Totoka River a bookshelf, lined with published love letters to the moon.

the small band of reunited wolves had briefly broke for camp near the tokota river. indra relished the chance to pretend she was inland again. she hated the beach - how open it was, how loud it was, how it stung of salt any time she opened her mouth. she was reclining on an ancient scab of broken stone, glancing into the rushing river, when she heard from somewhere the trickling sound of voices.

at first, indra had no inclination to investigate. she was not a warm person, and for good reason - her heart had received many blows in its time, most of them from men -- which gave her a healthy wariness of strangers.

these voices, however, did not come from men. as the wind warped their tones and made them indistinct, indra could just barely decipher they were feminine. glancing up and then down the river, she saw neither -- but just beyond the bend, the voices came again.

she slid down from the rock with a grunt, reluctant to follow but equally reluctant to leave them be. if they were hostile, and indra ignored them, they could storm their encampment and undo all of the work she and laurel had done to reunite their family. setting her features to an expression of tired, but determined, the redleaf woman skirted the bend and the rise in the river just in time to see a snow-kissed she-wolf bending down for a drink.

like her, the woman was built finely -- and besides her a yearling lingered, nosing along the snow-capped basin. perhaps it was her daughter, which caused indra's defensive posture to somewhat slacken.

indra didn't say anything - not yet - she was still studying them and trying to figure out if they were alone when the wind turned against her, carrying her scent cleanly to them and betraying her location.