Swiftcurrent Creek Do you believe in life after love?

Discovering Kasatka within Drageda had changed Easy's life once more. When the pack disbanded, the sisters had travelled back to the only permanent family they knew of: The Round Valley pack. Sunspot had welcomed them and asked after Skraeling, but neither of them had seen her. They remained several months with their aunt and cousins and siblings, and remained long enough to see Lavender's first litter come into the world: a boy she called Brave, and a girl she called Journey.

It'd been a peaceful and idyllic time, but eventually, Kasatka had been called back to the sea, and Easy back to the lands of their birth. She'd spent a night at the Cuesta, and a night in the plains and a night on the plateau, and the days in between had all been wandering. Eventually, though, she'd caught a familiar scent on the wind, and found herself once more at the borders of Swiftcurrent Creek. This time, however, she could smell @Aditya and @Dawn.

With a heart far lighter than she'd posessed the last time she'd seen either of these two, Easy tipped back her head to call for them, and her father lived on in the strength of her voice just as surely as he lived in Dawn's stalwart nature and in Sunny's capacity to love.

though it irked her, she'd more or less resigned to being useless a day or two prior. she'd come to terms with the fact that under no condition would she be able to do much for Swiftcurrent in her current state. had she knows the effects of her exertion on her unborn young, perhaps that realization would have come sooner - they were a responsibility that was hers to bear, but she remained oblivious. 

and so when she heard her sister's call, a stupid grin alighted itself on her muzzle and the woman lurched to her feet. swaying a moment, bidding the cramps to pass, she gave her pelt a stiff shake and made her way to the border. the call, for a moment, touched the packlands with something familiar, a welcome change. the people here seemed secular, quiet - but there was easy, and grin remained etched on the woman's face as she drew near, stopping awkwardly and planting a kiss in her sister's cheek. "easy!" she said as she withdrew, surveying the girl - woman, now - and seeing clearly her father in her. "I've missed you." she reaches forward to try and pull the girl into a semi-awkward embrace, entirely overjoyed.

Are the babies born yet? Let me know if I should change anything!

Easy met her sister joyfully, even as the sight of her made her heart twist. She'd forgotten how much her elder siblings resembled their father, and the reminder was welcome but still painful. "I missed you, too!" Easy replied. She did not apologize for leaving, nor accuse Dawn of doing the same. Life had thrown them all for a loop, and there was nothing left to do but heal -- and rebuild. "I'm so happy to see you again," she said with deep feeling, breathing in her sister's familiar scent and detecting traces of something equally familiar: milkscent.

"You're a mother," she exclaimed, pulling back to survey the other woman with keen, pumpkin-hued eyes. She was an aunt twice over, then! The mottled woman's tail began to whip wildly back and forth, and she pressed forward to embrace Dawn once more. "I have so much to tell you," she mumbled into Dawn's fur. "And I want to hear all about what you've been up to as well."

he couldn't believe his ears. truly—the call went up, and aditya froze, positive he was within a dream. he wandered, dazed, to the border. . .and there they were, the sisters. dawn, and—

blackbear! adi cried out, remembering the name she'd chosen for herself the last time they'd met. he rushed toward them, giving dawn an affectionate look before turning to the other, the girl he'd once known, so grown up. . . my god, how are you? where have you been?

unlike most ghosts from his past, he had parted with easy fairly amicably, although perhaps her joy to see him would be tempered, should she know about his violence on wheeling gull isle. nevertheless, he couldn't stop himself from grinning, waiting for her response and looking her over, marveling at all the ways she'd changed and yet stayed so much the same.

the grin seems permanently etched into her face. "soon," she amends, "I hope." it feels almost unreal, to have her here. it's been so long, and they had not exactly parted on favourable terms. but there is a confidence in her now, and something else that she once lacked. her little sister appears all grown up, a piece of Morningside returned whole and sound. 

"I'm so happy you're here — tell me where you've been, how you've been - did you find any family?" it possible, and though the woman doesn't want to dredge up negativity has she not, she can't possibly not ask. Aditya shows up then, and she acknowledges him with a glance before returning her attention to Easy, tail wagging still.

When Aditya appeared, Easy's smile was suddenly strained. Kasatka had shared with her the terrible news about what Aditya had done. She remembered with painful clarity the last time she had seen him: See you in another life, brother and a kiss on the cheek. She'd been Blackbear, back then. Or she thought she'd been. Now she knew that souls didn't change; not really. Just circumstances.

"It's alright," she said to him through the sharp ache of betrayal in her chest. She'd come prepared to face and forgive him, and she had no desire to go back on that, now. But it was still painful to think of all that had come to pass, and all the distance she'd put between herself and the ones she loved. "You can use whichever one you want. Easy, Blackbear." Changing her name wouldn't change the fact that they'd both known her since she was small. They were her family, even if Aditya was not bound to her by blood. And even then, she realized, he was now. Because Dawn was pregnant, and there could only be one father, couldn't there?

A tiny piece of her died away as she came to this realization -- because Aditya was still the strong, golden-eyed wolf she'd loved since she was a little girl, and he still belonged to her sister. But her smile was not brittle as she examined the significant swell of her elder sister's sides.

"That's incredible," she breathed, eyes popping wide. "I'm going to be an aunt! Well -- I already am. We both are," she explained, tail wagging. "I did find family out there. Do you remember our aunt, Sunspot? She has a pack to the east called Round Valley. Lavender is there with her, and she's just had a litter of two. A girl called Journey and a boy called Brave. Kasatka was there with me for a time, but we left at the same time. She went to the ocean, and I came here. Spot's got a ton of kids, too -- but I have to confess, I could never keep all their names straight."

the strained smile wasn't a surprise, but it still hurt. she must know. he glanced awkwardly away, wondering how she had known, who had told her. . . easy, he murmured under his breath, glad that she had accepted her birth name again. he had never really stopped thinking of her as such, though he'd given 'blackbear' the old college try.

and then she offered a name he hadn't heard in a long while, a wolf he'd thought long dead. lavender! he exclaimed softly, tail wagging. i'm so happy she is well. he hadn't known the sweet girl all that well, but he was pleased to know she had found a home elsewhere, among other family. dauntless? he queried, his gaze shy as he returned it to easy. he missed the strong young man, too.

they talk a while longer, and while some names and faces remain in that hollow void of uncertainty, the joy of knowing that some of her family is thriving outweighs the renewed loss, for now. they talk a while longer, and while she doesn't seem to want to stay, now, Dawn makes sure to stress she is welcome back here anytime. she'd like her children to meet their aunt, no matter how strange the thought of their existence outside her womb seems at the moment. the joy of seeing her sister carries her through the day, and she forgets the sharp pains that start to come in greater number.