Returning to Storybrooke has also been like slipping into a different skin, in its own way. There's a loss to it this time, the pull of the wolf calling her back to where she had a chance of finding family beneath the moon's pale light.
Right now, though... the need for distance from all the reminders of Peter buried back in the Enchanted Forest easily eclipses the need for pack. Mulan returning with her had made it so much easier, too, the warrior's presence a steady comfort even in a world she still doesn't fully understand.
No one can fully understand what had happened to her this time, though. Not Mulan, not Granny, not even Snow. To see Peter, only to lose him all over again... There were scars his peace had healed over, some of which she hadn't even realized were still there, but so many others that had been ripped right back open.
There is one person, however, that had been there. That does this sort of thing all the time. Summoning them hadn't been hard: two candles lit, a line or two of Latin that Belle had helped make sure she got right, and then -
"Hi, Warren. Thanks for coming," Ruby says once they appear, her smile genuine before it quickly begins to falter. "I don't mean to bother you, but I... everything with Peter, it's all just been... a lot, to process. I guess you saw that coming, though," she adds with a self-deprecating laugh. Warren had been the one to give her their card first, after all. "Would it be okay to just... talk, a little?" // @auras3ye + plotted starter!
