Of course they had arrived in winter. It felt strange just to say arrived. The word seemed to imply that they had set out to find the place, or that the place might very well be their final destination. Yet, they had arrived nonetheless. Somewhere along the line, Ella had made it clear that she wanted to find Moladion, a place that every third or fourth wolf they encountered seemed to mention, be it in passing or with great knowledge. If it had been up to Morgan (which it should have been), they wouldn't have gone anywhere near the place. Places that busy were seldom safe, or at least that is what he had told Ella. In truth, he hadn't ever been somewhere that busy and the thought of it made him frustrated. He'd let his grievances out, curses and all, for Ella had paid them no heed. It was easier to be honest when the receiver of said honesty didn't care, anyway.

Their first lesson had been a swift one: winter wasn't the same as it had been in the plains. It was a wet kind of cold, the kind of cold that made ice between your toes and clung to fur and skin alike. The sun did little to melt the morning snow and even less to warm the day itself. Lesson two had been that Moladion was a larger place than they thought too - a cold, wet, vast place. It made Morgan's bones ache and his face furrow into a look of scorn but it only seemed to make Ella all the more wild with excitement. By day three, he'd stopped trying to keep up with her or keep her at bay. She always came back anyway. Besides, the time to himself gave him a chance to investigate the place.

The mountains would have been the best way to get a good orientation of the place but when they had gotten close, they'd found the boundary marked by pack-kind. So they'd kept their distance from the boundary but had followed them nonetheless, waiting to find passage to higher ground. When it finally came, they had found themselves in the crags. Much of the rock was coated in ice and snow, so many paths upwards were difficult to find but Morgan hadn't made it to his age by luck alone and so, he'd scrambled his way up before finding an easier, flatter way to one of the taller peaks. By the time he'd made it there (with Ella having taken off on her own adventure), he'd amassed a powdery coating of snow himself. He was all grey, topped with white, like the mountains and crags themselves. It made him snort with amusement. Hell, he felt as old as the crags and mountains too. He best not turn to stone though, he supposed, at least not until Ella had been taught enough to not end up like her mother.

His eyes weren't those of a young wolf but he could still see hints of swamplands to the south of the crags. His eyes had narrowed as he looked out beyond the crags. Moladion seemed flat, with few peaks anywhere east of the mountainous pack they had encountered; it seemed as if the land itself was sinking towards the ocean to the east, though he thought he could see the hints of a plateau far in the distance, eaten up by grey snow clouds. But what of the north? They had slipped through from the west, moving in a narrow space of land between the mountain pack and a forest pack to the north. Surely there had to be more than just pack-wolves and lackeys? He wanted to believe there'd be a place for strays and loners alike, but where?

He'd been engrossed in his task. From his peak, he spotted movement somewhere below, his eyes shifting immediately to hunt for it. Had it been a wolf? Bear, perhaps? At least it hadn't been a cougar, or he would have been in its jaws by then. But if it had been a wolf, had they seen him? He was well and truly exposed, a lone man atop a stone fist. By the time he had decided to sink down to his stomach to conceal himself, he knew he had been too late had it indeed been a wolf. He cursed himself, his teeth biting down on one another. He had been hoping to learn more of the land before they had to begin learning about the wolves - an old fool, he was. But at least he was an old fool metres above the other fool out in the snow and sleet.