Though the silver-furred Centurion did not subscribe to notions such as faith, there was some amount of belief that Inferni held an almost magnetic power. Maybe her return had added to this, as she had personally seen more of her own family come and go in the past six months than she had even thought possible. The coyote woman did not know anything for certain, but a certain joy had filled her upon recognizing Corona's scent, even if they didn't have the closest relationship. There was no unquestioning, unwavering love here as with Molochai and Samael, but for all the reasons Kaena valued that in them, she was glad she did not find it here. A tearfelt, overjoyed reunion would have been wrong; it would have felt almost false to her.
The golden-furred coyote's sentiment was not lost on Kaena; she knew this to be true. It did not help her any. She was a creature of the past, and as much as she immersed herself in it, she had learned that one could never, ever change what happened. No matter how much she might have wanted to go back and take care of her children and do right by them, it simply was not happening. There was no device invented to travel through time and there never would be; if humans had not invented it the technology certainly would not come about due to the Luperci. "Can't change the past," she agreed, rolling her coal-dusted shoulders in a shrug. No matter how badly the silver-furred coyote wanted to fix things—and there were many things she would have liked to fix—it was an impossibility.
There was something almost like a smirk on the silver-furred coyote's mouth at Corona's statement, though it was certain embittered as well as proud. Life had never been kind to her—yet here she stood, many years to the day after death had first come to her. Maybe she had never flourished, maybe she had never been able to find any sort of peace, but at least she had survived. "No. When was it ever? At least the same can't be said for you," the hybrid offered. It was true; the golden-furred woman looked no worse than the last time Kaena could remember her; indeed, the hybrid did not appear to have suffered, at least not physically. Age had been kind to her. There were only brief periods of time where life had been good for the silver furred hybrid, and a large span of that time was directly connected to the tawny coyote before her. There were a few short months, maybe even weeks, when they had been young and Ahren had been by her side. Maybe that was the longest time that Kaena had ever known a sort of peace—even then, there had been the creeping sensation that something would come crawling back to steal it away from her, and it had come in several forms that time. Wolves had stolen Ikatha and Baneesh at their borders, and Ahren had left Inferni for Chimera, along with Corona. It did not matter where she had gone then, for she was here now. "What's brought you back?" the silvery hybrid asked, curious to know. Had Corona become a drifter, wandering the world?