Swiftcurrent Creek let the rain wash away the pain

@Maera and @Njal - I assume it's OK for me to assume Bazi said goodbye, and that the SC wolves left before Tuwawi returned!

It hurt to leave the Glacier - mentally as much as physically. Bazi cried the entire way through her goodbye to @Maera, and was no more dignified when she bid the girl's father farewell.

Her parting words to Danica, the ones that had sounded so deliciously cruel at the time, tasted bitter. Whatever, Bazi shot back at the brain cells responsible whenever the thought returned to the surface. I apologized! There was nothing else she could do. Five days of travel separated her from the Duskfire wolves now, and it was likely that Danica had long since moved on to pastures new.

The journey itself was hard, to say the least. For five days, the four Swiftcurrent wolves trudged at the pace of the group's weakest link. Bazi hated bearing the title, though neither Falwasi nor Kieran, and certainly not Kaskara, ever chastised for for stumbling or stopping to rest. Her leg could bear weight, at least, and her fur was making a mercifully quick recovery. By journey's end, her rail thin frame was partially disguised by a fresh, downy coat of winter white.

By the time they reached the Swiftcurrent border, she owed them her life several times over. And still, after all of that, they remained to see her through the most difficult part of the entire journey: the reunion with Scimitar.

It was only when when they stopped walking that Bazi allowed herself to feel the weight of the moment. Her heart thundered in her chest, and she pressed herself close to Kaskara's warm body, waiting with bated breath for the howl to yield result.