For Dune, it was a lot harder to find the food storage when every inch of the oasis was inhabited by creatures big and small. It was like trying to find a path led by bushes and trees too tall to see over. But once she saw the piles of carcasses, seafood and herbs, Dune sped up, tripping on tails and claws and smaller creatures, constantly apologizing.
She saw Armolten talking with the same valkurse from before the fight while Arche was digging through the food pile, seemingly looking for something specific. Large tier five creatures kept bringing in more bodies and adding to the pile. There seemed to be enough food for all the carnivores and omnivores to eat for two weeks. And there were still many bodies left to collect.
"Guys!" Dune shouted, jumping over the tail of a kendyll. Dune still kept forgetting that they were quadrupedals now. They reminded her of nymphasuchases.
Arche and Armolten looked up from their distractions. The other valkurse just glanced up and reached over and pulled out a minawii. Dune guessed he just wanted to get necro'd.
"Dune!" Arche was the first to react, dropping the food he was holding and running to her. He skidded to a halt in front of her and looked her up and down. "Are you ok? You're not hurt, right?" He asked, walking around her, inspecting her carefully.
"I'm fine, really," Dune assured him, holding her front talons up and pushing Arche away. "You guys aren't hurt, are you?"
Armolten walked over more carefully to both of them. "Arche, Vreex and I fought together because we had no idea where you had gone." She explained, shaking her head. Dune saw that she had lots of sand in her flaming mane, and lots of it dropped on the sand as glass raindrop shapes. Dune thought they were pretty and reached for them, collecting them and keeping as many of them as under her shoulder.
"Yeah, I actually got banged up pretty bad against a teen Sar'Hingaro," Arche admitted, looking at his body and using his tail to point out large cuts and scars that were definitely healed by an ani. Dune didn't know how she didn't see them earlier.
Stepping forward, Dune brushed her neck against his. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here helping you guys," she said. She could feel Arche tense a bit before relaxing. "I was busy fighting my own battles and, uh, getting everyone to stop fighting."
"Wait, you got everyone to settle a truce?" Armolten asked, her eyes widening. Her fiery tail wavered.
"Technically I was Aire. I just suggested it to her and that Sar'Hingaro," Dune replied.
"Still, you risked life and death by doing that," Arche said, smiling. It filled Dune with pride for some reason.
She lay down in the sand and stretched. "Well, I didn't want a world-clashing war to go on any longer than it had," Dune said simply.
The trio sat in awkward silence before Arche finally spoke up. "Heyyy, so uh, you know how we were in, like, heaven? With the Goddess of Sonaria that gave us these new bodies?"
Dune looked up at him skeptically. "Yeah...?" She wavered one front foot in the air to tell Arche to keep talking.
"Aaaand you know how there was this group of sandy colored knalrikies? And two of them were your parents?"
Cocking her head to the side, Dune narrowed her brows at Arche, who gave her an awkward smile.
Suddenly, Dune's gut filled with dread and her expression changed. Is he implying they're-
Arche leaped forward, reaching one forearm as if to stop her thoughts right then and there, and it worked. "They're okay!" he reassured. "They're actually near oasis waiting for you after hearing of the war! They're waiting near the river border for you."
Dune was silent for a few moments. Finally, she said something. "They're... waiting for me?"
"They were very persistent in knowing your whereabouts," Armolten pointed out, shrugging. "They recognized Arche and kept dumping questions on us both. 'Where is she?' and 'Is she ok?' and also 'Why didn't she fight with you guys? Aren't you her friends' and blah blah." Armolten rolled her eyes and let out an over dramatic sigh. "I mean they acted as if you had ran away from them and were trying to get back into contact!"
"Well, I didn't run away," Dune pointed out. "I was merely kicked out from the pack because they didn't need an extra mouth to feed. Besides, it happens all the time with eggs that hatch in a full pack, we're fine on our own as babies too, and us nomads come together to create our own packs." She thought for a moment, wondering why they were trying so hard to find her now, of all times. It's weird...
She just stood up and looked at the sky. Streaks of pink clouds in a beautiful rose red sky, with the sun rising slowly over the Uncharted Icelands. "I suppose there's still time till Aire and the Sarh'Hingaro leader reach an agreement," Dune muttered to herself, but still seemingly loud enough for both her friends to hear. "I'll go and see them and see what they want. Maybe they want to reconcile for something, but I'm not sure what."
Arche nodded while Armolten stood up after seeing her little 'friend' acting strangely and stumbling around near larger creatures. Dune almost laughed when Armolten compared him to a blind swimming kendyll.
"Alright well while that happens I'll be off. See ya!" Dune said before bounding off to find her parents, easily navigating and dodging creatures big and small till she reached the end of the crowd and ran over sand dunes. Dune started to have a weird sense of Déjà vu, remembering that she was running in this same direction, over the same dunes to fing Gher. Now she was running them to find her parents.
For some reason, she was both giddy and skeptical. Mixed feelings of both.
On the one claw, her parents! She was about to meet them after nine whole years! And maybe even the rest of her pack too. She only vaguely remembered her mother, and even less so, her father. All she remembered was her being abandoned. And she knew now that was natural.
On the other claw, why would they just suddenly want to reach out to her after so long? It had to be suspicious. Full SandSwept knalrikies naturally abandon their kids because they can't care for them. It was weird to say the least.
