Emberwood we used to shake the beehive

River returned to the valley beneath the mountains to continue her quest to better acquaint herself with the territories and packs within a readily traversable distance of Arrow Lake. She skirted her way along the border belonging to the creek wolves but had so far not crossed paths with a patrol there, and she was too impatient to wait. Carrying on, she followed a stream of snowmelt which pooled into a wider brook that was more water than it was ice in these early spring days.

It was in these woods that she discovered a prone figure beside the stream, its body only slightly darker than the snow and the pale aspen tree trunks. He might have been easy to miss for someone with duller eyesight. A younger version of herself would have gladly disturbed the resting wolf, but she was of a different mind these days.

Content to let sleeping dogs lie in this neutral space, River changed her trajectory so that she might travel past the stranger at a wide circumference in an effort to go on without rousing them.