Birdsong filled the woodland, and Nate, without truly realizing he was doing it, whistled back to them a song of his own. A mod-podge melody, it meandered through his subconscious as he trailed the edge of a clearwater creek.

His time might be better spent hunting... but this morning, he preoccupied himself looking for shiny stones. Colorful or unusually shaped ones, or things that glittered. He'd once had quite a collection in his life before. Becoming a wolf didn't mean surrendering all his old hobbies, surely.

If he was intending to stay here, among the flowered woodlands and butterfly swarms, he felt now it might be possible to amass little treasures again.

The diversion gave him time to think, too, about what it would mean if the others stayed here, with him. Or if they didn't. Having realized he didn't want to run away, anymore, he now had to contend with the possibility of losing companions to things beyond his control.

No easy answers, anymore, if there ever were any. Nate paused with a mouthful of rocks at a shallow crossing, and watched morning smoke float over the ripples.