The first day of travel felt like breathing out after holding your breath for months.
Three hours from pack territory, with the familiar landscape shifting into less known forest, Aria felt the peculiar lightness of being untethered from routine. No healing house hours to maintain. No council obligations. No one needing something from her before she had finished her morning tea.
Just the road, her friends, and the October gold forest stretching ahead.
"This is incredible," Liora announced to no one in particular, spreading her arms wide as they crested a small hill and the view opened up. Rolling forest in every direction, a distant river catching the morning sun, the faint shapes of mountains rising at the horizon's edge.
"You have left pack territory before," Kaelan observed.
"Day trips do not count," Liora said. "This is actual adventure. This is us going somewhere on purpose with no one telling us we have to come back by dinner."
