Greykin Valley

| 14 | Kingslake Pass

⥐ ⋞ ☽ ⋟ ⥐

| Jackson |

Jackson stirred when he felt the van slowing. He frowned and opened his eyes but squinted when he was hit by blinding white light.

"We're here," came Sebastien's voice.

With a quiet yawn, Jackson lifted his head from Damon's chest and glanced around. Everyone was getting ready to head out, grabbing their bags and waking up those of the pack who were asleep.

"Hey," Damon said quietly. "We're heading out."

Jackson nodded and sat up.

"Good nap?" Wilson asked with a smirk.

He shrugged in response. "I guess."

When the passenger door slammed shut, Jackson flinched and woke up a little more. Then, Damon took hold of his hand, and once the van doors opened, the Alpha got up, and Jackson followed him through the back of the van and out onto the snowy road.

It was admittedly a relief to see all the snow and trees. He breathed in the crisp, fir-scented air, and let himself sink into the feeling of the outside world again.

"All right," Sebastien called as he closed the van doors. "We're heading this way," he said, moving through the pack and towards the treeline. Then, he turned to face them. "It's gonna be your call whether we travel like this or in our other forms," he said to Damon. "To get to Greykin Valley as swiftly as possible, I advise we switch forms every twelve hours after a little rest. Sound good?"

Everyone looked at Damon—all except Wilson.

"That's fine," the Alpha responded.

"Right." Sebastien shifted into his kludde form. "I'll follow behind."

Wilson flinched and backed off a little. "Holy crap. What the hell is that thing?" he exclaimed, looking Sebastien up and down.

"I'm not a thing, I'm kludde," Sebastien corrected. "I can speak to and feed astral Caeleste. Ghosts, spectres, phantoms. All that."

"Oh, yeah," Wilson said with a shrug. "I thought your kind died out a long time ago."

"I'm the last one."

"Feels like I'm the last of my kind, too," Wilson mumbled.

Jackson then remembered what Sebastien told him Heir Lucian had found inside Wilson's mind. He wanted to get to the lab to see if there was anything there that would help him find his parents. He almost let it slip that he knew by telling Wilson that he might uncover a thing or two. All he could do was hope for his friend in silence until he was ready to tell him.

"Let's get ready to go," Damon announced.

On his order, everyone shifted into their wolf form.

When Jackson took his wolf form, he looked over at Wilson, and while he watched his friend transform into a huge tiger which stood a little taller than him on all fours, his eyes widened. He wasn't expecting a muto to be this big, and he was astonished. How did he not remember that Wilson was a massive tiger? Something like that would be hard to forget, even with the perception filter in place.

"Wilson?" he asked, staring at the tiger. Could he even understand him?

"Yeah?" Wilson replied, turning his head to look at him.

Evidently, he did understand. "I like...knew you were a tiger, right?"

He scoffed amusedly. "Yeah. You made cat jokes at me all the time."