King Elk Forest tiny cities

The leader of the Creek pack had spent some time within the borders, recharging her reserves of energy as best she could with the lack of food. Her children kept her going, though seeing them thinning wrenched her heart into a thousand pieces and battered her resolve to remain here. Saena was not the kind of woman to give up on anything, though, and already signs of life were starting to return to Silver Creek. There were little bushels of moss beginning to creep up from the riverbed and tiny green sprouts unfurled from the bark of the trees. Tips of grass peeked up out of the more fertile loam higher up the slope. For all the suffering, the pack had found themselves a lush territory indeed, if the beginning regrowth was anything to judge by, and Saena knew that in time they would flourish.

In time, but not now. She put the thought in the back of her mind and plodded beyond the pack borders, all lean sinew with the famine having chewed through her childbearing fat, on and on until she heard a voice in the trees and crossed the fresh scent trail of her fourth subordinate. Laika wasn't someone Saena had ever spent much quality time with, a fact she mourned somewhat and hoped to correct as she readjusted her course to follow the woman, but as she arrived on the silver-white wolf's trail, she spotted two other wolves and her fur prickled uneasily. One, a blazing red-and-white female of trim proportions garnered Saena's attention foremostly for her bright, harlequin-esque coat. The other, a second female with a coat of solid grey, was a little further off and faded into the background on account of Sansa's fiery aspect, but Saena paid her no less mind. Althaia was still present and still potentially a threat to the Creek.

She turned her head to reach for Laika's shoulder in an amiable nudge, then straightened and postured herself authoritatively among the other three wolves. Unlike Laika, Saena's display carried the slightest hint of a threat, just enough to hopefully deter an attack, but the Creek was growing quieter by the day with Laika and Casmir often out scouting. While a major part of the leading wolf yearned to chase off these loners and remove the threat from her doorstep, another part of her, more sensible, wondered at the potential they might have if she was less hasty with them and gave them cause to join their strength to hers.

"You are in our hunting land," she claimed quietly, gently, as though her hackles weren't slightly lifted, her ears atop her head, and her whole body ready in the event the lone wolves responded unkindly to her presence. Many a wolf liked to claim that because a pack did not piss on a stone, they did not own it, but Saena didn't subscribe to that belief and took no issue with acting the part. Power was nine-tenths demonstration, after all, and Saena could be convincing enough for any loner without back-up to think twice about arguing with Silver Creek's temporary hold on King Elk Forest.