---

Saga was restless.

Saga was scared.

She was endlessly glad to be home, though already she felt restless; weeks of travel had left her feeling strong, as muscles Nyra had trained into existence honed further and pounds shed away. She had become used to the constant movement, thought in another life she might've enjoyed it if she didn't have so much to worry about here now. Jaxxon, of course, would never leave Jakten. Her children, she would not ask to leave for her sake. Her siblings, so new here -- Rurik wanted a new start, and while she suspected he would uproot easy enough, Snuh had already in their short time back begun to smell of Kane. And Melanthe! Saga had taken her under a protective wing but had to entrust her comfort and labor to those she left behind in order to search for the girls. No doubt she would and possibly had made friends already, but it felt wrong of Saga. Like she'd been a bad host, or worse, a bad friend.

Saga so badly wanted a friend. One that wasn't making doe eyes at her husband or hadn't once moaned his name, one that wasn't using her or laughing at her, one that was... hers. One that was dear to her heart, had never wronged or hurt her. In her four, four and a half years of life, she'd never had someone that checked all those boxes. Not her parents, not one of her many siblings, not her mate (her children didn't count), not anybody she'd grown up with or come to live beside here in Mythris.
Not one.
Sure, many had apologized and she had learned to forgive and move on. But she never forgot - and for just a moment, she wanted to sit with someone and forget her hurts and worries. She was on good terms with two of her siblings, far away from the rest of her family, with a loving mate and family around her. Children she'd borne and children she'd raised all the same, a home to tend, skills she could claim; all her own, this life she never even dared imagined could exist let alone might come for her one day.
Yet Saga yearned for more.
For peace, an ease of heart she had never known.

So, now that Eldritch had kicked the infection from her wounds and Saga once again regained her energy, she was striking out. Should she have been? Not really. Did it hurt? Badly. But she had to keep moving as she well knew as a healer herself, and gentle walking would not open her wounds so easily at this point in her healing. Besides... her entire underside and half her face was plastered in herbal paste and cobwebs to keep everything in place, wounds and medicine alike. She would not die. And besides -- Jaxxon was almost always on her tail, and if he wasn't, someone else was. If she passed out while on a walk, someone would find her quickly. If Joxer melted from the mist and grabbed her throat between his jaws again, perhaps she was not so far from others that she could not be saved this time. Or perhaps he would succeed the next time he got paws on her.

Melanthe's scent was easy enough to follow back to her den, but it took Saga some time to get there, limping along in her condition. But determination brought her forward, and she had to make sure her friend knew that Sedat had been found! She hadn't found his scent yet telling that he'd arrived already, which she imagined he must have, but... perhaps he hadn't. Maybe things were more complicated than the surface showed -something she had suspected since the dark woman's initial request to invite him here- and the grey man had not yet shown his face. Should she tell her he had been found, if she didn't -- no, of course she would ask.

Saga chuffed as the den came into view, with its scents of milk and puppy paws, and her lips curled in a small smile along the uninjured side of her face.