The Heartwood imperfection's glow

It was always complicated. Magpie may as well have spoken some magic words because that was exactly how Echelon had been struggling to describe it. It was complicated, knowing that somewhere out there her aokkatti was lurking about. Possibly on her own. Separated unquestionably from her little pint-sized shadow. That was merely the only thing that stopped Echelon from outright joining a pack. She had a pack. She had Tartok. They were her kin and her home wherever she went.

Instead of just sharing that, she concluded with: "Me too."

It wasn't like she had a true pack of her own to call home. "Your family mean to you too?" she opted to ask, unfortunately finding that in thinking how complicated things were, she brought back what had caused her to return to the Wilds in the first place. Failure had never been tolerated by Siku and Echelon's attempt to worn her way back into the reaches of Tartok in the north had been ousted quickly.

She crunched noisily once again on the bones. No one told her not to talk with food in her mouth either.