White dusted the mountainside, clinging to branches and bushes and stones alike. Winter always seemed to arrive here sooner than it did for the rest of Moladion. Then again, the peaks of the mountains were capped in white almost year round, only the hottest heat of summers allowing them to truly bare themselves to the world. And even then there were still gullies and crevices in the shadows between the peaks that would keep their ice. Still, the coming of winter was welcomed by the mountainous realm, and by me - its leader. I reveled in the cooler temperatures, and the energy that would naturally be given to the efforts of child bearing were directed elsewhere.

Jogging easily down a central path through the midrange of the pack lands, my ears pricked at the sound of a growled call. It was meant for Aurelia, but I could not ignore the tone of voice. My tail thrashed once, and I picked up a lope, heading towards the source. Coming to a slight ledge, I looked out to see the two wolves standing side by side and recognized them instantly. Cadeyrn and Berwyn, sons of Anemone and brothers to Aurelia. I knew that she had chosen her brothers as the targets for her task to steal worthy wolves from the freelands. The boys had left Spirane when I had fallen, but like so many others, they had not returned when I had regained my rightful place as alpha. While their sister had come to my call in the valley and supported me all those months ago, I'd neither seen nor heard anything of her brothers. So I lingered, watching and waiting to see how they would react to Aurelia's decision to bring them home.

Only she did not show herself nearly as promptly as I had expected her to. Aurelia was something of an enigma to me - young and full of ambition, but the drive to follow through on the tasks set forth to her seemed to be lacking. Huffing quietly to myself, I turned and made my way down to the clearing where the two males stood waiting. I approached them with my head lifted charismatically, tail waving out behind me in greeting. "Cadeyrn, Berwyn - welcome home. I hope you'll forgive your sister for her methods in bringing you here; she's been working towards a rank in my court for some time now," I said, offering them an explanation for why they had been stolen here rather than simply invited back. I looked over each of them in turn as I approached, moving to greet them as the pack mates that they were with a brief touch of my shoulder to theirs before stepping back and allowing them a chance to speak. They'd both grown, matured into their own. When I'd last seen them they'd been little more than adolescents, celebrating their second birthdays. Now they were adults with paths of their own to choose, but it was good to know that these mountain born sons had succeeded thus far in life to be able to return here healthy and strong.