Only after Dwin, @Chickadee  and the rest of the Brecheliant rescue team had returned home, did the young Blackthorn realize, how very, very tired she was. Once her sister had received the medical care she needed and all there was to do to rest and sleep, she happily obliged to stay by her side and do the same thing. The cumulative effect of physical exhaustion and lack of proper food during her month and a half long travels washed over her like a wave. For the first two or three days the only time she left the shared den was to eat something and to relieve herself, then she returned to curl right next to Dee and slept away. 

It was a good while later, when Dwin finally felt her usual energy return to her. Her mind was the first to recover, it was buzzing with ideas and was making plans, but her BM Dwinn (bone-and-meat Dwin aka her body) was not able to keep up yet. It would agree initially and with enthusiasm, only to tell a short time later - sorry, I do not have it in me. The only consolation was that the weather in the recent days had been fairly awful - it had snowed and rained, and been windy - which meant that there was very little she would miss out. 

Another thing that worried her just a little for now, was Dee's unwillingness to let Dwin out of sight for too long. Such dependence was endearing, of course, and Dwin's heart was in the right place. But after having a taste of the world outside, she knew that going out and exploring even for a bit was something she needed very much the same way other people needed food and water. At the moment that was not a big problem - she was in no mood to go anywhere far, nor was she able to do so. But what about later? 

Today she had reassured Dee that she was going out to find something tasty for them to eat and that she would be back soon. Plus, send someone else from their family to keep her company, while she was out. It had been a bit of a struggle to convince and calm her sister down, and she still felt a bit guilty, remembering, how worried she had been to see Dwin go. But on the other hand - it was for the benefit of both of them. First - food, second - recharging her own batteries. 

Dwin had imagined her homecoming to be grander than the way it had happened in reality. Like in the stories, where the protagonist leaves being nothing and then returns awesome and cool. She had come home very hungry, very tired, with less adventures than she would have liked and she did not feel that different. Plus, in the light of recent events, there never seemed to be a right moment to tell, what she had seen and who she had met. 

She had exchanged a brief and sleepy - Hi, mom! Hi, dad! - upon her arrival, but since then she had not had a substantial conversation with either of the two. Because alphing took just as much time and effort as looking after two teenagers - one undernourished, the other - badly hurt. So - it was a very welcome event to meet Maia face to face and have no one around to distract them. 

Undoubtedly there was this moment of mutual awkardness - Dwin had done some growing up, while she had been away, and therefore considered that she should act accordingly. Like adults did - steadfast, slow, polite, collected, calm - you name it. On the other hand - she was so, so, so glad to see one of her favourite people in the whole world, that she was just dying to rush over her and just burry herself in mom's embrace. Feeling torn, she shifted from one foot to the other, until an idea came to her mind. 

She looked over her shoulder on the one side, then on the other and feeling sure that no one was around to see, she squealed happily something unintelligible and closed the distance between her and mom in full speed. Good thing Maia was a big wolf, who could take the impact of a gangly, underweight, small teenager without toppling over. Dwin was giddy with excitement and somewhat incoherent in, what she wanted to do - hug, kiss, nuzzle, wrap herself all around mom - and eventually she calmed for a second, burrying her face in the thick and soft fur of Maia's neck, breathing out a: "I am so glad there is so much of you!" 

If there had been any reservations about greeting Maia in the way she always had as a kid, then now they were gone completely. Being embraced in just the same heartfelt way and sensing all the love that her mom had to give, felt right. And if something felt right to her, it would not damage her pride in any way. One of the biggest downsides of her travels had been the sense of loneliness, which she had experienced more often than meaningful and interesting encounters. Besides - no matter, how great the people had been (she thought of Val and Ash Paw especially fondly), they weren't family. Not in the way mom was here with her now. 

"Oh, I was on my way to look for something for Dee. She was not happy to have me go," she explained, unaware that her father had filled that role and her sibling was in the best paws possible. "But we can talk, while we go," she offered. "And I am all for lunch - a little will do, but a big one will be better," she beamed at Maia, knowing without saying that any plans of travels would have to be postponed until mom and dad would deem her fat enough to do so. That would be one rule she would not object to for the time being. "What happened, while I was gone? What should I know," she asked, when they were walking side by side at a leisurely pace.

"That's awesome," Dwin said with probably more relief in her voice than she wanted to admit. Having dad to take care of Dee was the best thing that could happen. She would move mountains, cross fire and go to the end of the world, if it meant that her sister would fully recover, but even a heroic soul like her needed a break. Spending it with Maia felt as the best way to use the time. 

"Amalia? Nah, I do not think I know her, but I will definitely make the acquaintances. I won't be going away anytime soon so," she referred to her rather sorry physical state. There was little of her and, when the pure enthusiasm and willpower was not generating energy to keep her body going, she was finally forced to stop and recuperate.  

"Redhawks? Is it like those guys, who live south of here? With other Blackthorns?" she asked and it was a bit of a curiousity for her to say so, because before her journey she had memorized most of her family tree. Now it did not strike as interesting anymore. "Oh, I met someone in the mountains. A real hag, claimed to know dad and was very adamant of forcing my name out of me. She even puked in my general direction. Twice!" she scrunched her nose at the memory. 

