Firestone Hot Springs It's always bears!!

there was something about the road that slipped forth unbidden joy. it was the promise of a spark in a lightning storm, the dashing arc of a shooting star, the untapped spoils of a blue vista — for thousands of years the road had bid his ancestors, and for a thousand years more the road had laid down the patchwork in the tapestry of a million lives.

val missed the road from time to time. the way he felt unburdened, beholden to nothing and no one save his own time. but he was attached to his life at sapphique too; the two were different draughts of sweet nectar, and he supped from them both.

a navy sky spilled overhead as val stopped by the Firestone hot springs. he’d found scent of a bear near the tangle, and told @Mireille of his plans to at least escort it well beyond their claim. it was adolescent, which posed little risk to him, but val wished to impress upon the brute no future excursions would be tolerated.

the trail went cold some hours before, and it was too late to turn back for sapphique. val set for the springs - he could rest here and resume his journey in the morning.

only, when he came upon the stone rest he was not alone. a figure and a scent warned him his solitude was broken — it took him longer than he’d anticipated to recognize who it was.

dwin?