I was not sure where I could go, but I kept on walking, venturing deeper and deeper into the forest. I thought that I was wandering aimlessly until I found myself in front of the tree that led to Auri's underground project.

It wasn't too surprising. After all, this was the only other place I was familiar with, outside of the territory.

Perhaps I could find Auri.

"Bodie?"

I jumped at the voice. Speak of the devil.

"H- Hey, Auri." I cleared my throat, stuffing my hands into my pocket awkwardly.

Instead of her usual double-ponytail, Auri had her hair braided today. There were bits of flowers and branches embedded inside the plait. I was not sure if they were deliberate decorations, so I stopped myself from pulling them out.

"You didn't tell me you were visiting today," she said. "How did the meeting go?"

A lump formed in my throat, and I pushed it down with a gulp. "It... It didn't go well," I admitted as I shuffled on my feet. "I had an argument with my father and things got... ugly."

"Oh." Auri's face fell, and that sight hurt my heart more than my disownment. "I'm so sorry, Bodie. What happened?" She noticed my strained expression and quickly added, "You don't have to answer if you don't want to. Hey, how about this? I made a big pot of vegetable stew yesterday. It's pretty good if I do say so myself. Wanna try it?"

"That sounds good."

Auri forced a smile on her face. "Come on, it's in the underground structure."

With that, she vanished from my sight. What was left of her was a pile of clothes on the ground, and a golden ball of fur digging herself out of the pile. After seeing her transform multiple times, I was no longer stunned by this.

Auri twitched her nose at me before turning away. She was also used to my transformation by now, learning to give me some privacy to take off my clothes.

I shifted into my wolf form, and, grabbing both of our garbs with my mouth, we entered the tunnel.

When we got to the cave, Auri hopped into a small crevice in the walls to put her clothes back on. I stood to the side and fiddled with the buttons of my shirt.

An earthy, savory smell of vegetable soup drifted to my nose. My head jerked up and my stomach growled.

"Hungry?"

Turning around, I saw that Auri was carrying a large pot of stew. By large, I meant, well, large for her. It was only a little larger than a regular bowl I used, but I was appreciative anyway. I never expected Auri to have enough food to fill me up.

"Yes," I replied. "It smells really good."

"Right?" Auri grinned, setting the pot on a table. "It tastes much better."

As she sat on a chair, I settled on the floor next to her and pulled my knees close. "So you cook here?"

For the past week, I had been coming to this structure with various people, but I had never sat down and enjoyed this space like this.

"Yeah." Auri shot me a sheepish look. "I actually live here."

I blinked. "Huh? I- I thought this space was for your project."

"It is, but well, it's empty at night, so why waste the space, you know? It's useful when I want to work on the project at night too." Tugging at her braid, she glanced around the cave. "And I'm also... happy here. I mean, this place is basically an expanded version of a place I'd like to live in. My dream home. So... I decided to live here."

"That makes sense. You did build this place from scratch after all."

Auri chuckled. She scooped a bowl of stew for herself and pushed the rest of the pot towards me. "Don't tell anybody else in the department though. They'll all want to move in with me."

The idea did not appeal to me. "Don't worry, I won't."

We proceeded to eat. I carefully slurped the soup as I listened to Auri talk about her day. After the tension at home just a few minutes ago, this trivial small talk was a much-needed break.

The more Auri rambled on, the more my body relaxed; the more I sipped the stew, the more it warmed my heart. Despite being in a 'foreign' territory, I realized that I was more at ease here. I had always been kept on my toes when talking to my father, too afraid of his remarks, too afraid of disappointing him further. It had been like this for Celine and the others too, albeit to a lesser degree.

But with Auri, I felt free, for some reason. Truly free.

When I was done with the pot of food, Auri frowned. "Is it enough? Do you still need to eat more?"

"It's enough," I lied. I looked around the familiar cave. "You said you live here. Do you also... sleep here, then? Alone?"

Auri rested her head on her hand. "Yeah. After living with seventy-one people under the same roof, you kinda wanna live alone for a bit, you know?"

I could not say that I understood how that felt, so I just nodded.

A question lingered in my mind. I wondered what it was like, being away from your family, from the people you grew up with. It had been only a few hours after my disownment and I already felt a wave of heartache and homesickness. But Auri had left her home by her own choice.

"Do you ever," I asked hesitantly, "want to go back?"