"Well, you will be proud to here that in a true spirit of all great guerrillas before me I did not say a thing about me," she beamed at mom. "I was tempted to bargain an exchange - you know, family tree for some food, because I was very hungry then, but all that Mrs Vomittington offered me, was a half-digested mushroom. She did not seem to understand that the information I had was more valuable than that. Plus - she wanted to know very badly too!" people were weird. 

"Yeah, well, to make a deal you also have to like the person at least a little bit. OR... or be super desperate. But I was neither. Hungry though... I think that all of those heroic tales and legends about great explorers do us injustice. They do not tell much about the hardship. Like going really, really, really hungry - at one point I truly believed I would be able to devour the Big Fish. Or... that there are a lot more boring days than there are the exciting ones," Dwin went on, looking at her mom and having a feeling that this was no news to Maia and that, even if she had told all the practical, less glorious details about the life on road, she would still not have believed it, unless she had dabbed in it herself.

"They did? I might have forgot about it. I thought that we - Blackthorns - always lived here. At least dad seems to think that this place has always belonged to our family," she said and you have to keep in mind again that the girl was not good with remembering facts or exact quotes, therefore her assumptions might only be 60% correct. "I did not meet any faeries or hags - I do not believe that the mushroom-projectiling nasty lady was an actual hag. A figurative one though. But I met some aliens? You know - they look kind of like us, but are grotesque and odd-looking. Ever met those?" she asked. 

Dwin took the compliment with a smile, but deep down she knew that she had fared far worse than Maia. In her eyes her mom was the idol to strive for. Sure, she was a fan of grandma Finley as well, but having a living and breathing heroine here and now instead of one, who was featured in stories and memories, was better. You could always turn to her and ask, what it had been really like.

"You could come? On my next journey?" she invited hope in her voice, but knowing deep in her heart that mom would most likely refuse. Both for the sake of their aging dad, but also the pack duties. It seemed more and more that adult and family life was more about responsibilities and denying yourself many great things than actual freedom. Dwin was not sure she liked this perspective or the kind of future, therefore she found comfort in the fact that at this point in life she could still make a decision against the path Maia had once chosen. 

"Maybe. Maybe they were wolves just different. Maybe they thought I was the alien," she sighed. "How's dad doing?" Dwin asked and not because she had not visited Eljay after her return. Dad was her favourite person in the world and she surely was his. Therein lied the problem - he would not tell her, if he was off to worse, even if she asked. He did not wish to disappoint her, but she was old enough to realize that all was not well and that living with uncomfortable truth was better than with a positive lie. 

"Oh, sure. That would be absolutely amazing!" Dwin beamed at Maia, looking forward to a girl's night and few days out. Now that she was almost grown up, she no longer needed that much of attention from her mom. Still having quality time like this once in a while was amazing. They never ran out of topics to talk about, Dwin was always eager to listen to stories and lament her leaky memory for not being able to remember them correctly. Now and then she gave in the game of rhyme building game, but her skills in poetry were... well, let's say she was all for modern free-form poetry. And stick to that. 

She studied mom's face carefully, when she spoke about dad. While she picked up a hint of worry, Maia did not seem overly concerned. And if anything else then stress was something she did not hide well. "Dad's not getting younger, is he?" Dwin asked. "I mean, it was never obvious to me before, but now that I returned... he seems smaller," she said. The adjective of choice did not have to do anything with the size, rather the feeling. "Mind, if I ask you... how long do people live? Do they themselves know that?" she wondered.

"I wonder, what would life be like, if we knew exactly the day we were going to die?" Dwin asked, wondering, how would that work and whether that knowledge would make her miserable. Or quite the contrary - more motivated to live her life to the fullest. Which - she had to admit - she did not quite know, how to do it correctly. Her big journey had had to be that very thing, but the more she thought about it, the less convinced she felt that it had been something she could list as the most awesome experience of her life. 

"I think... it could be so that people... there would be people, who would despair over it and just freeze. Not know, what to do or not care about the living at all," she suggested. "Or... or... quite the contrary, they would do all kinds of stupid stuff just because they knew there is or is not time to solve it. Or... or even try to cheat death. Or try to find ways of bringing it closer. Say - you do not want to live anymore for whatever reason," the latter subject was foreign to her, because she simply could not understand, why would people ever not want to live. 

"What do you think? What would you do?" she asked for Maia's opinion.

"I don't think I will ever want to cease to live," Dwin said with all the confidence of a very young an inexperienced person, who had been up until now spared great disappointments, heartbreaks or tragedies in life. There are some core qualities about people that do not really change over the years and there are people, whose will to live and survive is stronger than the challenges life throws their way. It may as well be that Dwin was one of those people, who live with the motto: "There will be other crap in life and the current one will be forgotten."

"I do not want to be immortal or anything either," she clarified, being well versed in tales, where deathless life was quite different from the thing the protagonist had imagined it to be. "I think that there is a beauty of not knowing it. I would not want to know, when I am going to pass. Because... I think... that if I die, my problems will be over. It will be the living mourning me - hopefully," she grinned. "I would like to think that my death would be a beginning of an entirely different adventure. New one," she told.