No matter how his heart may wrap around his chest like vines, sucking the breath from his lungs with the crushing loneliness and weight of his emotions, Cera cannot deny his baby sister anything. Even if he is still conflicted with how he feels in the wake of her departure (not a wake, a tsunami. something that topples and destroys and leaves devastation and despair. there are few survivors in its passing, and those who do are left crippled. he is crippled without her.) he cannot leave her standing on the horizon awaiting a brother who would never come. Because he always came for her, and he could not let his emotions get in the way of that vow now. 

The journey itself is ample distraction, and Ilaria keeps a steady stream of chatter from her side of the bond to keep him occupied. She knew him intimately, was aware of the pressure he felt exuding itself upon his frail frame. Close to caving in, hollow with his sister's loss. He was nothing without family, incapable of living as an individual. His purpose in life was his herd, his relatives. Midas had passed on, Ryuu had disappeared into the northern reaches, and now Ranjiri. Ilaria tried to soothe him, with her tiny paws and the warmth of her thick tail against the crest of his shoulder. Tried to distract with ideas of what he could ask Ranjiri when he saw her, wondering how much she'd already experienced in their short time apart. How much could truly change in so short a span of days? But it was a rhetorical question, because Cera knew that far too much could happen in a single crest of the sun to hope that Ranjiri's transition had gone smoothly. 

She is a gleaming onyx guardian, exactly where she'd said she'd be. Awaiting him beneath the scorching sunrays. He moves towards her helplessly, a smile already forming on his pale lips, no matter how tired it may appear. He could not sleep without her by his side, not yet. The change was too drastic after so long with someone by his side. The days were harder with few hours of sleep, and he slept during the day far more often now. The magnolia was often abandoned, because he could not bear to feel her absence where she should be when the moon rose in the sky. 

He seamlessly stepped up to embrace her with arched neck and enveloping wings. Her scent as familiar to him as the sun's consistency every morning. Stepping back he cast verdant eyes across her frame, checking for injuries and changes before meeting ruby eyes. 

"How are you, sister? Is the Falls treating you well?" Ilaria cooed her greeting from between Cera's wings, tail flicking pleasantly across the backs of his feathers as she allowed the siblings their reunion. But there was still something on Cera's mind, and it found its way naturally to his tongue. "What did you want to talk about?" For he assumed that was why she'd called him to this place.