The morning started like most in the Libby den — with the scent of woodsmoke and coffee, and the low murmur of wolves not yet fully awake. The cabin wasn’t silent so much as it was peacefully loud: the stove knocking heat into the room, Gabriel humming a low tune with no words, Holt doing his quiet version of stretching that somehow always sounded like lumber creaking.
Thane stood by the counter, steaming mug in one hand. Mark was already at the table with a notebook open and pencil tapping.
“All right, day briefing,” Thane said casually, raising his voice just enough to catch everyone’s floating attention.
“That’s the nicest way you’ve ever said ‘chores,’” Gabriel replied with that grin that always started in his eyes. He slid a plate of fried potatoes and eggs across the table toward Thane.
“It’s called delegation,” Thane said with a smirk. He sat, inhaled the steam off his mug, and started in: “Mark and I are going to get this cabin wired into the City Hall Definity. We already got the PBX side working, now it’s time to give this place a landline.”
Holt frowned. “Is landline a new stew?”
Gabriel elbowed him. “No, big guy. It’s a phone. A real one. Rings. Talks. Like the ones we used to take off the hook when telemarketers wouldn’t leave us alone.”
Mark nodded like a professor. “Also runs entirely without cell towers or satellites, which will make you love it and fear it at the same time.”
“Or love it because you’re the one who patched the wires, like me,” Thane added, grinning into his coffee.
Gabriel leaned on the back of Holt’s chair. “Speaking of fear — Holt and I will be working on guitar lesson number five.”
Holt perked up; his ears went tilt-happy. “I learned G chord. Hurt less than last time.”
“Which is progress,” Gabriel said. “Good job. By lesson eight, you’ll be playing songs without breaking strings or claws.”
Kade and Rime stood near the window, already half-geared. Kade rolled his shoulders like the start of a shifting ritual.
“And you two,” Thane said, pointing at them with a nod, “Patrol.”
Rime nodded once. “Standard loop. River. Ridge. East trail. Back fence.”
“Report anything weird,” Thane added. “Even if it’s just an odd animal track or a dropped bag.”
Kade dipped his head respectfully. “Understood. We’ll keep our eyes open.”
“I know,” Thane replied. “That’s why you’re out there.”
Across the room, Holt waved a hand. “And what me do after guitar?”
Mark pointed at a page in his notebook without looking up. “Unload the woodpile next to the barn.”
Holt saluted with dramatic flair. “Understood. Holt will bend logs to his will.”
Rime’s low chuckle was barely audible — but Kade heard it and smiled.
As everyone began to drift into their day’s roles, Thane took a long breath, soaking in the sight: the pack in motion, the den alive, the cold world held at bay by the heartbeat of a town collectively rebuilding.
“Good day ahead,” he murmured.
Mid-morning found Mark on his knees near the cabin’s crawlspace, pushing decades-old insulation aside and grumbling under his breath in a mix of engineering jargon and mild curses. Thane held a flashlight steady above him, coiling a length of Category 3 cable in clean loops on the floor.
“Punchdown block’s still live,” Mark said, voice muffled by the dust. “City Hall’s still sending dial-tone on the copper pair. All we need is tie-in. The real chore’s gonna be finding the demarcation point under this place.”
“I can’t tell if you’re complaining or thrilled,” Thane said, grin audible in his voice.
“That’s me,” Mark replied, scooting forward and blowing dust out of his nose. “The exhausted cheerleader of analog communications.”
Thane fed the cable through the old conduit port in the cabin’s sidewall. “Tell you what — getting a line out here will make life easier. If Marta needs us fast, no more runners or radios.”
“Or wolves shouting through the window,” Mark added.
“Effective,” Thane said. “But not subtle.”
Upstairs, Gabriel was bent over Holt, whose claws were wrapped as carefully as hands could be around a guitar neck that looked almost tiny against his arms.
“Okay, one more time,” Gabriel said, as patient as a saint. “Curl the fingers. Claws out of the way. Just enough pressure to get the note. Not enough to crush the fretboard. We’re playing guitar, Holt. Not trying to win a fight with it.”
Holt looked down seriously, as if the guitar had just insulted his mother. Then, carefully, painfully, he strummed.
It sounded like a metal pipe being dragged across angry gravel. But one chord in the mess was almost right.
Gabriel grinned. “There we go! That’s the beginning of ‘House of the Rising Sun,’ Holt.”
Holt blinked. “Good house?”
“Decent house,” Gabriel replied. “Built on sadness and terrible choices. But musically, it’s very pretty.”
Down the hall, Kade and Rime slipped on their packs and stepped out silently, closing the door against the cold.
“Ridge first,” Rime said.
“River bend after,” Kade agreed. “Trail iced over. Might be slippery.”
“Mm,” Rime said, nodding. “Instinct before speed.”
Kade smiled with soft respect. “Same rule my grandmother used to say… ‘fast paws trip first.’”
Rime looked sideways at him. “She smart wolf.”
“The smartest,” Kade agreed.
