Moonspear you are to me like a very, very wild thing

And there she was, in the lair they'd favored since they were smaller than the skull Alya carried now. She set it down carefully before her sister-queen, setting a paw atop the gristly surface. "I brought you a present," she said, but the joke fell a bit flat as she moved around it to embrace her mirror image. "I missed you," she said into Hydra's fur, forgetting all the strange thoughts that she'd had while she was away.

It took a moment, but soon enough, their hearts beat as one once more. She breathed out a sigh of relief and drew back, looking tired and bedraggled and a still a bit guilty.

"I assume you know about the shaking," she reported in a somewhat dull tone. "It's everywhere, for weeks in every direction. Large prey seems to have fled entirely, even in the valleys that lay furthest from us. Things seemed to have calmed down, but it's clear that there are far-reaching consequences to the devastation. The very earth seems to be changing shape, in some places."

She eyed her sister keenly, wondering what she thought of all this, or if any of it was news to her.