There and back again

This one was my own fault.

Back in the day, on the 3.0 PTR, I tamed a purple hyena from Thousand Needles and named her Kallisto.  I had always wanted one and I rather liked her.  Unfortunately, this was long before the days of expanded stables, so I didn't get a chance to tame her until 4.0.  By that time, Kallimon had tamed Snort the Heckler as his Praline and the purple hyenas from Thousand Needles were gone anyway, so Kallisto got a shiny new orange look from the little hyena who spawns outside of the Caverns of Time in Tanaris.  I liked the color and she seemed to as well.

There was just one little nagging problem.  Whenever I summoned her, I'd blink in surprise, expecting her to be purple.  I shook it off repeatedly, writing it off as force of habit.

Today, I realized that this feeling wasn't going to go away.  We flew to Thousand Needles to trace the path that Kallisto's wild form had followed to escape the flood.

Kallisto got a good whiff of the trail, despite it being months old.  It seemed to jog her memory.

We paused as Gadgetzan came into view, forcing away any temptation to refer to it as a wretched hive of scum and villainy.  Only kidding.  I asked Kallisto if she went left or right from here.  She pointed right.  We rode on.

We rode south, somewhat blindly.  I wasn't exactly sure where we were going, but I had a feeling that Kallisto did.  She remembered.  I trusted her to lead the way.

Suddenly, there she was.  She was the only hyena in the area.  Kallisto had led us straight and true.

We sat quietly for a few minutes before making the shift.  I wanted to remember her as she was.  Also, I missed getting a screenshot of the moment we first saw her; she had loomed larger than life on the sand dunes, larger than I expected.  I couldn't capture it, sadly.  But that moment...I knew.

I began the transition, knowing in my heart that this was the right thing to do.  Kallisto, for her part, was so excited that she pounced on me, interrupting the tame!

While this was endearing, I had to put her on ice briefly to get her to settle down long enough to come home.  She bounded happily back to my side, looking just like her old self.  I couldn't believe she was really back.  I've been mounting and dismounting often and haven't been getting that familiar pang of "wrongness."  This really is Kallisto.  Oh well, so I have two purple hyenas - so what?  It's not like I don't have five brown tarantulas. x_x