March was as furious as the previous month in terms of temperature, though thankfully, they had received little snow on top of the torrent dumped on them some weeks ago. The hybrid woman still clearly recalled being dug from her cave, of course, but she preferred not to remember the aftermath and the other damages done to the clan, instead reflecting on the bonding time spent with China. The silver-shaded hybrid could never really get enough of her grand-daughters; their presence was soothing and calming to her, much the same as their father's.

The old woman trotted through the snow with surprising ease, made limber and flexible by the substances provided by these very same granddaughters. Without it, the Centurion feared her arthritis might have the best of her. In the morning, it was difficult to stand, as it was. She would be twelve this year, and she felt this with every bone and tendon in her body. Despite the monochrome hybrid's acute knowledge of her own age, it was not apparent from her gait nor her face -- her mostly-pale muzzle had survived graying remarkably well, and only the russet streak had gone gray-white, ticked with a salty color that it had lacked in its youth.

Still, despite her age and what she had been through, the grizzled Luperci refused to cease tending to her duties where Inferni was concerned, and thus her reason for the patrol today. Her Optime form was not the preferred method of travel, but it seemed to move easier in the snow for her, and so she had taken to it lately. Though the going was slower, the silver-shaded hybrid did not patrol the entire border for hours on end as she once had. Inferni was quite stocked with limber, youthful individuals, and the coyote simply did not need to devote the time she had once given to the perimeter of the territory.

The hybrid's long legs made traveling through the snow more easy than if she had been in her four-legged form, though it was not as thick in the forest as it was on the open plains of the Waste. This she was thankful for, especially as the call of a wolf rose into the air, beckoning her toward it. She did not recognize this voice, and hesitated just a moment, considering the clearly female voice upon the wind. She did not think she had many enemies -- Anathema had been quiet as of late. Perhaps against her better judgment, the silvery Centurion made her way toward the source of the sound, trotting through the snow and moving through the forest with a laid-back ease to her movements.

It was not long before a faintly familiar scent and the smell of a stranger entered the woman's nose. She knew one, though the name did not immediately register within the old woman's mind. It had been a long time since she had met the wolf, though she recognized Phoenix Valley on the fur of the pair of canines both. There was no agitation between the coyotes and these wolves at the moment; since the fiasco with Haku, they had rightly gone back to ignoring one another. Yet the scarred hybrid knew -- she owed Jefferson. She owed him a whole lot, as he had been obligated to do jack for her upon the borders when he'd found her, torn and bleeding. The least she could do was amiably meet his packmembers at her doorstep.

The old coyote slowed to a trot as she approached the pair, single eye looking from Optime to Secui, studying each for a moment. The woman's name came to her -- Rendall. She recognized that fur, the glinting steely-blue color that she had seen nowhere else in her long life. She had last met Rendall in her Lupus form, and the hybrid woman regarded with hidden envy the spry litheness of her two-legged form. There was not a single epicene quality to her figure, yet there was strength behind it, still.

Kaena stopped several yards away from the pair, her sable ears pricked in interest, her tail wavering twice in a friendly greeting. “What can I do for you?” It was a far more friendly greeting than she might have given to others, but she did owe Jefferson, and Rendall did not seem to hold any animosity in her heart toward Kaena. The stranger, a male, was regarded with more caution, though she had extended to him the same wag of her tail in greeting, and addressed both of them.