++Rikae
Also, I dreamed
Nerwen last night and she isn't a Wolf. Seriously, I had a Downer dream last night!
The creative non-fiction department at the university was having some sort of conference/workshop thing and folks were submitting pieces to try and win various cash prizes. I had to rate the papers in order to weed out the bottom half before I sent them on to the department head, the final judge. After a couple of so-so efforts, I grabbed the next paper and was shocked to find the name at the top was "Nerwen".
I wondered what the chances were of there being another Nerwen, but conveniently there was a parenthetical beneath her name that stated, "The Downer from Down Under". And then it all made sense. I remembered on the thread she had mentioned spotty internet going over the mountains- she was obviously talking about the mountains in Colorado on her way toward Nebraska. (Apparently in my dream world there is a road leading straight from Australia to the Western US, ha ha.)
I spent a bit of time wondering if I should excuse myself from the panel on account of knowing Nerwen, because even without reading it I planned to give it the highest mark. I looked around the room trying to find Nerwen (the submissions were made in person and they awaited the results), but I couldn't see her anywhere. Then I realized I didn't know what she looked like because I wasn't linked to her on Facebook. But even as that thought occurred to me another thought overrode it, "It's
Nerwen, from the Downs. Of course you'll recognize her when you see her. Downers can always pick one another out of a crowd. We can sense each other."
And then I woke up, nodding my head to that truth.