Some Things You Let Go In Order To Live [Ivory Ridge]

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.