Apparently, Kiva had been correct.

She had expected that eventually someone would notice the unfamiliar wolf sitting conspicuously close to occupied territory and come investigate. It was practically inevitable. Borders attracted questions, and Kiva had positioned herself close enough to inspire them while remaining far enough away that nobody could reasonably accuse her of trespassing.

What she had not expected was for the approaching stranger to be familiar. Her ears turned toward the voice first. Kiva glanced over one shoulder, already arranging something appropriately harmless upon her features, and froze. Oh. It was him. For a moment, she simply stared.

There was no field of unnaturally beautiful flowers surrounding him this time. No strange heaviness pressing itself into her chest, either, no inexplicable grief dragging memories from places Kiva preferred to keep firmly barricaded. Just salt on the wind, the distant roar of the ocean, and the very large dark wolf she’d last encountered while both of them had been having what could generously be described as an absolutely terrible afternoon.

Kiva’s gaze flicked briefly over him. He looked considerably less miserable. Good.

The relief came quickly enough to surprise her. Their previous encounter had been brief, strange, and largely spent under the influence of something neither of them had understood, but she remembered the way his expression had changed among those flowers. Whatever memories they had dragged from him had hurt, and badly.

Apparently, that was enough for some quiet part of her to have wondered what became of him afterward. Naturally, Kiva responded to this realization by immediately making fun of him. Her ears tipped forward. “Oh, good. You’re not close to crying this time.” A few heartbeats passed. Perhaps there were better ways to greet someone. Foot, meet mouth. Oh wait, you’re already very well acquainted.

Kiva considered this possibility very seriously for around half a second before deciding it was far too late now. The corner of her mouth twitched upward. “And there aren’t any suspicious flowers nearby, so I think we’re already doing considerably better than last time.” She guessed she was just digging a deeper hole for herself. Ah well. Only then did his actual question seem to catch up with her. Wedding party?

Kiva blinked, and then her gaze shifted past him as though a wedding might materialize somewhere behind his shoulder if she looked hard enough. There was ocean. Cliffs. Grass. Several distant scents belonging to wolves she had never met.

No obvious brides around. She looked back at him. “There’s a wedding?” The question escaped with enough genuine surprise to immediately answer his own. Kiva straightened slightly from where she’d been sitting, glancing inland once more with renewed interest.

Well. That explained absolutely nothing. “No. Definitely not,” she hummed before her attention returned to Raelan. “Unless weddings here traditionally involve sitting alone near a cliff and hoping somebody eventually comes over to investigate. In which case, apparently I’m doing an excellent job.”

She shifted onto all fours, giving herself a quick shake as the wind pushed her coat in entirely the wrong direction. There was something oddly reassuring about seeing a familiar face, even one she had only met once. Mythris had been filled with strangers since she’d arrived. Every interaction began from nothing: unfamiliar scents, unfamiliar names, unfamiliar histories. Raelan, at least, was only mostly a stranger. That counted for something, didn’t it?

“Kiva,” she added, because she couldn’t actually remember whether they’d gotten as far as trading names before the flowers had decided emotional devastation was a reasonable substitute for conversation. “Ya know, in case we skipped that part while the plants were mentally tormenting us.” Her gaze moved over him once more, more deliberately this time. He really did seem better. She wouldn’t ask. Not yet.

Instead, her expression softened almost imperceptibly beneath the humor. “You look better, by the way.” There. That was sufficiently vague. Before the sentiment could sit between them long enough to become uncomfortable, Kiva promptly ruined it. “Still terrible at identifying wedding guests, apparently, but better.”