Springwood

Graciously accepting Durandel's help, Nova wrapped up the remaining bits of meat. He listened to the conversations down the hall, and silently praised himself for including Amarok in the second ration calculation. It looked like they would have the two new faces traveling with them. A lighter load for everyone, but of course that only meant less food per wolf. There had been packs left to them, probably by Fox, enough for everyone to carry their rations while keeping their paws and mouths free. They fit over the back snugly like saddles, a pouch on either of the wearers sides. Nova remembered the importance of balancing the portions evenly on each side, otherwise the additional weight on one side could cause the wearer to drag his feet on the heavier side. The humorous if unfortunate side effect of dragging your feet on only one side was that the wearer would slowly drift in a large circle if he had no landmarks. Terrible if your the one who wasted a day circling, but hilarious in hindsight.

Nova's ears pricked up as he heard his name down the hall, and listened to Blue ask after him. Heh, she should know. She ditched him waiting in line. Must be time to leave at last. With Durandel's aid the packing was finally done, and Nova planned to help hoist everyone's pack on their back as they left. "Thanks mate," Nova said, before heading down the hall to where the others were.

He entered the room and stood between Blue and Vesta. Almost immediately, he sensed negative emotions coming from both sides of him. Meh, these shewolves. What was the argument about now? Deciding to cut in, Nova announced that they were ready to go. "Everyone eats what they carry. If we move fast, we get bigger meals. Take too long and we are going to have to stretch out our meat real thin," Nova instructed, feeling like a quartermaster. Of course, they could always hunt if they were running out of food, but that took time. And time always seemed to be against them.