The Tangle hips that could bear you a buffalo

Eirlys assures her that it’s not that bad. It’s there and she’s aware of it and honestly, Furi would do the same thing. She’d pestered at the wound she gained the first time she was here, picking at the scab until it bled and finally left an ugly scar, fur unable to grow back. It’s minor and not many wolves look at your feet, anyway.

“Why would I be angry?” she asks, briefly forgetting about the wound, though, now that she doesn’t have to concern herself with it. If she didn’t already feel weird about the whole interaction, she might have overlooked it, but differentiating between mama and a word she holds dear, that she has not spoken in so long. Her mouth turns dry and she licks at her lips, trying to give her a little reprieve, but it turns up short.

She opens her mouth to start again, finding it easier to click them shut and wait. “Eiri,” she breathes after a beat. She’s faked it for long enough, buried as much of the memory as she possibly managed, but standing in front of the possibility that might be able to find her family crumbles the messy wall she’s built around herself. “Äiti?” she repeats, spoken on a familiar tongue in a language she hasn’t practiced since the strange wolf outside the borders one day. “Sisko?”