Emberwood We'll be here when the world slows down and the sunbeams fade away

Tight timeline lately omg. One post only!

Whether or not Swiftcurrent Creek had welcomed her intentions when she'd visited their borders, Reverie was sure they wouldn't chase her or her pack away. And so she had gathered them all, @Dusty Rose and @Abel and @Astraeus alongside her family, and led them from their home. Tybault had not returned to them. She did not anticipate that he would for some time yet.

Not until he found Reina.

She tried to comfort @Carnelian and Peridot with this knowledge, keeping them close to her and her daughters as they traveled. @Everett was not so easily soothed; she and her brother shared many somber looks during their trek out of the mountains.

But as they reached the Emberwood, a sense of relief began to settle over her. The valley wasn't completely safe — nowhere was — but her memory of it painted a softer place than the chaos they'd fled in the mountains. Soon they picked a place to set up camp, and Reverie enlisted @Blossom, @Dahlia, Foxglove, and @Petal to help her unpack her things.

She hoped silently that tomorrow's dawn would bring with it a sense of cleansing.

The coywolf had been quiet since Reina's disappearance and their subsequent flight into the wilderness. He had no real feelings about the woman herself, and he did not mourn or worry for her — but it was troubling, wasn't it? That she'd been dragged off while some slept and others, like him, patrolled the borders?

Part of him wanted to blame himself. Dusty Rose told that part to go fuck itself.

But he was affected all the same, and spent much of their travel on high alert, slightly apart from the others whether it was ranging ahead or doubling back, or just fanning out to better see what was around them.

He came to them now as they unpacked, tired and wary but otherwise in good spirits. He could understand why Reverie was not — but the kids were probably sad enough, weren't they? Dusty Rose thought they ought to be given them chance to brush over this loss and forget it. Might as well try, right?

"The last time I traveled with a group like this, we were hunting for las manatiales. Water. Where I come from, you only see water on the ground for a few months out of the year. Then it's underground, and you gotta dig for it. And when you can't dig for it anymore, you gotta pick up and leave. It was fun, though. Everyone else was doin' the same thing. So you'd meet a lot of kids your age, and their parents, and their rastreadores. Helpers. Sniffers. They don't look like you and me."

He laid down on his belly, twitching his snipey black nose at them.

"We would sing songs while we traveled," he told them, flashing a glance up to Reverie. He knew that her people had danced, but he could not remember if they'd talked much about singing. But — "I'll teach you," he told them. "And then you can teach all the friends you make along the way. Yeah?"