Cedar Sweep I dropped the berry in a stream

The rise of midafternoon did nothing to quell the chill bite in the air as Saena crossed the expanse of rugged wilderness between King Elk Forest and the cedar wood she could see across the way. Her legs begged for the movement of outriding, and yet she couldn't bear to go far from home. Casmir and Laika would return any day now, she told herself resolutely, and her babies would be in tow. She didn't want to be away from the Creek when they finally returned.

Yet as the days went by and the weather grew colder and the wind sharper, Saena began to have her doubts. Doubts that Casmir and Laika would return at all. Perhaps that bastard's pack had ripped them apart and left them for dead as summer turned to autumn. Her children might not be on their way back home at all. In these dark thoughts, Saena often entertained the notion of taking off to save them herself, and yet she warred on the inside. She had to trust Spring. She needed her babies. She didn't want to die at Reek's disgusting fangs. But she needed her babies.

So she waited, restlessly, for word to return in one form or another, but she needed out, and so she wandered. As she passed through the edge of the Cedar Sweep, her nose was assaulted with the crisp balsamic scent of the trees, but beneath the cloying freshness of that, there was the scent of many wolves. The scent from the glands on their paws, the scent of stray fur, but not the strong and distinct scent of piss, which would've alerted Saena to a claim. Nevertheless, as she pressed deeper into the woods, she became more alert and pricked her ears upright to listen for any sounds of approach.