Redhawk Caldera Stuck in '93.

Alyx didn't know why she hung around the Caldera borders like some kind of lost puppy. Meeting up with Fennec had been nice, but she really should be getting back to Sapphique now that her search was over. Except she didn't really want to go back there. There was nothing in particular about the seaside pack that had turned her opinion, but between being sick and then Phox's news, she hadn't been able to enjoy her time there at all. She'd definitely formed a negative association and felt a lead weight in her stomach at the thought of it.

So here she was, lurking around like some kind of creep. It would have been so easy to ask Fennec if she could just come home, but for some reason, she hadn't. Alyx was torn between going back out into the world on her own — something Bat had said to her before she left Triquetra played on repeat through her mind when she was most homesick — and coming back to wolves she knew. There were pros and cons to both. She knew if she did come home, it wouldn't be forever. It might not be for very long at all, but the familiarity would be nice, even just for a few weeks. But that was awfully selfish of her, wasn't it?

Alyx didn't get much of a chance to mull that over. She was still some distance from the borders, in plain sight but trying not to look like a loiterer, but she could see two patrolling wolves in the distance. From there, and with the heat shimmer distorting their figures, Alyx couldn't be sure who they were, but she could tell one of them was wrapped in Meerkat's colours. That made her heart beat a little faster — she wasn't ready to face her sister.

Except the silhouette was too small to be Meerkat, especially next to the dark figure that Alyx assumed had to be Towhee. Towhee or Phox, but Phox was at Yuelong. With no way of really knowing, because any number of dark and beige wolves could have joined the Caldera in her absence, she raised her leg and tentatively signed, Heya.