it was strange to leave the snow shelter behind. several times at the start of their journey, @Wilwarin might turn to catch the dreamer staring back toward the shoreline, as if a piece of him had been forgotten there.

a portion of the man indeed had been left, and some of her, and of the children who had not lived, and those who did.

before they departed that first and final time, wolf dreamer tore a small, ragged piece of caribou hide from a main pelt. inside he gathered these things: three cormorant feathers, stained with birth-blood. fur from himself, from her. what had remained of birth, twisted, wisping cords. "it's a Bundle," he explained to wilwarin. "Wolf told me how to make one. it holds the power of us all. binds us."

he was not sure how he would carry both the Bundle and a boy, but he made it work as they traveled directly inland, away from the sea.

the valley glittered with new green, from the freshly budded limbs of beech and elm to the gathering of hawthorne copses. magnolia and silver lupine would run wild here in summer. the air was far warmer than it had been on the coast. he wondered if wilwarin felt home here in this stunning place.

wolf dreamer gestured, indicating they should stop. he held one of the sons as he searched for a shelter among the deepening shadows.