Jade Fern Grove No one can unring this bell

The heart of the woods ran deep with the scent of many, many wolves, and she picked them out as the multitude that Siarut's own scent swam with. She had no faces to connect them with yet. Those would come in time - and only if his sisters accepted her as of noble enough blood to be a part of them. But how would they receive her, when they knew of her connection with Kove? Nanook didn't know what her father had done to make them run from him, but the covertness of the operation out-ruled the reason as anything good.

With these thoughts as heavy as the summer air, the familiar sting of pessimism darkened her like the draping shadows of the leafy canopy. What could go wrong, would go wrong, she knew - but Nanook tried to pull her thoughts toward ones more optimistic. Maybe things would be fine. She couldn't say how the pack would receive her, but she wasn't her father. His eyes might forever be reflected through hers, and his blood might forever mingle, but how she lived her life was her choice to make. The best she could do was offer the honesty of the wolf she chose to be, and when Siarut paused and chuffed for his sister's presence, she tried to ease in the turn of his smile. He might have been an Ice Bear, but there was a warmth to his gaze that made her believe that for a moment, whatever his sisters might think, everything might actually be alright.

But the reassurance broke with the sudden pulse of a snarl, and the hulk of an icy female lifting from the ground. She dwarfed the Apaata with a glacial shadow, and by the washing sweetness of warmth and milk, Nanook's eyes widened, for she understood.

Siarut had led her to the very den itself - a place she shouldn't have been.

She didn't even wonder why he had thought the idea a good one; she didn’t have time. Her mind rushed to the only thing that mattered now: keeping herself in one piece. Staying alive. Nanook hit the ground and scuttled back, exposing her throat to make clear her submission and regret. The voice of another boomed a question, but she found her voice too distant to recover. She had never been skilled with diffusing tension; she had always been a runner, and yet she held herself now. She forced herself to, because Nanook wanted this. She had made a mistake - an accidental one, for the den had been so hidden, and her trust in Siarut’s guidance an inkling too strong. But she had made a mistake none the less, and in the sight of this mother, she was a threat.