Whitebark Stream gold

Daylily shivered in the cold of winter and was grateful, not for the first time, of her thick winter coat. She loved all seasons equally, but somewhere hidden deep in her heart she was beginning to think it a mistake to have left Oakstead in winter. She should have waited until spring, as many of her packmates had tried to persuade her to do. But she had been stubborn, a new feeling for her. She was soft; many in Oakstead were soft, for her birth pack was a peaceful place. Many had not understood her need to leave. She didn’t really understand it, herself; she knew only that if she stayed within the sanctuary forever, she would never truly feel satisfied with her life. So, soft as she was, she had gone off on her own… and now was regretting it.

A female wolf draped in grey stood near the stream she had been moving towards in the hopes that it wasn’t completely frozen over. Coming across another wolf broke Daylily out of her funk, at least temporarily. It had been some time since she had met another of her kind. “Hello,” she called in a quiet, childlike voice, smiling and wagging her tail shyly. “Were you hoping for a drink, also?”