It was quiet out here tonight. The autumn air made it chiller than it usually was; a teaser for the next season to come. Autumn leaves cast tiny shadows throughout the sky as they landed near Izumi's motioning paws — and what a beautiful sight it would've been if it wasn't so dark out here. For now, it's scenery just looked unsettling.

The young crane had wandered away from her pack lands once again to continue the search. Sneaking out, inspecting for a trail, and coming back home with nothing but bitterness — an everyday occurrence. Yet despite how awful it felt heading back to the court without any of them to return with, searching had become an obsessive habit at this point. Izumi would never stop searching for her littermates. They're the only family she had left now.

A scent trail was caught — a distinctively farmiliar one belonging to someone she knew all too well; Taro. Without a moments notice those small steps began turning into gallops.

 "Taro!" 'Its you! Its really you! At long last i've found you brother. Now we can go back to the court together and never loose each other again........'

Frozen. Eyes locked on the discovery before her. Izumi nearly chuckled in disbelief at what she saw. A gnarled, mangled corpse in the advanced states of decomposition. Dark fur and foul smelling skin clung desperately to support structures made of bone, and flies and maggots squirming into openings to get their fill. There was no way this sack of bones and rotting flesh belonged to Taro....right?

The answer was unfortunate one. Who the hell else could it be? — sunken eyes the same shade as her own, fur as dark as the night, and a farmiliar scent that could be distinguished even behind the overpowering smell of rot. A scent which belonged to brother.

Izu felt numb for a moment. Her mind, as it usually did, attempted to make her feel indifferent towards the incoming pain; to block off the very thing that would be considered too much and healing it with numbness. Though this couldn't last for much longer. All the emotional weight that she'd been carrying all this time — having her people massacred, getting separated from the others, and now finding Taro's dead body. Everything came crashing down at once in that very moment till it was too much to handle for Fujiwara.

The warmth of a farmiliar liquid began streaming down her face. How long had it been since Izumi shed tears like this? It had been so long. Maybe attempting to run away from this uncomfortable feeling was always inevitable. Not even her placid features could fight back the loud, ugly sobs of loss.

Beside him is were Izumi decided to spend the night. The crane didn't give a damn about the horrid stench in this moment, or the fact that she was away from Lumiya's court right now. Izu found one of her own and dead or not, her sisterly instincts prevented her from straying away.