Noctisardor Bypass my throat is a beehive pitched in the river

She had dreamed of him last night. He was standing in a clearing, just as tall and strong and handsome as he'd been the last time she saw him. Harlyn had gone to him with joy in her heart - joy that turned to dread as he faced her and his eyes gleamed yellow and slit like a cat's. The clearing in the forest changed then to that clearing in the meadow where she'd left Ilya, and Luke disappeared entirely - replaced by the demon cougar that had stolen his light. The cat leaped, and Harlyn awoke gasping and panting before dawn.

She needed to find him. Harlyn was absolutely certain that's what her dream had meant; she had to find Luke and bring him home.

She had left early with hardly an explanation to Mordecai who was growing more distant by the day, but that was of lesser consequence to the Druid now than her God-given mission. She kept on as the landscape changed around her and all of it lacking any sign of her friend. She was tired from her troubled sleep, and her stomach rumbled its discontent at having not been fed in a couple of days, but she ignored all the complaints of her physical form. Her soul was in charge, and the spirits that guided her.

Luck seemed not to be on her side that day, but when she came upon the river, Harlyn felt certain her luck had changed. If there was anywhere Luke was likely to be found, it was near water. She quickened her pace to jog as she ran along the river's edge, her eyes scanning the terrain while her heart held tight to the hope that he was only a little further, just a little further, just past this  bend, or the next, or the next...

"Luke!" Harlyn called out when finally her faith was rewarded with the sight of his snowy white frame bent low over the water. Her heart burst with excitement and joy as she sped up, sprinting over the last few yards before she reached him and swept herself up into his embrace, crooning into his chest as she pressed against him. "Finally, finally..."