Moonspear Wind Blows Hard, but it doesn't matter

She spent a day or two on the mountaintop. When Tiuttuk descended, she felt like a different wolf. She headed quietly to her ulaq, not bothering to check on Pala and the boys despite passing very close to their own den. She spent one last night there among all her mother’s things, then woke up at the break of dawn to fill in the doorway with dirt. In this way, Treepie buried both her mother and grandmother.

She didn’t know where she would stay now, though perhaps she would build her own. Or perhaps Tiki might want to share. Pie put it out of her mind for now as she headed further down the mountain, falling into the familiar rhythms of a morning patrol. So much had changed in her life, yet the mountain and its village were still here, and Pie was determined to honor and protect them.

She hoped to find Tikaani eventually—did her sister know about Kukutux and Aiolos?—and Treepie pondered that potential conversation as she slowly roamed along the foot of the mountain, checking here and marking there. She passed the spot where Glaukos had fought some mysterious entity, glancing at it only briefly before moving onward.

When she saw Alaric ahead, Pie hesitated for only half a second. She hastened her step to catch up to him, greeting the Sovereign by bumping her head against his shoulder, then sidling forward to touch her nose to his chin. Her paws never stopped moving, carrying onward with their patrol in companionable, mutual silence.

After a few moments, she broke it to ask, apropos of nothing, Alaric, are we related by blood?