They padded over frost-stiffened grass, moving like shadows. Their claws clicked softly on stones. Their ears rotated constantly, mapping the world the way some people map roads. To them, the snow glittered with a thousand messages — each track, each broken stick, each scent note placed like syllables in a language anyone could learn if they were willing to kneel long enough.
They found deer sign clustered around the south draw. The herd had passed in the night, light-footed and calm.
They passed the fox burrow under the old mandolin tree, and Rime dropped a pinch of dried venison by the entrance.
“Why feed it?” Kade asked.
“Good fox means fewer rats,” Rime replied, simple and true.
“And fewer rats means fewer sick human kids.”
Rime glanced at him sideways. “Also fewer rats means happy Mark.”
Kade laughed once, a quiet sound like a relieved exhale. “Fair enough.”
Just before noon, Marta and Hank were in the square, surrounded by three townsfolk who were trying to decide whether the new storage building needed one more coat of stain or if they should save the can for spring.
“Decisions are easier,” Marta said with a flick of her wrist, “when you have warm stew and a place to argue about it.”
“Or someone to make the call,” Hank added, straight-faced.
She threw him an exaggerated scowl. “You saying I’m indecisive, Hank?”
“Nope,” he said. “Just saying you let others think you are. It softens them up for when you roll right over whatever they wanted.”
Marta snorted. “Fair.”
A little ways off, Jesse was at the northern fence line, working with another volunteer to drive replacement stakes into a gap left by shifting frost. He took each hammer strike with the dignity of someone paying back a debt, not fulfilling a sentence.
“You’re better at this than most who’ve been here three years,” the volunteer said, wiping her brow.
“I had a lot of practice working stuff alone,” Jesse replied, giving the final hammer blow. “Just… didn’t always have a community to fix it for.”
She nodded with real warmth. “You do now.”
Jesse’s smile held gratitude that didn’t need a louder word.
By mid-afternoon, Mark and Thane had crawled out of the under-floor darkness victorious.
“Cable’s run,” Mark declared, wiping cobwebs off his arms. “We just need to trim the line, punch it into slot sixteen, and mount the handset.”
“Then dial tone,” Mark confirmed, brushing dust from his jeans.
“Analog gods, bless us,” Thane said half-seriously.
Gabriel walked in with Holt behind him. Holt held his guitar like a defeated warrior holding his own shield.
“I think,” Gabriel said, “that today we learned one chord with only minor property damage.”
Holt held up a bent string. “Never knew metal ribbon could scream.”
Thane nodded at him. “You’re learning. Stick with it. By spring, we’ll have you doing open mics.”
Holt frowned, then paused. “Is Mike a man who needs opening?”
Gabriel burst into laughter so hard he nearly fell over.
Late afternoon layered gold over the valley. Rime and Kade returned to the cabin with light steps and alert eyes.
“Movement on the river,” Kade reported. “Just deer. No people tracks since yesterday.”
“We cleared fallen tree off east trail,” Rime added. “Holt can move the trunk with Jesse tomorrow.”
Thane nodded. “Good. Anything feel off?”
“Not today,” Kade said, voice calm and content. “Feels like… peace.”
“That’s because it is,” Thane replied. “Good day.”
He watched as Kade hung up his pack and Rime leaned his spear-bladed tool in its usual corner.
Just then — the newly mounted phone on the wall rang.
Everyone in the cabin jumped — then froze — then burst out laughing.
“First call,” Mark said, grinning, as Thane stepped to the handset.
“Line’s good,” Thane said into the phone. “This is the cabin.”
Marta’s voice came loud and clear, warm as a wool coat. “Just checking the connection, Thane. Also reminding you that your stew pot is invited to the square tonight if you’re cooking.”
Thane smirked, covering the mouthpiece. “She’s just fishing for Holt’s soup.”
Holt puffed up, proud and deeply unconcerned with the accuracy of the joke.
“Tell her we’ll be there,” Thane said into the line.
Marta laughed. “I’ll set the bowls.”
The phone clicked off as the room filled with the steady hum of wolf comfort.
Night rolled in with the easy confidence of a friend who didn’t need to knock. The cabin buzzed with low conversation, bowls clinked, and Holt’s latest batch of stew filled the air with spice and heart.
Gabriel strummed for the group, and Holt actually managed to pluck his first clean note.
“Nice,” Gabriel said. “That almost sounded like music.”
“That was music,” Holt insisted, and nobody disagreed.
Mark crossed out the last note of the day’s tasks. Kade sat in the middle of it all, silent but full — not just with stew, but belonging.
Thane leaned back against the wall, one hand around a warm mug, one paw propped on the rung of Rime’s chair.
“No howling today,” he said softly.
“No fights,” Gabriel added.
“No one trying to knock down the gate,” Mark said.
“Good day,” Kade murmured.
“Earned day,” Rime corrected.
Thane let himself smile, just enough to show teeth that weren’t meant for fear.
“Yeah. Good work. Good day.”
And in Libby, the night held that truth gently — like a story being set aside for the next chapter.