Snowforest Taiga wind shear

Well, it wasn't as cutting as him having to hear it from someone else, but Alya found herself glad she'd been there to witness him learning her name. She rather liked the way it sounded on his tongue.

"What does it mean?" she asked him, making herself comfortable. This involved settling her shoulder against his, so that lying on her stomach did not put so much stress on her injured hind leg. "Chaiyya," she added, in case he wasn't sure. It had plagued her not to know, but she hadn't wanted to show it by asking. Somehow, all that had melted away in the course of this conversation. Alya was incapable of dropping every trace of subterfuge, but in that moment, she was as close to honest as she was likely to come.

"When we first met," she mused, thinking back to that day that she'd told him of Galaxy's death and the Redhawk's behavior, "my baby sister had just been murdered. Wolves I thought I could trust were turning their backs on us. Dear friends left, allies abandoned us, and one of my own littermates denounced the family. It was a terrible time. I was angry, Aditya, and so desperately sad. How could life go on, I thought? How were we supposed to pick up and move on from there?"

Thinking back on those days still caused tired anger to churn in the pit of her stomach. She still mourned for Galaxy and even for Korei, and she still remembered the bitterness of having Rannoch, Terance, and Wraen turn their backs and leave.

"But life goes on. We have no choice in the matter. Sometimes, I think that's more a blessing than we realize. One day you'll blink and realize you're happy again - and when that day comes, you'd better hang on. Because then you'll get caught in a swamp and get carted off to some tribe in the woods were they take in every lost duck and sing kumbaya."