Ocean's Breath Plateau Salt

Her heart broke at the shake of his head, and she knew that she must no longer call him her appeh. This new wolf was not her father - had no memories of being her father. Still, she knew that Riverbone lived in him, as... whoever she was still lived in her. They just had new names, now, and a new home. New bonds still needing to be forged.

She gazed at the dark wolf with tender eyes, remembering all he had been in her childhood, and all that he had done for her. He remembered his kind words as he had explained her parentage, and that although you were not born to me, my heart is filled with love. One day, I will make you bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. At the time, she hadn't undertstood how literally he meant it, or that they would have to travel far from their homeland and put on different faces in order to see the day. Doctor wondered if she looked very different from how she had as a pup, and then decided that it did not matter. They had found each other, and the time had come to forge a new union between them. She would be all that he asked of her, that he might one day remember their love.

Doctor drew herself up, standing proudly before the man who had been her father, and who was now someone else. "It is as you say, Skellige," she intoned, grateful that he'd already given her a name, so that she did not have to think of one herself. "You will call me Doctor."

She stood at ready, still watching him with deep and earnest affection, trust, love. I will follow you all my days, said her eyes, and her heart was singing even while she stilled her tongue. For once, her ears stood straight and level, pointing attentively toward the wolf no longer named Riverbone - for he was no longer the dry remains where water once flowed. He was something more, something better - and she would be, too.