Sunbeam Lair let the voices come barrelling back

the sunset is golden & endless & spinning down into a twilight which could scatter every which way.

there was a time in which she would have felt comfortable lingering here, when youth and naievete protected from the breath of war on the horizon.  tick-down months have taught her to be more guarded than that.  the no man's land between two packs was no place for a woman to be.

but oh, how this place reminded her of home —

home!  what makes a home?  what is its architecture?  its structure?  & (what is this phenomena that should cause her to leave behind everything she'd ever known?)  she presses her crown to the earth and drinks deep the smell of it.  it centers her.  she moves on.

when she came to the lair, ink-cut silhouette limned in a twilit halo, she paused.  she could smell the herb behind him.  she could smell the young upon him.  his own or not, she couldn't tell, but, (it is that season, after all, redsong —)

hello, she calls warmly, a little distantly, pulled to this stranger for the treasure at his back.