Since emerging from my solitude at the end of autumn, I had slowly worked my way back into the pack. There were many new faces for which to learn names, predominantly a large influx of pups from the spring past. It brought joy to my heart to see that the pack was flourishing under Kalseru's reign, and though it was somewhat of a challenge to relax into retirement my time away from the pack did help to ease the want to take the weight of leadership back on. Sleekwing, my elder brother, had also offered some sage advice on the matter.
In addition to reacquainting myself with the pack members, I had also been striving to travel further throughout the territory with each outing that I made. My time of healing had seen me sequestered away to one private area of the mountain, and I missed the feeling of traversing the wider limits of the lands I had reigned over for ten years. But I had lost much of my muscle mass while I was laid up, and so it was taking longer than I had hoped to rebuild the strength required to climb to the peaks of the mountains. Though it was a skill each member of my family was born with - the dexterity to ascend to the highest heights of Moladion - my body was not yet up the challenge. Soon, though - I was sure of it.
For now I was content to simply roam the mid to lower ranges of the mountains, exploring these lands that I had been born to, that I knew backwards and forwards, no matter how much time I spent away from them. At least I had still lain in mountain soil during my healing process...at least I had not cast myself from the mountains themselves in my darkest days. Jogging along a familiar path I made my way through the pack lands, though my gate was not so smooth as it had once been. There would forever be a limp to my stride now, a thing I had come to accept. It no longer caused me constant pain, but the secondary break of an old fracture gained defending Spirane from a would-be-usurper in my younger days was something that just could not heal back to one hundred percent.
A single ear flicked to the side as I caught the muffled words of a wolf a short distance off of the path I trod. Curiosity piqued, I slowed to a walk and made my way closer to the source. I hadn't been able to recognize the wolf's voice off hand, but it could be any number of Spirane wolves. At first I did not see anyone, and I thought it was just a trick of the breeze carrying someone's voice down the mountainside. But then a small golden head popped up from seemingly underneath the snow and my eyes adjusted to see what the drifts of snow had disguised - a pocket of space just large enough for the small wolf it had trapped, just deep enough to keep him from being able to extract himself.
Though I did not recognize him immediately, there was something oddly familiar about him. I stepped forward, looking down at the predicament the small golden blonde male found himself in.