Arrow Lake — tied knots in the laces of my worried shoes,

This is just a far away single post cameo because Dragomir can't leave his birth den, but he can hear the howl and is learning to howl himself, so seemed like a great opportunity!

Even the softest of adult howls was enough to pierce through the veil of sleep that lingered over a drowsy Dragomir. The falls were relatively far from the thicket and their thunder failed to reach his young ears, but Goosie's call somehow did reach into the thicket. His eyes popped open as it drifted on the breeze and then faded. Without any hesitation, spurred by a calling in his heart from the days of his ancestors, Dragomir propped himself up on his elbows and strained his large ears to listen.

There was no returning sound, but that was okay. Even without another howl to prompt him, the little wolf tipped back his head in a clumsy toss and sent up his own high-pitched a-woo-woo-woo, which wavered dangerously in pitch and rose and fell without any discipline. His was much too little to reach further than a few feet down the mountain, but his tail whapped happily against the ground as he repeated it again and again, this tiny mimicry of a howl that needed so much improvement, but was perfect to him.