Greet the Sun

Spring had been in full swing for quite a while now. The lambing had finished, berry bushes were heavy with unripe berries, the fruit trees were losing their blossoms to be replaced with growing fruits, and it was time, Corbie judged, for a celebration. The Sunsday festival was small, intended just for the pack. It was still dark when she'd slipped from her den to pick bouquets of the wild spring flowers in the fields, tying each carefully with cordage made from more flowers braided together, and lay each outside the den of every wolf old enough to welp. Samara, Suspense, Ulmaria, Theory, Thalia... she was saddened not to be able to leave one at Twig's den, the loss still fresh to the pack, but she quietly laid one on her grave. She was drawn from her thoughtful quietude when Tam very seriously presented her with a bouquet of her own, and she had to smile and chuckle in appreciation. She wondered if other pack wolves were out doing the same thing.

She returned to the barn as the sun began to peep over the horizon, casting the interior in shadow but for the pale blue light stripes between the remaining boards. While she'd been out picking flowers, Ren and Ayer - and Tam, before he'd come to seek her out with flowers - had been setting up long tables of light breakfast foods to begin the day of feasting without weighing down their stomachs too much for dancing and play. She'd taken the opportunity to trade with a small band of travelers, capuchin monkeys as it happened, to provide music so that no one in the pack felt obligated to do so unless they wanted to - the little troop was chattering together in the rafters as they pulled out their little instruments. Once the sun reached its zenith the festivities would break for a ceremony, then again at sundown they'd light the bonfire so anyone who wanted to could leap it together as promised mates, or for those hoping for pups in the coming year.

Lifting her muzzle, she sang out for the pack to come together for the Sunsday festival as the sun broke the horizon.