Morning breaks softly, light easing through the trees instead of crashing in all at once. I am already awake when it happens, eyes open, breath even, listening to the cabin wake around me. The night had been restless but uneventful. No sounds. No notes. No shifts I could trace with certainty.
That almost bothers me more than if there had been.
I stay still for a while, letting the light change. Dawn here does not announce itself. It seeps in through cracks in the trees, through the thin places in the curtains, through the spaces where night loosens its grip without ever fully letting go. The cabin creaks as it always does. Wood expanding. The faint tick of cooling metal from the stove. Familiar. Safe in the way repetition can be.
My wolf stirs, not anxious, not alarmed. Alert, but settl
