The banking fog of a soon-to-be winter treads on catpaws over the springy earth of Taiga. It swells en mass before plunging past the barriers of sanguine trees to spread like so many tendrils through Circy’s pleasant home until, eventually, it dips into a shallow valley and encroaches past the opening of a private den she’s dug for herself. There, curled tight into herself while warmth radiates beneath the tangle of bloodred roots, is where she first learns that Ruan has finally become shadow and shade himself. A sound awakens her - in an instant both furred ears are alert and that wolfish head is turned to the rounded entrance of her dugout, the fur along her topline rigid with the knowledge that such a call was very unlike her Alpha.
It doesn’t even take the semblance of a thought to drive her out swiftly into the open, her legs grouping together underneath her belly as her back rounds and flattens with the rolling motion of a lope. The fog around her distorts her orientation but she could never be lost in a place so dear to her, every turn of paw or bend of her body comes so naturally from the years spent running these trails. So why, then, does her heart slam against her chest when the sound of another, more familiar (yet all the same more disturbing), howl rises in cadence to reply to the first call?
Her eyes give her answers as she slips from the sticky curtain of air and into the widened clearing where Gryffen and Thana wait.
The little brown wolf could howl with sorrow over the loss of Ruan, could easily gnash her ivory teeth and slather at the mouth like her mad dog brother, could even be tempted to rouse her sons (wherever they may be - thank the gods it isn’t Taiga for once) in a wasted attempt at a coup. It would serve the proudflesh of a stallion right, to have that unwitting smirk ripped clean from his face.
But Circinae is a different creature altogether.
She rises languidly from her canine shape; Circy eases a few steps forward and her body re-shapes itself neatly, quickly, to take her true form. Along the curvature of her spine and dotted about the sweet spots of her hips and shoulders the wetness of the fog clings like thousands of glimmering crystals, plastering her navy mane against her neck while her cautious, bright eyes glance between the two. “I know nothing of either of you, so what you say may or may not hold weight here.” She begins softly, “Time will be the judge of that.”
“On the same hand,” She muses, tilting her viridian head, “Neither of you know me. So we begin, perhaps, on the same footing.”
“Welcome to Taiga. They call me Circinae here and I think you’ll be wanting me around, if you’re half as glorious as you think yourself to be.” She simpers, feeling bile rise at the back of her mouth. “Hard to rule a kingdom with no one to rule.”
Circinae has Water Teleportation and Wolf Shifting.
Crevan will probably stay but timeline-wise he hasn't returned home. He has Wolf shifting, Fire Breathing, and Regenerative Healing.