The thing about rebuilding is that it looks different up close.
From a distance it looks like progress. Votes passing.
Wolves settling. A kid named Finn asking about school.
Small mercies stacking up like stones in a wall.
Up close it looks like two Moonridge wolves refusing to share a patrol route with an Ashwood wolf named Colt. It looks like someone leaving a dead rabbit on Mara's doorstep with the Ashwood mark scratched into the dirt beside it. It looks like whispered arguments in the kitchen that stop the second I walk in.
It looks like people trying and failing and trying again with varying degrees of grace.
Saturday morning I count three separate complaints filed with the outer guard before breakfast is finished.
Kell brings them to me with his coffee and his expression of
