How long ago had she made the decision to return? She glanced to the sky, deep black and without a moon, as she paused atop a hill. How old had she become since she had left? She shook her head, gave a shrug, and loped down the hillside with practiced ease.

It had been two years, in fact. Come spring, she would be nine. Those were easier questions to answer, after all, whereas the why of so many things was a harder one to answer. Why now? Why not then? And why at all? To Visenya, they mattered less. It had been two years since she had decided to return but it had not been just two years since she had left - three, four perhaps? It took many moons to retrace pawprints that had been lost to time, after all. But she had come back nonetheless: she would be nine and she had come to wear her age gracefully. She had grown into her womanhood completely, her face soft of feature with golden eyes like two great moons; her legs were long, body lean, skin peppered with scars. She held herself with all the pride her blood afforded her and then more - she had left a frightened thing, a wolf afraid to step over the cusp of childhood into adulthood. Now, she had taken it all into stride. What was her mother's loss but a lesson? What was the chaos of youth but a place to learn?

...She sighed and shook her head. She had been worried about whether she'd slip into all the lamenting and overthinking others often did when they returned somewhere. It was folly, and she shook the thoughts from her mind before she turned east. At first, she had been moving from tundra to mountain but now, she moved to the plains instead. Things were different, that was clear enough. So why should she return immediately to an old life so soon?

By the time she had arrived at Asteraia's badlands, the sun had began to creep up from behind the cloak of ocean to the east. The fields were illuminated in gold and violet light, the mist rising from the grass like rain in reverse - she felt like a ghost, half-concealed by the mist and shadows as she moved through the tall grass. They had always said such strange things about Asteraia and yet, nothing at all was familiar to her. She felt drawn to that - the newness, the promise of easing herself back into familiarity. Finally, she grinned and her sigh was one of relief before she cast her head back and let out a shrill cry for alpha or omega alike.