Oliza looked at Ulrik's sleeping face and only hoped that he would not be hurt. Her people needed her more than Ulrik needed her and she could not leave them down after many years of hope and dreams. Her fingers delicately brushed a strand of hair from his face as her heart began to break. Her time to leave had come.
She flexed her arms slowly until she could feel that they were ready to be put to the test. The flight was going to be long and hard and she would need all the strength she had to get there as soon as she could.
She walked through the forest, taking in everything in her sight and reassuring herself that her decision was the right one. She would begin her flight when she reached the edge of the cliff that looked down towards a large lake. The sky was beginning to show the first signs of morning as the sun began to wake. The stars and moon were now receding back to let the clouds and sun take over.
Slowly, she shifted into her hawks form and spread her wings, lightly hoping on the ground to catch air under her wings. With one last thought of Ulrik, she took flight towards Wyvern's Nest and headed back to her people and her home. She had not flown very far when she heard a wolf calling out to the skies, but this time, instead of the moon, Ulrik was calling out to her.
Oliza reached Wyvern's Court by nightfall and was immediately greeted by guards who followed by her parents and then Avaram. Her father was the first to notice the exhaustion on her face and pulled Oliza close to him in relief. Oliza sighed in tiredly but happy to be home as she fell into her father's embrace. She was being attended from all directions. Her mother stayed close by her side at all times and her father not once let her go. She had missed all of them terribly. For a moment, she felt like a small nestling, protected from every direction and innocent of everything.
Avaram, on the other hand, stood back to let her family greet her back. Nonetheless, he too was relieved to see that she was alive and well. Oliza looked at him, and even though she cared for him, it was now that she realized that something was missing and that it would always be missing between them.
She would have to settle with it. No one would accept a wolf into the mix, and much less another mongrel. Avaram was the only right choice and she had chosen him long ago.