After almost thirteen minutes of running, the sunrise had started to turn the sky a pastel yellow and blue. And up ahead, Dune could see the plains across the river. And sitting on the crosswalk connecting the two lands, sat her parents. They were sharing what seemed to be an elder kriffin. Dune knew kriffins didn't normally live in the desert, so she wondered how they knew how to catch it.
Once Dune's running slowed down to a pace, her mother looked up and smiled. Dune couldn't be rude and smiled back.
"Dunebug!" Her mother shouted gleefully, standing up and running over to throw her forearms around Dune.
Confused, Dune shifted her neck back to look at her mother. "Dunebug?" She asked. "
"It's the nickname me and your father had come up with before we... realized we couldn't keep you," her mother said. She let go of Dune and gave her some distance. Dune's father had now walked up to the both of them.
"We truly did miss you every day," Her father said. "Do you remember our names?"
Dune shook her head. "No, I don't," she replied, looking down at her claws in the sand. She felt kind of bad for not knowing the names of her parents and muttered a 'sorry'.
Her father brought his neck down to her head level. "You have no reason to be sorry," he says, smiling. Dune felt reassured and smiled faintly in return. "May as well introduce ourselves now. I'm Kellion, and your mother's name is Fylan."
"Kellion?" Dune asked, laughing a bit. "Like, as in replacing one letter from hellion? Were you named after the warden?"
"Of course not!" Kellion said, faking an offended gasp and placing his talons over where his heart was. "It was my great-great grandfather's name! He was a very noble leader, might I add."
Fylan's head moved as if she had rolled her eyes (if she had any) and nudged him. "Well, let's hope you're just as good a leader as he was," she said.
"Oh, you don't think I will be?" He replied to his mate, moving closer to rub his neck against hers'. "Now that I am the leader, we'll have a new addition to our lovely pack!"
Dune's brows scrunched up at what her father had said before smiling widely, a wild guess popping up. "Oh my aereis, are you expecting eggs?"
Kellion shook his head. "Oh no, me and your mother are far too old to have any more offspring," he explained.
"Then... what did you mean by having a 'new addition' if it didn't mean having more kids?"
Her parents looked at each other, both with different smiles. Kellion seemed to have an awkward grin whereas Fylan seemed very excited.
"Dear, we have plenty of space for more members of our pack, and me and your father want you to join!" Fylan said, clasping her front talons together. "You'll finally be a part of our family after so many years. Isn't that great?"
It was, in fact, very hard for Dune to process this. They only wanted to see me was to bring her into a pack? Was that the only reason?
But I'd be a part of a pack, another thought intervened. You've wanted one for so long, and now you're being offered one.
"Well?" Kellion asked, interrupting her thoughts.
"I..." Dune trailed off. She wanted to say yes. Not only would she be in a pack, she'd be with her parents. Dune knew they weren't bad parents either. So why would I say no?
Because you're already in a pack, she realized. Aire, the leader and significant other. Arche, Armolten and (maybe) Sane, the defenders. And Obel and Nyme, the kids. Maybe the two would see me as their second mother at some point.
I am in a pack, Dune told herself.
"Sorry, mother. Father," Dune said, shaking her head and standing up. She hadn't even realized she was sitting. "I'm already in a pack, and I just hope you can respect that."
"Oh, of course we will, Dunebug," Fylan said. Dune felt a bit of weight lift from her shoulders.
Kellion went forward to stand in front of Dune, giving her a slow nod and patting her shouder with one forehand. "As much as it hurts to see my daughter in another pack," He began, standing taller than her. "It brings me just as much joy to know you're finally in one."
"Thanks, dad," Dune said, feeling the need to bow at him, stepping back a bit so she had room to kneel downward and lowered her head to the ground. "I'd love for you to keep being my parents throughout all of this."
"And that we will," Fylan said, coming close enough to hug Dune. Dune returned the favor and felt Kellion join in.
The three stood like that for many moments. Dune would have cried tears if she had eyes. The feeling of closure and relief had hit her like a tornado. So many years of wanting to reconnect with the two who gave her life, and it's happening. Meeting her parents who turned out to be awesome, realizing she had always been in a pack, finding love, and, maybe, bringing peace to Sonaira for good. It all felt way too surreal that Dune thought that this was the doing of one of the gods.
Eventually, her parents made space between her. Before Dune could say her goodbye, Fylan spoke up. "Do you remember where I put you when you hatched?" She asked.
"The pillared mountain? Yeah, why?" Dune asked. She realized that that mountain was the same one where she met Dune. It felt symbolic to her now.
"That's where me and your father are living, our new pack will be there once we get more members," Fylan explained. "If you ever want to see us, that's where we'll live from here on out."
Dune smiled and nodded. "I'm glad it's so close to Skeleton's Mesa, or Oasis if you call it that." Dune said. "And I'd actually better hurry there, I don't want to miss what the Ai- uh, the new leader and the Sar'Hingaro General have to say about their maybe peace treaty."
"Well then you'd better hurry on over!" Kellion said, flicking his tail to signal her to get going. "We want to hear about it when you come to visit us next."
"Alright, I'll go! Loveyoubye!" Dune said in a rush, starting to run for oasis. She heard her parents say their goodbye as she ran for the oasis, the sky a beautiful yellow/blue. Dune felt like she could run from here to the volcano with how much energy she had. But she had to be there to know what Aire and Skirra/Rhias/Amara had to say.