Diane looks forward cautiously to peer with her eagle-sharp sight, and spots the source of the howl. A large black piece of rock is embedded in the ground, and atop it perches a slender gray-white wolf, Walks-Inward, head cast back but being slowly lowered as the howl is complete, and silence descends. Eagle feathers are tied to the fur around his ears, and he looks around regally not seeming to notice Diane. She tries to address him, but finds that she cannot shape words with the eagle's beak. She flaps her wings to draw his attention.
Walks-Inward jumps off the rock and walks towards her quietly, still seeming to look straight through her. Diane comes down from the tree and tries to land in front of him, hitting the ground without a sound and folding her beautiful wings slowly. He stops, sits down in front of her and simply looks ahead. A voice from out of nowhere rings inside her head, neither garou nor human but something beyond. "Greetings, Diane Child of Gaia... you have come a long way."
When she hears the voice in her head, Diane realizes that the dream has shifted, and she is no longer a bird but a wolf herself. "Where are we?" she asks.
With a start, Diane notices Walks-Inward's wet nose tracing a soft line along the fur of her cheek, his head less than an inch from hers now. "Oh, it's you, Walks. What're you doing here?"
He retracts his head and opens his mouth in a smile. "As you have come to see me, I have come to see you, friend... I have missed you the days we have been apart."
Diane gives him a wolfy grin. "I've missed you too. Where are you? How are you? Is everything ok?"
Walks shifts, his spine rolling like a gentle wave. "I am well, but not found." He turns his head to one side, then the other. "What do you see around you?"
Diane shakes her head, a bit confused. "You're lost? I see... trees and rocks?"
"I see nothing, that is why I am here. And not with you."
Diane asks him, "You're blind? It's dark?"
Walks shakes his head. "When you and I see, we see darkness - in the dark, you see something."
Diane shakes her head again. "I don't think it looks dark here... you see nothing at all? Blankness? But you can hear me?" She walks close to him, pressing her face to his fur. She asks, "Can you feel me?" Walks lowers his head, rubbing his nose over Diane's shoulder. She says, "I'm worried about you. Can I help?"
Walks looks at her calmly. "I no longer see what you see. I have to find this something before I can return, unless the only enemy is to be ourselves." He pauses, looking up in confusion or pride. "That road leads only to inglorious death." He lifts his paw a little, then lowers it. "I miss you and the mouse, and Niko-Rhya. But for now I must follow the eagle." He looks up at the forest canopy, where a single beam of moonlight shines through the leaves.
Diane nods, unsure. "Where is the eagle leading you? How can you follow it if you can't see?" "It is in my soul... my spirit. My hope is that it will lead back to you."
"If it's leading you somewhere inside your soul or spirit, why can't you follow it and stay with us too? It seems like you'd be able to follow it anywhere you were if that were so..."
Walks shakes his head in slow-motion, and leaves a blurred trail in the air as he turns around and fades away into the undergrowth, and the sky opens again. Diane peers up at him and then the whole dreamworld fades around her... her eyes twitch as she looks around, and the darkness she sees is that of Entropy. She awakens in the cave, and starts to tell everyone that she's had a strange dream... but there is a fierce storm, other concerns override, and she forgets, until she has the thought - what if it was the storm blinding Walks? It is this impetus that leads her to follow Leigh and Phaedra into the gale.