Her barely concealed pleasure at having the grain between her pads washed from her face as more wolves started to show up to their gathering. Morrigan stood beside her and the woman’s seriousness damped Taika’s optimism, but only just. She had a good feeling about this place, and better since she hoped the Alpha would have been willing to help if he did not know the answers immediately. The smiles turned to expressions of seriousness and inwardly the gypsy sighed. This was clearly not going to be the joyful reunion between friends and packmates she had been expecting when they had gotten close to pinpointing the location of her soul sister and Coquette’s brother (the ‘brother’ Taika had never met).

The first male approached and Taika’s fluffy banner made a fan in the sand. He smelled a little like her soul sister, the Dream Speaker. At last she grinned again. They were getting closer to finding their missing friends. “Hardly strangers! Your sister and mine are the same! Though you and I have never met. I am Taika. We were looking for you and Coquette.”

Another scent wafts to her nose, only this one she recognizes at once. Smiling still more she get to her feet, tail wagging and bits of sand falling from her fur in streams. She hesitated a moment, taking in Eden’s aggressive and protective body language. It was confusing to the gypsy wolf, the concept of being territorial, but she reached toward the concept of territory without actually grasping it. Instinctively, she stepped toward the Alpha, her body a wag in friendly greeting, but her form lowered in the respect to be shown towards someone you liked but appeared to be angry with you. When she approached him it was in friendship and innocence with a note of hope that he would trust her and their intentions. “Hello Eden! It is good to see you!” Though she was known to be playful and carefree, there was still a sense of intelligence in her tone and actions. “Morrigan and I,” she nodded to the other female, “have been looking for our friends. They had been gypsies, so we started looking in the places the gypsies had stayed. A wolf from the forests, Quixote’s mate, mentioned here. I thought, even if they weren’t here, the gypsies had been so maybe their scents still lingered, or that you might be able to help us.” She sat with a sandy ‘thump’ and panted happily. “We found one of them!”