In the summer the smells were crisp, rising from the ground with the heat of the day. Fox, deer, and bird mingled with the musky flavors of the earth and the occasional zing of wild herbs. Born with a clever nose and a healthy investigative nature made Aoibhe about as wolf as they came, but she had a skill for it too, a certain special something that kept her on the trail longer than most others. Her papa had said it had less to do with noses and more with a certain sort of eagerness and persistence, tempered properly with patience and intellect. Whatever the case may have been, there was something in Aoibhe that had kept her on course, doggedly pursuing her baby brother and an ancestral memory of the homeland that should have been.

Orpheus’ trail had broken off some time ago; he had headed west and would be well ahead of her. The leggy male was much faster on his feet than stocky Aoibhe, and she knew it was no use to pursue him further. This was where they had been headed after all, this was Moladion. It had been clear upon her arrival, as she approached and finally crested the outer rim of the crater that the place from which her father had come was no more. Some great devastation had been carried out here, but there was no way for her to know more on her own and Aoibhe found that she had no interest in anything further than making a life for herself. Enough time had passed that the memories of her papa were more fond than sad and she was not about to fall all over herself and wish for a place she had never seen anyway.

Aoibhe was not confident about what she was actually after. Remaining alone was out of the question, she was too good tempered not to have at least a few companions but the idea of a pack made up of more than a small family group was foreign to her. Rather than go out in search of others in order to test her capability of creating adult relationships, Aoibhe lay down in the long grass and rested. Her jaws split once more to let her pink tongue loll out to one side, panting contentedly. Really, this fluffy coat of hers seriously out-did itself in the summer. Her hair was obnoxiously thick throughout the season, even now nearly making her look more like a poufy Samoyed than Canis Lupus. Being a little too warm would not slow her down though, soon the young female was crawling through the grass as if stalking something besides the next few blades ahead of her. Really she was much too big to be prowling like a poorly camouflaged cat, the grass did not split before her but rather lay down on all sides in defeat, leaving messy wolf-crop-circles in her wake.