They hadn't talked much since reuniting, not about this, but Screech had set his mind on an idea as soon as the Sunspire was at his flank. He knew things — not much, mind you, but things nonetheless — and tantamount among those things, was the immutable fact that he was homeless. That he could not return to the Caldera, or the valley that housed it. He had no family in the Sunspire no matter what Liffey had said to him. That he would come back one day and throw Hydra off of her godforsaken mountain — but that left him with an excessive level of uncertainty. He wasn't alone because he had Redshank, but together the two of them had nothing to their name.

Their names were meaningless. 

They were meaningless.

In the weeks since departing the Sunspire, Screech had entertained the thought of going with the dark-furred dancer from the beach; he thought about the Cortens often, of the friendship and love that they shared during the night of the moon, and of all the things that Screech missed about his own family. Maybe if he reunited with Seelie then he could live with her? Or introduce her to Redshank, and they could live together as a trio? But that brought thoughts of @Sorina to his mind, too. And then @Cassiopeia, as his memory blossomed with all the faces of the wolves he once knew. They were all gone now. Screech had no idea what had happened to Cassiopeia (and it was absolutely lost on him that she had been there, on the Sunspire, during his 24-hour love-it-or-lose-it blitz). 

He had nothing.

But that meant he could start over from scratch. He was at the bottom of the proverbial totem pole — his name was dirt, he was scum, everyone either wanted him dead or just wanted him gone, so gone he would go. It took a while for Screech to reach this conclusion because he'd often be reduced to a useless husk of self-doubt and depression, and plus traveling through the wilderness on a one-eyed mystery tour only sounded like a good idea — in practice it was lonely and it was dangerous. To make matters worse, he didn't know where the hell he was right now, but the air was rank with sulfur and the soil had become a slick-but-chunky mess beneath his feet, and he was coated up to his midline in the stuff.

The only upside to this situation — aside from the fact winter had finally ceased to be — was that his home was so far behind him, he may as well be on another continent. There was no way that the wolves of Moonspear would ever find him here, and Screech held this in his mind as he went along, fueled almost entirely by a self righteous level of spite, and spite alone.

There wasn't much here except for muck, which in retrospect was perfect for the slumlord wannabe. He didn't know what to do with himself aside from keep moving so that's what Screech did; he hadn't eaten or slept in a few days now, but if he was going to find any solace at all, he had to keep on moving. His mind was a blur of manic depression — having never been very emotional or introspective before, this new version of himself was difficult to adjust to. Just as Screech thought he'd gotten a handle on his abysmal thoughts, something new would creep in among the garbage, and he'd be off on a new mental spin. At some point his brain would stop chattering away at him. He'd stop filling the blankness of his travel and the void of his lonliness with mental discussion, but so far it hadn't really clicked yet.

As he sloshed his way through the muddy fringes of the slough (and then the murky brown water at the bottom that was just enough to force him to swim ever few steps) a fresh chill descended upon him — and so too did a shadow, soaring across him from overhead until he heard a shuddering noise in the trees, and a hawk's screech. The boy lifted himself on to the opposite bank. With some scrambling, he got a firm grip on terra firma and was free in time to catch a glimpse of the tree-tops swaying beneath an abrupt gale. Screech shook off and watched the sky, curious to note the silence in the air after that call — before there had been starlings, chickadees, towhees, blackbirds — but now there was only silence as the hawk fed.

For anyone with keen eyesight, it was somewhat difficult to pick out a single bird among the swaying branches of a tree; with only the one eye, Screech's efforts were futile. He didn't find the culprit of the sounds until the next volley of calls, and with a pivot to his ears he managed to get some idea of where the hawk was stationed. The boy moseyed his way among the trees until he came to a series of endlessly reaching pines. The bird was in one of these — but watching from down below made things more difficult too. He had no reason to pursue the bird (and no inclination to eat it) except to fill the void of nothingness he had found himself within. 

Screech hoisted himself up and balanced on his hind feet while his forelimbs propped him against a tree trunk, and he looked around as casually as he could; it was not a comfortable position. After the third or fourth attempt at this he thought he spotted the hawk's silhouette or, at the very least, a hawk shaped branch. It did not occur to him yet to try and speak to the bird.