Shadewood After all this time.

She had stayed with Atautsikuk until they had established, and then, she had left. Theirs had not been a bad village, but a wanderlust still drove the youngblood and after seeing so many there taking mates and bearing pups, she did not think she was ready to settle after all.

So Taktuq had said her goodbyes to leadership there — to @Issorartuyok and to @Lane and do @Tuuluuwaq — as well as to the villagers she had connected with most, and then, she’d been off.

And she wasn’t really sure she had made the right choice.

Today’s wandering led her to a shadowed place that bore the marks of a once-been pack. She could tell the scents were not freshly marked, and so, after having howled and received no return, she had roamed forward into the forest and let her mind wander over what these wolves had once been.

Maybe this now was one of them.

He was old and grizzled. Taktuq saw him through the woods.

“Uaq!” she piped in her mother’s tongue - surprised that she’d found another here.