Wapun Meadow waiting in my room, and i lock the door

Ibis had thought about returning to Lost Creek Hollow to pay a visit to her father, to find out if he fared well, maybe even to tell him about Elysium's dissolving and the absence of her mothers. She opted not to, though. It felt like she was going to confront a tragedy again, as she had felt when she had learned of Lily's passing; but this time it wasn't the death of someone close that would have driven her, weeping, to her father—it was the loss of her first remembered home and the family built there. It felt too intimate to share with Terance, especially since Ibis did not feel comfortable around his replacement mate, so she turned around and moved south.

As she roamed she spotted a herd of fast-moving elk; there were so many that she had to stop and gawk at them for a few moments, watching their dark crowns shifting over a sea of bodies. Puffs of smoke rose from their hooves and drifted around the entirety of the masses, and she held herself as far back as she could while still spying upon their distant combined shape. They were moving very quickly away from the mountains and deeper south, and her brow knit as she stared after them.

When the last of their galloping faded to white-noise, then silence, she headed north again. Maybe she would check in with Easthollow a second time, or—there. Ibis was busy thinking of her next move when the scent of wolf crossed before her, and she looked around the meadow where she now found herself, curious of the scent. It didn't smell familiar and it wasn't layered to the extent of an Easthollow wolf; Ibis thought of Julien then, and the Diaspora wolves she had yet to discover. Was this one of them?

Poor, innocent little Ibis—she was on the trail of the young Astara and did not know the danger.