He was the last one she had expected. Jinju had been no surprise, anyone else would have been a pleasant curiosity, but not Ruan. Never Ruan.

In her silent, knowing way she simply wanders. Those soft, brown toes of hers dig greedily into the carpet of pine and leaf while she rambles, fluidly, over root and hill into the darkest hearts of her homeland. Her eyes are kept low to skim the earth absentmindedly while she thinks of each homecoming before this one and she remembers: at every return, Ruan had been present - the silent, wary sort of guide she always seemed to chase but never catch. A ghost of the Taiga, her leader. Her Alpha. But he was nowhere now and yet, simultaneously, everywhere at once. Peering out with hooded eyes from behind a bloodred trunk, wisping through the shadows some feet ahead, coming towards her with eyes that equal her own astonishment…

When he sinks before her, prostrate in his disbelief, and buries that ebony nose so deeply into her scruff that she can feel the vibration of his wavering breath, Circinae exhales and allows her eyes to flutter near closed. She’s silent, willing the moment to stretch impossibly while her heart cries out wearily from her chest. Pain and pleasure are twins, two sides of an equal coin - He’s whole, healthy, and he’s come to her once more. She could drink him in, if he’d let her, but of course … of course he won’t.

His retreat leaves her weighted like a stone to the spot, but the sadness never touches her eyes, her lips, when they rise to meet his own. She’s still the little brown wolf to him, still the one who came when he called. She always would be. From atop her shoulders her sleek head tilts, that creamy tail placed distinctly above her hips waving slowly as she steps hesitantly forward and arches her back, skin undulating and rearranging while she shifts fluidly up to horse again. A breathy sigh escapes her lips upon completion, those bright eyes disappearing behind soft lashes while she takes him in again, wholly different. “I missed you.” The blue-framed mare admits. She’s too old and too worldly for skirting around the truth.

“Missed home most of all, though.” She murmurs with a grin. Around her are the sights and smells of comfort, commodities she dreamed of those lonely nights away, but she has no wish to look at them now - only to watch him carefully and measure the space between them. “Am I that scary?” She prompts with the same tell-all tilt to her head, indigo locks shrouding her gaze. Or is it something else that scares you…

The Alpha has never asked anything of her. A quiet understanding between leader and follower has always been their best suit, Circy knows this. Once, she’d dared to dream impossible things, but now the only impossibility was that she had even thought it might have worked. It’s a sharp sort of feeling, one that strikes home when his eyes narrow before her shift. She can’t decide if it makes her sad or happy.

Like a ghost. A ghost doesn’t feel though. “Thank you.” She replies with tact, knowing all too well what he meant. “The boys will be here soon enough. I have hopes for the youngest, Crevan, to perhaps stay.” Circy tells him, a warm grin flooding her face at the thought of them. Her small, dainty hooves draw her forward and lend sway to her still swollen belly, giving her a decidedly aged looked. A mare hardly bounces back from twins, Circinae herself has already settled into the idea that she might never take that same, youthful shape she once bore so well. A mark of a woman made, one she’s proud to wear. “He’s a wolf too, though he doesn’t know it yet.” She grins.

When she stills once more they’re parallel at the shoulder, eyes trained not upon each other anymore but out into the wild expanses of their home. Acres upon acres of freedom and comfort. “The other, Corvus, is too much like his father to be tied down just yet. A free sort of bird.” She chuckles, the tones warm and lulling. Give a colt a pair of wings and you’ll never see him again once he learns how to flap them. Circy is more than fond of her get, it’s obvious in the way her eyes glaze dreamily, the tender hint of affection when she describes them. Ruan, though, would know all about that. His children, nay family, were his life.

“I’m sorry for disappearing. It wasn’t by any design of my own, I can promise you that.” She scoffs, remembering the endless days and nights on that godforsaken shore. “Turns out I’m a teleporter.” She murmurs, eyes flickering as they turn to peer at him.