Horizon Ridge what do you feel before you think?

just a one round thingish, reintroducing illy-dilly -- or a RO if none of you have time to throw in a reply <3

the agouti in the conifer forest had been true to her word; she delivered to caiaphas a gift she had long since assumed had walked off of this earth. @Illidan.

good god, the siren had not been able to hide her emotions then. they roared with a wild insurgence; everything at once. a cataclysm of hopes and fears and dreams and deep and undying love all swirled into one -- her son.

her son, alive.

while it had pained her deeply to know kierkegaard was not also with him, she felt a small piece that had been missing slide carefully into place. bit by bit she was coming back together; bit by bit, a tireless and furious aspect returned to her.

she stole glances to him when she thought he was not looking- how much he looked like her son, but how dearly he resembled his father. it both hurt and stroked the embers of undying affection she had in her heart for her children, and the man that had sired them. if only he were here now to see how his children clawed tenaciously at life, and refused to be put to the earth no matter what was thrown at them.

rhakios and ephraim were still missing.

or dead.

her heart sank from its briefly elated pinnacle; illidan hadn't known where they had gone anymore than she. the storm that had taken everything from her still had a hold over her hopes -- but if illidan was alive, could not the same be said for her two wayward sons?

once again she found herself marveling the boy out of the corner of her eyes - was it true and real? was he really with her, after all of this time? she was tired of fate playing tricks on her strung out hopes.. but each time she glanced back at the solemn features of her son, she knew it to be real.

and then there was @Raleska and @Svalinn, who would like as not rejoice to see their brother reunited with them. svalinn might not remember the dark face of his brother - but raleska would.

caiaphas knew her daughter was slowly becoming unmored, unraveling with all of the ceaseless travel. they had put thousands of miles under their feet, and still, the road stretched on unending.

but there was an end in sight; with @Rosalyn and @Erzulie they could possibly stake a homestead for themselves again, instead of fighting for life like miserable transients. no longer would they be running ragged, not if she could help it. even if their alliance was an uneasy one, the siren queen had a quiet conviction that if it came to it and they turned their fangs against her, that they would strike hard and true on her pelt and no one else's.

in a strange way, that thought was comforting -- the last thing caiaphas could tolerate in her life now was threat to those she had struggled so hard to keep by her. no -- if it came to it, she would kill and kill again to prove to whatever higher order that she would not lose her children again.

they were nearing the temporary rendezvous; caiaphas felt as if a thousand years had passed since she first met grezig, but it had only been a few days. even then she was dog-tired and worn to the bone by her incessant travels, and eagerly she threw back her head to summon the small collection of wolves, so that they might know a new (or old --) soul walked among them.

Unlike his barbed sister, whose mood seemed to deteriorate day by day, Svalinn had taken rather seamlessly to the Eyjolfur's pilgrimage; even daring to enjoy it, at times. He had lost all of the pack-fed plumpness he'd had back on the plateau, but his spirit remained effortlessly buoyant, and each day he would busy himself almost mindlessly until dropping like the dead each night beside Raleska. This life was almost natural to him, though he wouldn't understand that he had been conditioned to it long before he could remember. He didn't know that his unwavering acceptance of this life came from a trait he'd picked up in infancy: the ability to cope quickly with even the most radical changes around him.

Since Rosalyn and Erzulie had joined them, things had become noticeably easier for everyone, though Caiaphas still saw fit to find her independence from time to time. She had been on one such venture now—for what, the boy couldn't fathom. He came to greet her, thinking about how unfair it was that she always left, so he arrived in an already less-than stellar mood when he noticed that she was flanked by a rangy, hooded figure, that looked eerily similar to his mother.

He didn't make the connection. "That's nice," he huffed, sniffing a little in the young wolf's direction; "you found one that looks like you."

Today her mother returned, but this time not alone. Today, Illidan walked besides her. 

Raleska had been standing next to Svalinn when the matriarch strode calmly to camp, flanked by a ghostly mirror image. He looked so different to Raleska - but it was still the same boy that had once roughly played with her. 

The girl collected her wits and rose with a spring, covering ground in rapid strides until she was in front of her lost brother — and then in the typical calloused fashion of her family, leapt upon him with a playful yet forceful shove.

so i lied, not making it a RO thing

she had been looking forward to this moment since steering illidan home - would raleska remember him? would he remember her -- and what of svalinn? she had her own suspicions the boy was too young when they parted ways to possibly recall his dark-masked brother, and that inkling proved true.

a dark grey and black blur darted by - raleska, no doubt - caiaphas cast the duo an approving glance before bending down to svalinn with an all-together rough nudge to his hide. "that's illidan -- do you remember him?"

the sylph then hung back as the siblings tentatively met; she would keep a sharp eye on them, but now the ball was in their court -- and as her mother, she could only hope that her wretched brood welcomed their stray brother back into their wretched fold.