Otatso Wetlands 40 nights to sit and listen to that midnight train to memphis

A soft huff of laughter escaped her at the gentle ribbing. She remembered that he'd met one of her sisters before her, and that she'd pretended to be the same girl. That wasn't all she remembered, though. "You didn't want to flirt with me, last time," she noted, perhaps a bit freer with her observations than she might normally be. Later on, she would call this a calculated risk, but the reality was that she was not in top mental form right then.

He smelled like fire, she realized, and something heavy and tight that had lived between her shoulder blades eased somewhat. Now that she had identifed the source of the smell, she could rest a little easier. And Aditya, to his credit, was a nice distraction. She liked the sound of his voice, and the feel of their shoulders bumping together gave her something to think about beside her twinging hind leg. "We're doing well. Better than the last time we spoke," said Alya when he asked after her pack. "I left on a scouting trip a few days ago - they're expecting me home in the next week or so." But she wasn't sure how feasible that was, now. "How is... Morningside?" she asked, taking a moment to index the conversation before speaking the name of the pack aloud. "Did everyone make it through the fire?"