The Heartwood aupaqtuq ⏜

Lane smiled and wagged her tail, glad to see the mirth returned to Kukutux's eyes. 

"Yes! That's it." Her expression lit with recognition as Kukutux described what she meant by tayanaq. "Those tayanaq medics that came to your island could have been us. My parents, I mean. That's exactly what they would do." She nodded when Kukutux suggested she do the same. Honestly, she was trying. The life of a tayanaq was the only life she had ever known, and she was doing her best... but she might have underestimated the importance of her parents' reputation and esteem among their region's packs. Starting from nothing here in the Teekons was a whole lot more difficult than Lane had expected. That, and working as an herb peddler in the dead of winter was functionally impossible. 

Lane's brow furrowed at the question. She didn't belong, that was a fact. It didn't have anything to do with how she felt about anything. 

"Well.. I don't really belong, do I? They're pretty much all family, or they have family in Moonspear or in nearby packs. I'm.. just a traveling medic." Just a tayanaq. "And I can't relate to their loss either. What they're going through." Everyone else in the Glen was grieving, and that grief bonded them. Lane had honestly never felt more like an outsider.