New Beginnings (Olkhon Island | Baikal Lake, Siberia)

[Tenzin]

Tenzin bent to welcome the pups and to allow them to properly acquaint themselves with her scent. Never was exuberant. She sent him her memory of Chase, warm with how it had rescued her from the discomfort and loneliness of the large two-leg city she had previously been calling home. Wolves were never really parted, not with the dream to run, but she hoped he found comfort in the familiarity of his old pack, and the connections Tenzin had to it.

Sierra’s distress was palpable. Tenzin’s nostrils flared with it, and she desperately desired to shake it loose. Instead, from her still crouched position, her gaze rose to cast out over the now still water that the other woman kept her vigil over. She was not sure how anyone could have survived it, given the ruin she had witnessed both here and on the mainland, but she trusted the wolves when they declared death had made no claim. Beyond that Sierra was correct, Tenzin had no answers, but it wasn’t why she came.

“True pack will return,” she agreed in soothing tones. She said it like she needed to believe it too. A promise to herself, or a hope that Jacinda would be at the safe house when she returned to Moscow. “Always does.”

Her lips twitched with the qualification – that Wildefyre would return for his half-wolf pup, but perhaps not the wolfsister who fretted over him. But that was a human affair, despite that it was between two of the kin, and Tenzin decided that for now at least it was not her business to pry. “Never says you have den nearby? Have slept, Sierra? Eaten? Between us, we keep vigil. Howl and Surefoot watch also. When he comes, we know. Trust pack, yes? And let pack care for you now.” She straightened from the wriggling pups, and offered out her hand.