too she did not dissuade. Sierra spoke sense, and Tenzin was only baring protective fangs because the tattoo on her arm made her brutally aware of the risks. But Sierra’s own brother had been hunted down after he succumbed to his nature. She knew them well too. Any packs willing to lend their senses to the hunt would not know the terrain, and not all humans entered the dream even as ghostly apparitions when they slept. But they would be able to scent out signs of civilisation. Things like that made a mark in the wolfdream. Though looking at the desolate tundra around them, it seemed unlikely they would find anything at all. It wasn’t a fear Tenzin voiced, though. Sierra did not need to hear it.

Instead she nodded to the direction given, and began her own hunt.

[Thalia]

More freezing waters. Nimeda floated, hair rippling across the surface, the flowers at her crown withered and grey. Her skin was death-pale, the discomfort unheeded, though it was her flesh which held her attention. Her fingers traced the design writ on her arm as the water sluiced over it.

Help us.

She didn’t know who the us was, but it was the first time her Other had ever attempted communication to bridge their distance.

“You went home,” she murmured. Because when she looked upon the shore, desolate as it was – and had always been – she still knew where she was immediately. The cracks must be widening for the knowledge to come so easily, or perhaps the resonance was just that strong when she walked old paths. The enormity of what had been and was now lost sank in her like a stone. Her eyes were wide and sad. Her heart broke in their depths.

She staggered up the black sand shore, grief like shattered glass in her chest, certain in the knowledge that the Age had turned without her. Everyone she knew and loved was dead. The tears were frozen diamonds in her eyes as her legs failed. She rarely used her power, let alone abused it, but she reached into the bones of the world then – wrenched a memory and forced it into being. It was not simply the fluttery transformation of will but something that came groaning and solid, a bend in the pattern that for a moment at least folded in on itself. What this place once was, it became again.

[Sierra]

The world shifted. It was strange and no matter how hard she tried to shift it back it wouldn't go. "What the..."

It wouldn't help if it was different than the real world. Sierra shouted "Why?" Sierra didn't leave her spot too much but she looked around a little. A woman stood not far away. She looked oddly familiar. She tapped her on the shoulder. "Do you know what's going on?"

[Tenzin]

Tenzin stiffened as the world moved suddenly around her. Where one step had been rough earth, now was obsidian marble cold under her feet. Her hackles immediately spiked, jaw tense. Walls rather tundra now met her view. But the lapse had not been hers, and when she pressed her hand to the nearest towering pillar, it was solid. The space around her was palatial, and like nothing she had ever witnessed before.

She wasn’t sure this was a dreamer’s will. She wasn’t sure what this was. But she didn’t like it.

“Sierra?” she called. Her voice echoed back at her. She was as adept in the dream as Tenzin herself, but the tattoo on her arm carried a responsibility she did not take lightly, and her first instinct was to protect. Her mind reached for Never with an instruction to check Long Eye was safe, while she turned to retrace her step until the pup brought word.

[Thalia]

The vision made her weep. Like cemetery bones risen from soft earth with shaking hands, the comfort was cold. The darkness of a home lost surrounded her in stark and desolate beauty. Whispers of those who had once walked drifted, as pale as unknown dreamers – and less seeing. Echoes only. She sank her face to the marble floor. Closed her eyes in lonely surrender. Held on with every fibre anyway, until a tap on her shoulder.

She gasped when it wrenched free. The fold smoothed as though it had never been. Black sand against her forehead, under her clutching fingers.

She didn’t expect the golden eyes when she looked up, and her first instinct was fear. Her memories were in ugly tatters, slipping through her fingers as quickly as the sand. For a moment she only stared.

[Sierra]

Never sent a message as the world crumbled away from what had happened. Sierra returned a message she was alright. A strange woman was with her.

Though as she turned to look up at Sierra she gasped. "Thalia?" And then she remembered that Thalia didn't remember the dream, so maybe this one didn't know the name either. "Are you alright?" She had been crying. Was she hurt?