we will call this our land

Aris, burdened despite her small frame with pack and travois for her own stuff to leave room in the wagons for pack assets, found it harder and harder to keep her mood optimistic the longer the journey stretched. Grumpy kids, creaky wagons, the heavy weight, the way her litter brother just left the column to go fuck off wherever because he was too good to help even though he was large enough to actually pull a wagon, the way Tansy lagged further behind each mile they took because cats weren't made for long journeys like wolves... If Aris wasn't barely that much larger than the cat herself she'd have carried her, but her stupid body had decided to betray her at birth and never grow up. It made it hard to keep a lid on her own grumpiness to avoid making it worse.

But finally, finally the journey was at an end. Aris flopped facedown next to Gossamer for a moment as her larger sister struggled out of her own travois harness. She was pretty sure she could sleep for a week starting right that second... but there was definitely a lot of work to do yet before anyone could relax. Without moving from her prone position, Aris used her forepaws to lift the travois off her back where it crossed in front of her packs, and shoved it aside. Then with a groan she push herself back to her paws to begin unhooking the packs from her harness, glancing around as she did to see how her companions had made the trip.

Tansy finally straggled in and draped her exhausted form over the bundles on Ari's travois. Dirk she had seen perched on the side of one of the wagons preening. She didn't think he'd flown at all the whole trip and he was looking bright eyed. In fact, the stain down the outside of the wagon gave testimony to the fact that he'd amused himself by doing bird shits down the side whenever the urge struck him.

Aris wasn't much for cooking, and while she could definitely keep watch and would do it later when they changed out, she figured she was too tired now to risk it or she might fall asleep. So fires it was. Dragging paws but trying to keep moving so that her muscles didn't cramp up, she set to work on a second fire a far enough distance away from Kotori's that several wolves could fit in between to get warmth from both sides and still have room to pass between them. She figured that a bunch of smaller fires around the outside with most people in the middle would keep them warmer than a big fire in the middle.

She winced at Mortis' goofy song and might have boo'd him just because, but honestly the kids probably needed cheering up after a long journey and facing a night in a weird place that was supposed to be their home. Heck, they were almost yearlings but that didn't mean they wouldn't be anxious and grouchy from it all.