The sadness hadn't left her yet, though it was abating; she found that throwing herself into watching the herds as Valette had instructed helped greatly. She hadn't yet seen the leader, though disliked the thought of simply staying away from her. It seemed wrong, somehow. Her mother hadn't explained, in her many lessons, how to handle grief, and thus Poppy assumed that she ought to figure it out herself. 

Carefully did the stretch her head this way and that as she made her way past the borders again, remembering something she'd seen when she'd met the dark girl. Her attention was stolen, however, by the brightness that infused everything; odd, for the middle of the night. Craning her neck up as much as it would allow with burning, she peered owlishly at the moon, massive and lit brightly against the stars the twinkled around it. They seemed so unimportant beside the moon, and quite taken with the sight, Poppy plopped onto her haunches to watch the stars and the moon as they hung heavy in the sky.

Light steps and crunching snow had her muzzle twist down with a sharpness that had her wince, and not for the first time did she wonder just how long her neck would take to heal. But the owner of the short greeting had her pain quickly forgotten, and she blurted as the other did, "you're a dog!" The difference in inflection and the delay in her own words had the dogs' words join together in a mangled mess, though it hardly mattered.  "hi! I thought I was the only one here!" Her words came out in an excited rush, and the tapped the ground in an excitement-induced play-bow, tail wagging rapidly behind her as she grinned at the stranger, realizing rapidly that she too was a collie, one that looked rather a lot like her brother.

Her front end bowed down in a thrilled play-stance, tail wagging a mile a minute. The other dog pushed forward, and so did she, poking her nose into the girl's shoulder as she too took in the scents of wild and other dogs. But she was sidetracked from this thrilling development when the other collie began to question her, and she supplied answers rapidly. "my master kept me in a crate-but-outside, and everything was too flat, so I-" She spun in a tight circle, a bit to excited to answer completely. She'd thought surely she was the only one in these far reaches, but here she was proved wrong. "hi Tot! I'm Poppy." She made to second greeting only as a method to let the girl's name slip from her tongue, so excited was she to use it. "how'd you get here?"