Janius brought his lower lip over his top front teeth and sat down on the steps beside Kaleeth. There were many things that had changed about Kaleeth, but her love for her parents was not one of them. "Yes, it's unfortunate," Janius put an arm around Kaleeth and brought her close to comfort her. Doing that managed to hide the twinge of guilt that passed across his face. "I wish there was something we could do about it. Some way of finding them."

[hr]
The frantic preparation made the pack's brief break a short one. After only a week and a half, preparations had been made for the entire clan to migrate in small groups. The announcement was made with a few days notice, making the move jarring and distressing for many. However, protests were isolated and largely quelled with either negotiations or the reality that the clan would be moving either way. The journey was organised such that Meesei's pack would be in the lead with whomever she needed, while the rest of the clan would be staggered behind them, stretching out such that they would catch up with them after about a month.

Sabine went along with a bit less anxiety up until the day that they would move out. Her work kept her busy as usual, though she held a bit more hope up about Peiter. Hopefully the time outside and the exercise of travel would only have him feel even better. Sabine did not feel the need to update Meesei about such things just yet, not even Peiter's apparent relief with ale. Sabine was apparently not aware of its dangers.

Newt and Rhazii were of course rather upset again to be moving so soon after catching up with their friends. As Meesei's pack would be going ahead with some members of the council to reach the Riften clan first, they would be separated from many of the other children in the clan. Their parents didn't hear the end of their protests up until they were ready to leave. Newt, in particular, was not looking forward to travelling in the cold again.

While he didn't say so to anyone but Meesei and the council members travelling with them, Gallus opted to travel with the first group for the sake of Peiter's mental health. While he had occasionally tried to reach out to Peiter, his responsibilities kept him busier than he would have liked. With this journey, he hoped to buffer Peiter's problems with Sabine's presence and take time to try and work things through with him.

As a consequence of Gallus' pack joining them, Fendros and Sabine were not only joined by Ahnasha at the Bruma courier, but also Tzirret. All had penned letters to their respective loved ones, with Ahnasha and Fendros penning a letter together to send to Llarasa. Within the heartfelt messages were instructions to send replies to Windhelm as that was the closest city to their destination. However, it would be further out of the way than Bruma was to their now former clanhome. None of them knew exactly when they would next read whatever responses found them. They were headed even further away from the letters' destinations than before.

As expected, the most memorable thing about the journey was the cold. The high altitude and the frigid wind made the travel thoroughly uncomfortable, even with thick fur clothing. The group hoped in vain that Skyrim itself would be more hospitable. That much was half-true at best. After passing border guards with no notable trouble, the mountains descended into a forested plateau of sturdy thin trees, vast sparkling lakes, and rough grass. The rift was reminiscent of Bruma's higher forests in many ways, but the air remained humid and cold in the sun. Fog would often pervade the roads in the mornings, adding to that which showed itself on their outward breaths. As well, the place simply had a different atmosphere to Cyrodiil's forests. Sabine observed that it might have been the lack of Ayleid ruins, though it felt less tangible than that.

After about three weeks of travel, the group's first terminus was Riften itself; a closely built Nordic town without walls, but with many matching tiled roofs that reached out with wooden prows on either end. Their best bet with liaising with the Riften clan was to find a representative in town. If their ways of monitoring the area were anything like Riften's, there would be a few lycans at the local inn or similar establishment.