where no leaf blooms or blushes

For Muirrin.

Leto was no fool. She could see the signs of a rough winter approaching. The nights grew colder, the herds had begun to grow restless and their numbers dwindled. Prey became scarce as old and sick ungulates either died from exposure or were picked off by the many predators that hungrily roamed the mountains. Bon Dye as a pack was faltering, due in part to their lack of cohesion and lack of leadership. Leto knew what they needed, and as the days went on and nobody stepped up to either explain the apparent departure of Jinx or to replaced her as the pack's regent, the half-coyote was devoting much thought to claiming the crown for herself. Her doubts, however, haunted her at night as she wondered if the pack would accept one of their own subordinates as leader, and if they would tolerate a half-blood as their queen, and if her age would not be too great a detriment to her authority and indeed to her capability to be a good Alpha.

So she kept silent for now, choosing instead to build a strong foundation of providing for the pack, and today she had chosen to scout further afield to add to their caches. A morning of mountainclimbing had brought her to a place that a pair of crows whispered about in their queer avian dialects, calling it Northstar Vale. The name was undoubtedly pretty, and with a stretch of imagination Leto could imagine that it might be a haven in summer, but under the season's light first layers of snow, all she could find were bare trees and dead grasses. Any prey had long since fled for warmer climates. Leto sighed, and was prepared to turn for home, but something compelled her to linger for a moment and soak in the early winter sunlight as she stood amidst a copse of skeletal birch trees.

The approach of winter was a different experience when one lived upon a mountain, and Muirrin had felt wholly unprepared for it. She was a wolf familiar with lowlands and forests, where winter came softly with the falling of leaves and chilly gusts of wind. On the mountain, however, it came hard and fast—while it might be winter in the territories at her foothills, the snow that remained on her mountain's peak year round had begun creeping down its sides months ago. Temperatures within Tuatha Dé's borders had already dropped significantly, and her coat had come in thick. It was treacherous to leave the caverns they had made their dens in the night, when it fell far below freezing.

Dawn had seen Muirrin emerge from the jagged rock, leaving the warmth of the caverns and entwined limbs of wolves behind. It was good that they were together, but they would soon need to hunt—rabbits and mice could not sustain them for long, and the trial of silence and isolation Muirrin had set against them to gauge their loyalty meant they were all a bit leaner than they should be. But even from the mountain's vantage point, there was no clear indication of herds nearby or in the distance.

She decided to try her luck in the Vale, where skeletal trees might camouflage any remaining ungulates from her sight. Muirrin spent the greater part of the day there, desperate to scout out any sign of herd movement. A beautiful place in the spring and summer, it proved to be desolate and barren beneath the thin blankets of the early season's snow. Just when she was about to give up hope, the Alpha caught sight of fur stuck between a tree and its bark; now alert, she moved to investigate.