If I was to look, and I mean truly look, at those who surrounded me now, what would I find? Would I find friendship or acquaintances, sisterhood or mere allies? These were the kinds of questions that so often interrupted my dreams with their heaviness and doubt. However, no matter how I tried to turn the image, I found no snags in the paper and no lines upon the surface… I felt safe. That was something I’d been searching for it seemed, no matter how far I thought I had to wander to find it. I’d been mistaken like so many times before, because everything in my heart that mattered was right here in Helovia. These faces were the ones that meant the most and I was torn between again joining Elsa in her pursuits to support the Edge or return once more with Ghost to the Throat. After all, the Cadaverous was in fact my mentor and teacher… perhaps it was time I resumed my place beneath her wing. Ghost had never led me astray and that was a fact that I’d been clinging to since she’d arrived. We were creatures cut of the same cloth in some regards and our hearts beat for the mystery behind the hunt and not the chase itself.

However, Elsa had shown me the difference between duty and family. She had given me purpose while in the Falls and taught me that my servitude was not for my own benefit, but for the benefit of the whole. So, while Ghost entertained the Edge’s new General, I mulled over my decisions looking for answers that I wasn’t sure I’d find.

I listened patiently as Elsa explained the new leadership in the World’s Edge and nodded distractedly when she named the lucky bloke strong enough to defy the Moon’s enigmatic hold over the land and sea. Yet, I missed the everlasting heat of the South and the way the sand seemed to stretch across the desert plains in waves of rich beige. They were an old string of souls that somehow came together as some of the most renowned warriors in Helovia, but was I the kind of creature who took pleasure in so much light? “Tembovu… interesting name I suppose,” I added as an afterthought and feeble attempt to rejoin the conversation. “I assume Gaucho still reigns in the South?” I questioned of the Cadaverous while glancing toward Romul, who blissfully ignored my attempts to weigh his own opinions on the matter. The wolf was certainly more pleased with his new companion than he’d been with my many questionable endeavors throughout the past few years.

The Cadaverous had admitted her rise to my old position, but I felt no malice toward her for doing what she did best. Perhaps her rise to power would allow me to follow in her footsteps once again…

“You said the desert would welcome me back?” I finally blurted with little remorse. Clearly I hadn’t been following their adherence to proper banter and the like, but surely they’d come to know me well enough by now. I was certainly not Elsa when it came to how I lived my life, although at times I tried to be… “If that’s the case, I’d like to return and hopefully make up for the time I was away.” Perhaps it didn’t matter that I’d disappeared for a time… perhaps they’d understand my woes once again.