As fluidly as she’d allowed Devon the glimpse of her resilient mind, a dousing cascade through memories vividly painted in smell and sight and affection, Ash felt him responding in turn. Not by any stark physical alteration on his own, it seemed. Hadn’t lifted a finger, hadn’t looked away from the dark of her eyes, but she felt the change anyway, the promise of his actions. The envelopment of his magic around her, pouring against her skin and grazing it like the errant storm she’d sensed lingering beneath the surface before. It was overwhelming from the outset, threatening to steal the very breath from her lungs, portentously warning to draw forth the defensive, primal creature that awaited within. Generations upon generations of a top wolf’s blood screamed for the change, for the aegis of her inherent violence, the bulwark of her fur and teeth and ancestral form. It took powerful, stubborn will to keep it at bay, to stay its irreverence lingering on the edges of her senses, the apparition of such a struggle appearing only by the brightening gold flecks buried in the chocolate of her eyes. A lesser man or woman may have given in to its ancient demands, but she refused, standing to feel its presence. To withstand the warm serpents that circulated around her, throughout her, exposing her to their whims, pulling the hairs of her arms and the nape of her neck to stand rigidly on their end. They scattered sparks along her flesh, diving down her spine, causing her to arch slightly further into his embrace.<br/><br/>When it ended, Ashlynn could see its results in the edges of her periphery, in the backdrop beyond her companion. Only the sound of his voice in reply staid her from looking, from breaking to marvel at what difference it had made, of what he had done. She took instead that opportunity to forcibly relax every piece of her that had stiffened, to soothe the frayed edges of her rearing pedigree. The focus wasn’t without its need, either, as she listened intently to what left Devon had to say, talk of recklessness and importance and names on his tongue. It was an alien conversation, as far as she was concerned, one that echoed sentiment in books of flighted fantasy that Janis or Connie were prone to. The importance of a Name was unfamiliar, for it was just a sound, just a word as far as her own community was concerned. Scent, she knew, unmistakable, its edges, if not its core, shifting as the person did, defining their past, their present, undeniably<i>them</i>. Blood she knew, too, and the severity of its existence, of what it meant. What the passage of it meant, from parent to child, and the tumbling of it down into the ages and the chains and boons it carried with it. The strength and steel of woven bonds she knew, and the sheer immensity that they wielded, the weaponry or democracy that they held. These three things upheld werewolves as who they were, as the importance of them, but not Names.<br/><br/>Still, Ash was imparted this weight, and she understood and accepted it. She trusted Devon on that, took what he said to be true, to be significant. And recklessness…<i>that</i>, at least, was something she could entirely fathom. After all, wolves did not mingle with mages. There was no debate to it, no discussion. They were contradictory of each other, polarized. To entwine disrupted some unspoken natural order. But there she was. Resolute daughter of the Rochdale pack, arms around a manifest magic-user, with far less than pure intentions on her mind. It had become beyond reckless. It was<i>insane</i>.<br/><br/>The audacity of their actions, whether Devon would ever understand the gravity of them or not, was ignored in favor of the appearance of the glasses, causing a smirk of approval to bury itself in the corner of her lips. It was then that she was able to break from the intensity of his gaze to bear witness to around them. The brush of pine and mountain creek was filling her nose, replacing the lingering scent of her shop -- which seemed little more than stuffy, dead wood in immediate comparison to her beloved, incredible origins. Age-old familiar scents immersed her in her timeline just as clearly as she’d immersed him, bruising her with infectious nostalgia, burying her in a downpour of the present -- if it wasn’t for it, she’d almost have accused it all of not being real. But she was sure. It was real. She was truly standing on her mountain, amidst the cradle of her home, of her birthplace. Letting him go to embrace it fully, she turned, seeing the image of herself where she’d stood, where she’d taken Avery’s camera and snapped the photo of Rochdale, undeniable in its grace, in its glory. “We are on Mt. Lerwick,” she declared, gazing into the moon-webbed pines that shifted on a chill breeze. She took several steps forward in the clearing, inhaling deeply, shutting her eyes in implicit pleasure for a moment. It was an action done for the joy of it, as much as it was to make sure none of her own had come this way for a nightly run. At the lip of the rocks, the trees parted, descending down the steep side of the mountain, and she pointed at the lake that glimmered far below. “That’s Lake Aria,” she said, the pride unmistakable in her tone, even if only for the body of water, where the glinting of the moon was painted so perfectly on its surface.<br/><br/>“Over there, that’s Mt. Tunstead,” Ash pointed at the larger mountain far across, which loomed mighty and stark beside its smaller brethren. “And there…” She returned beside him and leaned close to point to the lights across from Tunstead, tucked away and just barely seen thanks to the treeline. “That’s Rochdale. My home.” It was as she said it, as she announced it, that she realized she’d never had the chance to show anyone her home. As far as she was concerned, her bottles of wine and the pictures on them were as close as she got. Little pieces, little morsels of what she loved most, but never the whole thing. Something about it, this unexplored circumstance, gave her boundless gratification. She only wanted to keep showing him more.<br/><br/>“And this…” Ash gestured around them, along the clearing, where the breeze feathered the grasses, and the trees swayed along the edges where the forest thickened, entwined in their inky shadows. “This is Ash’s Overlook.” She grinned with humor at the name, a shrug rolling along her shoulders. “My friends named it that when I showed them it as kids. I would only lead my best of friends up here.” She snorted and rolled her eyes. “I had<i>a lot</i>of best friends.” A statement made without snobbiness, spoken in the nature of one who bonded closely with all she allowed in her life. “We’d all come up here when someone got in trouble and everyone wanted to help cover for them, or someone had a break up, or someone wanted to make out.” To scream, too. Something about screaming at the lake, about the wind swallowing one’s voice. It was for that, too. A tree, far in the wood behind them, reminded her of that. That daunting presence in her memories.<br/><br/>She leaned into him, gaze sidling up expectantly. “What do you think?”