She leapt nimbly over the rocks, the hare hanging from her jaws but securely clenched between her teeth. This wasn’t the easiest path back to her den but it was the more exciting one, and that made all the difference. She often looked for distraction these days, her life rather lacking the excitement and adventure that it once had. This could all be attributed to one thing, she knew, the black and gray boy who as of late had been more absent from her life than she would have liked. She understood what he was going through and why he and his brothers felt the need to roam, but it did not mean she didn’t miss him still. The times when he had shown back up to check on his mother’s health she reveled in being able to steal a few hours from him. He had always been her closest friend, and before he had left the last time she had begun to think about the possibility of something more.
They may not be imprints like her parents, so consumed with every part of each other, but they shared a connection still. Perhaps it meant more even since it was something they had worked at since their youth. It was ever changing as they grew and she appreciated it even more so because of that fact. She had felt an imprints connection once, though it had faded after and she wasn’t too sure what to think of that, but it wasn’t the same as what she shared with Rhaegal.
As she neared her den, climbing the familiar steep and winding path, she paused for a moment, her bright eyes closing as she inhaled and caught his scent over that of the rabbit that dangled just below it. Was it truly him or had her reminiscing just brought his scent to the forefront of her mind? Choosing not to dwell on it she was up the path in a flash, leaping into the clearing that separated her den from the ledge that dropped off the mountainside.
Suddenly there he was, bathed in the golden light of evening and waiting for her just at the den’s mouth, an expectant and eager expression on his too familiar face. In that moment she felt enveloped by the reckless abandon that so often flavored their time together, and without a second thought leapt toward him. Her quarry was dropped in the cold snow at her feet, the impending meal entirely forgotten as her golden caped form practically flew through the air as she tackled him outright. Somehow she knew he was back for good, knew he wouldn’t be vanishing off with his brothers back into the wilderness once more, and this fact had her plunging her cold nose into warmth of his cheek and peppering it with licks of excitement as they rolled in a tangle of limbs.