I had spent perhaps more time in Taviora than I had originally planned to. But it felt like I had so much to make up for, the years that had passed in which I had never gone to visit my mother. Her new life had always made me somewhat uncomfortable, the idea of her taking another mate after Acheron not sitting well with me at first. But Coszcotl had proved more than worthy, having defended the forest recently against a would be usurper. The pack he had built there over the past five years was so different from the structure found in the city of angels that was my home. It was more of a community, where each rank supported the entirety of the pack in ways that were known and felt by each individual wolf. Diveen’s pack structure had never failed us, but I wondered if there was not something we could learn from Taviora to further strengthen ourselves and to draw better connection between the members of the pack.

When a week had come and gone I knew that the time for me to move on was long overdue. I still had yet to meet my younger half siblings, but perhaps someday I would seek them out and at least make their acquaintances. We shared a mother, after all. It pained me to acknowledge that her age was truly beginning to show, her weakness self evident when I had first come upon her in the meadow, and I could not imagine the day when she would no longer preside as the most well versed healer of all Moladion. As I moved through the trees towards the borders of Spirane, I glanced over my shoulder at her form still lying, a pang in my heart at the thought. I would return again, once I had completed the tasks Isola had given me. My first duty was to pack, but my heart would always be loyal to the family of my blood.

Turning back south, I continued on my way closer to the mountain pack. I had never visited Spirane before, but its silhouette was a long familiar trait upon the horizon. Its majesty was well known, but as I came closer to the rolling foothills that fringed the pack lands I was still overwhelmed by its mass. The mountains towered high into the skies, the peaks disappearing into the late winter clouds. While it would have been easy enough to simply approach the borders from where Taviora faded into the foothills, I veered slightly east, wanting to meet on common grounds with whatever pack member I ended up speaking with.

I loped along the periphery, respecting the boundaries so well marked by the leader of the land. Only when I was at the most directly eastern point did I slow to a stop, jogging closer to the borders before ceasing all movement and tossing my head to the skies. I called out a friendly greeting to any and all who inhabited the mountain. My song rang out across the peaks and valleys of the territory, informing those who might stop to listen that I was from Diveen, a friend come for a visit with any that might want to while away an afternoon chatting with me. Upon its completion I stepped back, for I did not know these wolves so well as I knew the reigning leader of Taviora, and I would wait here to be greeted or otherwise invited within.