Moonspear know that the shine inside will always keep you strong

It was strange to know someone who had been born so close to him, into a community that had been sisters with his own. That still was, in spirit, he supposed. But those connections had faded just like their respective packs, and despite the look of quiet understanding they shared, Treepie still felt like a stranger to him.

Perhaps as she ought to. That was fine — most friends were first strangers, were they not?

"I am glad, too," he agreed, his voice quiet. He took her pause to be one of grief, and he weathered it with her, thinking briefly of the happiness of home. He'd been born into the woods, but his earliest memories were of playing on the beach with his siblings and the seal hunter children, and with Raindrop's daughters as well. He wanted that back — and he was planning to make it.

"Moontide is gone — and so is Moonsong, and the Forest pack," he said, sadly. "But we are still here. I am looking for a territory to claim in the name of Morningside, like my fathers before me. Somewhere close, so that my children may go back and forth between villages, and we will always here if the moon wolves call. I think villages must be like flowers — they bloom, and they also fade. But the root of it is still there, and they bloom again a slightly different shade, or with their petals just so, or a few feet to the left — "

He offered her a wan but warm smile, hoping this would offer some comfort.

"All the same — I am glad Moonglow still stands," he reiterated, looking over his shoulder at the Spine. "Perhaps they are the root."