Nova Peak foundling-bird

When Wylla rose in the morning, it was to find the grass white with frost and the air tight and cold against her nose. Even now that the sun had burned the frost away and the day was bleeding away into oncoming dusk, her breath was a curling silver mist. For the coastal she-wolf, whose winters had always been mild with the sea to temper them, it was shocking how fast the cold was coming in, and how bitter the wind’s bite was here compared to her previous homes. She wouldn’t admit it aloud, but she wasn’t sure about her ability to weather a frigid winter in the taiga, what with her short fur.

Down through spindly pines and rich firs she went, to where the pack’s strongest scents laced through the forest, working her muscles to ward off the impulse to shiver. She’d refreshed these borders just yesterday, so today she strode along on a simple patrol, keeping her ears perked and her singular eye peeled for signs of trouble. The ruined side of her face burned with every cold breeze that touched it, drawing a grimace across her thin lips.

Suddenly, the relative quiet was broken as she picked up the sound of legs crashing through the undergrowth. Wylla paused, swivelling her ears and squinting while she tried to parse if it belonged to an ungulate or not. After a few seconds, she peeled back her lips and stalked toward the sound, bristling. When she came upon something dark and definitely not deer-like stumbling through her forest, she snarled and lunged without hesitation.

Only to get a faceful—and possibly a hefty mouthful—of her long lost son. She might never have recognized him by sight given how much he’d grown and the threadbare state of him, but his individual, characteristic scent wafted into her nose, bringing to mind the smells and warmth of home, and she halted immediately, drawing back and relinquishing him with a whine. Thade?