If one looked close enough, it was possible to see the subtle shifting of light, the flow of energy between the realms. Katiti'manina could taste it on the tip of her tongue, electrifying and heavy. Even blinded, she was confident she would have found the seam. After all, she had been waiting a very long time for a moment like this. The boundary had been tossed aside, the veil crumbled in upon itself where it had been weakest.
"Finally," she purred, the single word whispered into the air. A jackalope, unsettled by the tone of her voice, disappeared back into the forest. Kat would have laughed, if something else had not caught her interest more. A dark shape was visible at the seam, obscured by the refraction of light but unmistakably mortal. Not the first, for Kat had not been here when the veil first revealed its weakness. In fact, she was sure that this one had not come here by accident - it was not an errant raven flying into a world unfamiliar. Nor was it a rabbit, scared through the veil by a predator. The first step the stranger made through the veil was far too confident to be an accident.
Elaborate dye stained his leg, sharp and intricate angles that were aesthetically pleasing, but Kat was not sure they held much meaning beyond that. His eyes were orange and... purple. Oh. A slight smile was woven into her features, and a temporary stalemate settled between the two very different wolves. The male, startled by the appearance of an Ethereal immediately when he entered the world while Kat remained silent to see what his first move would be. She was a patient creature when she needed to be, and clearly the male needed some time to adjust.
Behind him there were more shapes - he was not alone.
She supposed she could play her hand first. Kat rose from the forest floor, and swept a paw decorated by gold bangles in front of her. "I have been waiting," she announced, intentionally vague. If the boy thought she had been waiting for him specifically, it would be a foolish and charming miscalculation.
Vow stiffened at her words, cautiously frozen in place. He had been raised by strong women, wolves that had powers beyond his scope of comprehension. Despite that, in the moment he faced this stranger he had never felt more unsettled. A chill ran down his spine, but he suppressed his reaction to it. He had known, to some degree, what to expect, and with one of his mothers not far behind him he still had the confidence to speak out. "Well, here I am." The words were a bluff, all bravado and confidence he was not sure he possessed in the face of the unknown.
Laughter resonated through the air, and again he had to swallow his surprise and obscure his physical reaction to the sound. She was laughing, as if his posturing meant nothing, as if she could see through his youthful confidence and to the wolf hiding underneath it all.
"So you are," she agreed, mirth lining the tone of her voice. Kat looked beyond him and to the veil, silently measuring how close his companions were. "What do you say to a proposal - I show you my world... and you show me your's?"
Vow swallowed, the weight in his throat heavy enough to feel suffocating. "I don't even know you -"
"You do not," she interjected with a sly smile. "I am Katiti'manina." The Ethereal turned on her heel, long tail sweeping over the earth. She looked back over her shoulder, fixed her light blue eyes on the young dire for little more than a moment. But, it was enough. "Do we have a deal?"
Vow knew, and she knew, that it was too good of an opportunity to let slip through his paws. "Yes."