Sunset Valley a name she dared not find

Then, past those woods, carve inward from the coast —

The chill was still biting in these lands. When Katmai reflected on it, he concluded that most all of his life had been lived in the cold. It made him eager to reach the summer lands that his grandmother had spoken of, even if there was not likely to be true warmth there for several months to come.

Morningside Cuesta. The place he took his name from. He'd been told that it was a place where the hills touched the sky — that he would understand what this meant when he laid eyes on it for the first time.

The woods that sprawled darkly at his shoulder seemed ever looming, no matter how carefully he kept his distance. Katmai kept his eyes high as he roved eastward, cutting south for a time before straightening out again, never looking into the trees for longer than it took to measure the distance — or to check for peering yellow eyes. But no one was watching him. He seemed quite alone, in fact, until he caught a fresh scent.

Warily, Katmai found the fading spore of a pawprint. Crushed vegetation heavily overlaid the scent of another wolf — an adult, he thought. Female. He measured his paw against the faint indentation before lifting his head once more, dark nostrils flaring. Something about her scent made him uneasy, but he followed it anyway, nervous when it found him twisted his way between trees.

The nervousness did not fade when he found her.

"Are you alright?" he asked the back of her, his voice hoarse from disuse, and hushed out of some unnamable instinct.

He'd meant to ask her for directions.