As Rick explained the names, Hilana repeated his explanations, a barely audible murmur. Aijin for lover, part of his heart. Shinzo. Ikari for wrath, with an attitude. And Kaminari, for loudness and energy. Thunder. “Maybe he was born in a storm,” the girl offered. She had been, though it was considered a bad omen in Solunarium. “Is that considered to be a good sign, where you are from?” Her head tilted with curiosity. As he named them, with such descriptions and explanations… she wondered if they were people in the waking world, too. Perhaps they were. Or perhaps he dreamed enough for them to be regularly present. “They are beautiful, and I am glad that you have your pack. We all need one, don’t we?”
She listened as he talked about the missing members of his pack, her big brown eyes never leaving his face as she considered. They had only been taken from him because they were already separated. “They will find their way back to you,” she said with a nod. “It may take a while. But you will be together again and your pack will be as it should be. But the waiting is the hardest part,” the look on her face seemed to suggest that was certainly the hardest part for her. “My grandmother always told me that water never waits,” Hilana was reflective. “Listen for the packsong.”
The Vastiana nodded as he explained how he had arrived at that well-made informed guess. “I’ve been told by some of my uncles that I am not a hot mess, but I am a spicy disaster,” she at least looked a bit embarrassed at that admission, but the girl was honest and there was no guile to her in that admission. Inasmuch as she did her best to prepare when she went somewhere... Hilana sometimes attracted trouble. While the last two years had been largely uneventful while she was in Tertium, now that she had some free rein again...
When he explained that she needed to be spiritually open to this, the girl considered, and nodded solemnly. What harm could it do? At Rick’s instructions, the girl closed her eyes and lowered her hands down, palms open, in case the wolves that clustered around the girl and the Wolf wanted them, too. But with that, she breathed, her stance calm and relaxed, focusing on Rick. On his scent, on how close he was to her, on how tall he was. What he looked like, on his clothes, the colour of his hair, the colour of his eyes, and what he sounded like. On the emotions that had come out while they talked, on the way he smirked and smiled.
That was a bit of a funny feeling, and the girl wasn’t convinced that it hadn’t been part of the Dream, but perhaps it was indeed something more. For when he spoke again, she opened her eyes and looked up at him, smiling back up at him. “Gratias. I thank you,” she told him, bowing her head to him. She didn’t have any such gifts that she could give in exchange; not a girl like her, but in time... perhaps she would. “I can whistle,” she chuckled. “But I cannot say your pack would like it if I did right now, would you?” she smiled down at the enormous beasts with their thick fur and bright eyes. “But if I whistle, then I will do my best to make sure that I have something on hand to return the favour with,” she found his much larger hands in hers and squeezed them. As different as they were in size, the girl had some grip to her - she worked hard, and there was perhaps some muscle underneath the soft dusky skin and those curves.
“Is it true that sound carries more in the north because it is so cold?” Hilana asked him. “I heard from a sailor in the port when I was young that it got so cold up the northlands that you could hear someone talking from ten miles away.”
