He is Ghost

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As they got closer Neira pressed her stomach into the dirt, the only sign of respect she could muster. Her mother reached her first and dragged her white nose through Neira's red pelt. And then her icy eyes were on the ledge a few hundred paces back. As she knew they would, her mother had scented her companions on her fur.

This would be a stroke of luck, if her mother welcomed these wolves here. They never took visitors, even when she was a pup. No one was welcomed over the mountain, perhaps maybe Elias. He had stayed for a while after his parents were assassinated. But her mother nodded her head, ears flattened ever so slightly.

With her mother's permission she slipped back over the edge of rock to where Shade and River waited. They held her clothes out to her and she changed into human skin and clothes as quickly as she could before scrambling back up the rock. River and Shade on her heels.

Her mother had shifted as well, wrapped in a fur much the same as the one dropped over her fathers. Caribou.

The two sentry's remained as wolves sitting on either side of her parents, her father in the centre. Her mother stood a pace behind him, as if to say 'pay attention to him, not me'.

It wouldn't work she knew. Her mother was a vision of the north. Her skin was pale and her hair was white, her cheeks kissed with the cold. Her light icy eyes narrowed on the three of them, lingering on Shade. She was the vision from her childhood, the last shred of the northern kingdom.

Neira should have come out much like her, white and frosty like winter snow as all the females before her had. Seemed the goddess finally let go of those traditions, giving her the rich red of her father's colouring. Camouflage. If she'd been the white wolf her mother had intended, perhaps Neira would have died long ago.

This was the moment she's been waiting for though. To stand before her parents once again, to see them and this harsh territory. She hadn't even said goodbye when she left, slipping away in the night unnoticed. Maybe they had let her go.

"Neira," her mother said, her voice like velvet as it rode the wind to her ears. "What reason do you have to bring outsiders into our territory?" Her shoulder still hid behind her fathers, shadowing. She was okay the meek alpha female, head down. This was her stage, and her mother might have been the best actress she'd ever met.

Her mother wasn't an idiot, neither were the males she brought with her. She knew this had been a gamble. "They are my pack," Neira answered, her chin high. It was the opposite game her mother was playing. Her mother hid, trying to dispel the notion that she was alpha here. Neira did no such thing. She'd asked Shade to trust her, to lead this the way she saw fit. So now he stood, just behind her right shoulder, River on her left. "I ask for their acceptance along with my own."

Her father's head dipper, his eyes on the males. "And if we decline?"

Neira raised her chin. "Then we will go."

Both her parents blinked. Perhaps she'd given her own hand too much credit.

"Neira I urge you, is this wise?" It was her mother's voice now, her eyes pleading.

Neira wouldn't back down, not now. They had come with her all the way up here, they had held her back though everything. She trusted them, as much as she'd trusted anyone. If her parents wouldn't welcome them all, she would go back to the funny cabins with the big windows.

"We can leave," Neira said, drips of resignation filling her words.

"No," her father said. "Stay. That won't be necessary." He took a step towards her, his harsh and tight face making him seem cruel. Neira knew better. Even as River's shoulder bunched with supposed threat, Neira took a step towards him. And then her father's arms when around her shoulders. "I missed you daughter," he said, his lips pressing into her hair. The same colour as his own.

When he pulled away, her father's eyes went to the males at her back. "Evander," he said, his hard eyes levelling each one with a look. "This is my mate Lumi." A shortened version of her mother's full name.

"This is River," Shade said, his black eyes meeting her father hazel. "I am Shade."

"Come," her father said turning away. "Im sure you are hungry."

The males stepped around her, the sentry's pushing them up the hill behind her father.

Only Neira and her mother stood on the frozen peak. They stared at each other for long moments, long after the other's had disappeared from sight.

"Mom," Neira said, still holding her mothers frozen stare.

"I feared you were dead." Her words were flat, even with the velvety tone. "I have so many things I want to ask you."

Neira began moving towards her. "I will answer everything," Neira said, finally standing before her mother again.

Lumi reached out and closed her fingers over Neira's before pulling her daughter in for a hug at last. Over Lumineye's shoulder, a shadow almost as familiar as her own wavered. Checking she knew, to make sure she was okay.

She gave Shadow a light smile as a single tear pricked her eyes. He seemed to smile back, his form wavering for a moment as words filled her head. She worried for a moment that her mother had heard the Shadow thing speak, but her mother stayed still, clutching Neira to her chest.

She stood with her mother on that flat chunk of ice, Shadows words calming her.

Welcome home, love.