Finn dreamed. In that endless, physics defying space within all minds, she floundered in a blue ocean that stretched so far into the distance that she could not tell where the sky ended and the water began. She sank, little bubbles dancing up from her thrashing limbs, before she gained the surface once more and sucked in a hasty breath. And so it went, over and over again, till her lungs burned and her legs felt like lead in the water. Finally, she gave in, though her heart pounded in fear at the thought of sinking into that ineffable darkness. Glancing down, her last mouthful of air escaped with a gasp, as she saw her father, as lean and cruel as he had been in life, hanging on to her tail. Below him, her grandfather, below him, his father, each generation succeeding down into the cloudy murk. Finn looked up to see a grinning maw and icy blue eyes in a face not unlike her own, and she sank for good this time as she realized just who she was looking at.
Awakening with a snap and a snarl, Finn bumped her head on the low ceiling of her den and keeled over, dizzy and confused. Her head ached sharply, but her dream was fuzzing and slipping away faster than grains of sand through a sieve. Soon all that remained was the memory of blue, blue eyes. Her own, perhaps? The face they had sat in was like her own… Maybe. Finn ground her teeth and shook her head, getting back to her feet. Dreams were useless things, nonsense tarted up as realizations about oneself and the universe. She would have none of it! Stretching her whip-thin body, and smacking her jaws at the taste of dirt that had crept into her mouth while she slept, Finn peered out of the small entrance to her new home.
Home. That was a funny word. She hadn’t expected to find it so readily on her tongue. But this was home, at least as long as the pack here tolerated her, and she would enjoy it while she could. Finn took in a deep breath through her nose, mentally shifting through all the different scents. There was one she recognized, Naniko’s, but the rest were shrouded in mystery, as she had not met their owners yet. Finn could also catch the faint whiff of Alastair, since she was so close to the mouth of the warren. He was likely a little anxious at these new developments. Up until this point the pair had journeyed closely together for years. Finn turned back into her den and onwards to the little cubby where she had made her bed. There wasn’t much to see except dirt and a bit of straw, but something glittered with colour even in the darkness.
It was a red ribbon, brilliant as blood. Finn had recovered it as she was cleaning out the place. Perhaps it had belonged to a previous occupant, perhaps an enthusiastic magpie had carried it in. No matter, it belonged to the she-wolf now, and she knew just what to do with it. She picked the cloth up carefully between her teeth, and loped out into the woods that surrounded the entrance to Anathema’s caves. Alastair stood amongst the trees, looking worried. Finn paused, wagging her stump of a tail to let him know the coast was clear, and he trotted out to meet her. He must have been truly concerned indeed, for he pushed close to Finn, trying to affectionately butt heads with her as he had seen canines do, nearly taking out her eyes with his antlers in the process.
“Here, here, you silly beastie.” Finn muttered from around the ribbon. He kept his head low, and Finn tossed the cloth up into his tines, wrapping it and tangling it so even the fiercest wind could not shake it loose. She sat back to admire her handiwork. The red shone in the bleak daylight, caught in Alastair’s antlers like a banner. Even the deer seemed rather proud of his new accessory, tossing his head lightly and prancing in a small circle about Finn. She laughed, the sound sending a few nesting grouse to the air with it’s abrupt harshness. “Get you gone, now.” She said, nudging the deer back to the woods, “I’m not sure if they’ll allow something so much like prey near here, but at least that ribbon might give a hunter pause if they are stalking you.”