Morning sunlight spilled brightly across the steppe, casting sharp shadows on the strange stone formations that surrounded her.  She was standing near the heart of the Stone Steppe after completing a circuit around the newly marked territory before she lifted her head to the sky and howled out her claim.  It was both claim and summons for her members to explore their new territory.  This territory would be their primary hunting grounds, it had a number of suitable prey species, deer, antelope and even wild horses.  Of course with the dry summer hunting would be difficult but not nearly as difficult as it had been in Fenrir's Maw.  They were managing but she worried with each passing day for her members and the reality of severe injury would only continue to grow.

Winter would be upon them soon and they still had much work to do.  She had to expand the territory and felt the steppe was her best option.  She'd noticed mountain goat and big sheep occasionally dropping in altitude for the grasses that grew towards the mountains base.  With the claiming of the steppe she now had a track of land from the tops of Fenrir's Maw down to the smoother lands of the steppe and everything in between.  She hoped her members would be pleased with this.  Karabela gently wound her way around a column.  These ruins… she didn't know what to make of them but there was a curious energy about the place and she couldn't help but wonder if there were treasure buried around here somewhere.

"Speech"

Kassander heard Karabela's call, drawing the pack together. It wasn't the fact that she called that caused him to stop dead in surprise, but rather the direction the howl echoed over the mountains from - the former border of Ebony. It seemed Karabela had claimed a new land for the young pack.

Rommel followed silently at his heels as he made his slow way over the dangerous passes that he was still learning, to cross what had been Ivory Ridge's border and into their new land. He wasn't offended that his kingdom's old land had been claimed, far from it. Leaking in around the surprise was a feeling of... contentment? It felt right. The steppe had never been particularly important to his life when it had been Ebony's. He'd been born and grew up in the rock garden, and his brother was buried near firefly lake, but the steppe had just been... there. Maybe that was why the feeling of coming home wasn't overwhelmed by his past. His old life and his new were able to begin to mesh without being haunted by old memories.

Coming up unexpectedly beside Karabela as she moved around a pillar, Kass didn't have time for his anxiety to rear up. He could just blink up at the taller wolf and blurt out, "The steppe was a really good choice - hunting will be easy and there are so many different grassland herbs here for healing. I remember that some of Ebony's wolves used to den in the ruins, too." He craned his head around to watch a distant herd of mule deer that were browsing in another part of the ruins, and made a thoughtful noise in his throat. "I've been experimenting with different ways of preserving and making things out of hides and furs, so having an easier source of deer and pronghorn hides will be nice." It was Rommel who had introduced him to the idea of making things from leather, since the fox's clan he'd grown up in had preserved hides for armor and other uses. Maybe they'd be able to use that knowledge to Ivory Ridge's advantage now that they had easier hunting.

It seemed her list of places to explore continued growing. For every new terra she investigated it seemed she would stumble across another but while her visits to most territories were brief the steppe would be part of their home. She needed to be as familiar with it as she was her own body. The land was an extension of themselves. They would live or die by it. The wind ruffled her fur and she closed her eyes at its gentle coolness.

Karabela turned to greet Kassander with a smile as he descended from the maw to join her. Great! She was hoping someone might come check out the new territory with her. "Thanks, Kassander! I think our hunters will be pleased as well." She tried searching her mind but she wasn't sure that the name Ebony rang any bells. "Ebony? Is that a pack you used to belong to?" She knew Yfir had once been in the East but that was it.

Karabela nodded again as he spoke. "Excellent! We'll need good furs to line our dens for the upcoming winter and I believe they my be a useful trade good as well. Speaking of trading goods, Birna tells me you once came to Imperium with strange drinks while you were in Yfir. Would you be interested in starting up that trade again?"

"Speech"