Silverpine's surroundings awoke with the mingling of delicate gold stitches and grey. Mia noticed the skies felt as if it was dawn, and rain struggled to grace the earth—it was as though the world was indecisive at this moment.
Her world was serene with a single wind-induced scent of clean riverstone accompanied by faint whiffs of early campfire woodsmoke. Only the gentle crunch from her boots on the path's pine needles could be heard.
Like most people, she also enjoyed mornings, but certainly not for the reasons one might guess. It was on this very morning, the calmness was refreshing, void of any sort of pretense.
To Silverpine, the morning was barely the start and offered hope, and that alone was energizing.
She came across Renna, who was perched on the ancient birch bench and was engrossed in a notebook with a charcoal pencil.
Renna glanced up. "You couldn't sleep?"
"Is something bothering you?"
Renna hesitated. "Not fear. Just… wondering what comes next."
Mia sat beside her. "That's not fear. That's vision."
"I found it amusing too." Renna said, "I never expected to care about what came next when I joined the defense circle. All I yearned for was to make it through."
"And now?"
"I wish to be of significance." She quietly murmured. "Not only during battles, but when we are not engaged in fighting."
Mia rested her arm on the back of the bench. "Then create something. Something abstract, only you can make."
"How do you know when you're ready?" Renna asked, looking at her.
"You don't," Mia replied. "You start, regardless." "You can begin anyway".
_________________________________________________________________________
The sun beat back and won the argument with the clouds. By midday, Silverpine sprang to life with the usual hustle and bustle. A team of young wolves was clearing the mark and foundation for a new storage hut being raised at the southern slope.
Ember and Cade stood with Mia and with him from Glenshadow the night before, bringing a satchel filled with notes, sketches and early council records from the leadership circle they had just started at this new camp.
"They're calling it the Hollow Council," Cade said. "Said it sounded rooted. Familiar."
"Sounds like they're proud of it," Ember countered, shielding her eyes from the blistering sun.
"Well, they should be," Mia replied. "They constructed it without waiting for any approval."
Cade glanced at her. "Familiar?"
Mia grinned. "Just a tiny bit."
He handed her a folded scroll. "They also requested our support on the very first inter-pack gathering. Called it Late autumn, just pre-frost."
Mia unrolled the scroll, scanning the meticulously inked proposal. It wasn't ostentatious—there were no rankings or titles. Only a simple proposition for Wolves from Silverpine, Hollowreach, Glenshadow, and Redwater to come together to share food and stories devoid of any ceremony or political agenda.
Only company.
She nodded. "We'll go."
___
Later that evening, work had begun on the new watch tower at Western Trail, the first beams raised. It wasn't designed for war, but for warning, a signal tower to be built with open slats and carved flutes to capture the wind in differing tones depending on the direction.
Mia stood beneath it, one hand clutching the wood, cedar and resin mingling heavily in the air.
Lucas caught up to her, tool belt still slung around his waist.
"Quite the builder?" she said.
"Not well, but enough to be useful," he said, casually shrugging.
Both Mia and Lucas turned their heads towards the tower as one of the apprentices climbed up, preparing to secure the final rope.
Mia looked Lucas's way and asked, "Did you ever think we'd get here?"
"Not like this," was his response. "I thought victory would be loud. Final. But this…"
As he surveyed the busy, laughing, calm energy of the wolves, he said—" This is better."
Mia leaned against him lightly. "This is ours."
******
That night, the lodge hosted its first open circle in months. No agenda. No votes scheduled. Just a gathering of wolves.
A collection of stories was created, both new and old.
A pup could be heard singing a song she learned from a traveling scout. Two recollects from Defense Circle's former rivals shared a poem they wrote together. And a joke about Cade's infamous for terrible cooking during a supply run sparked the largest laughter heard in days.
Mia listened from the back, and in that moment, she acknowledged something she had tried to avoid admitting for so long—"I no longer fear being forgotten."
Due to the fact that what she was helping build wasn't a statue or a throne.
It was how people lived.
It was a collective understanding that every person, regardless of their title, heritage, or strength, had the right to be accepted. To rule. To determine the narrative.
That kind of legacy didn't wear her face.
It wore theirs.
____
Lucas approached her after the circle and discovered her sitting with her back on the lodge's steps, legs stretched out, and her eyes fixated on the sky above.
"They started to sing inside." He informed.
"I know." She replied.
"Wasn't planning to join?"
"I was," She replied. "But this is what I wanted even more."
Him sitting beside her.
"You remember the first time we stood here, right? After the Moon Banquet?" She asked him.
He nodded in agreement, "You looked at me like I had broken something mind-blowing."
"You did."
"I know."
"Now, I'm not quite sure I'd change it," she remarked, staring at the stars.
He didn't say anything.
Since neither of them wanted to speak couldn't forgo what they both knew.
What we constructed only expanded with the combustion.
What they had built only grew from the fire.
From the fracture.
From the choice to stay, even when staying hurt.
***________________________________***
Mia rested her head on his shoulder, the scent of pine and smoke and something steadier than either settling around them.
Silverpine was quiet.
Not because it had nothing left to say.
But because, sometimes, the most powerful thing a wolf could do—
Was listen.