Blackfeather Woods a

Life was changing and time seemed as if it was beginning to slow for the old man. Each day he woke up but each day was not like the previous, nor did any resemble the days of his youth.

Life was different now. So terribly—and, at times, wonderfully—different. Age brought with it knowledge but, for as much as he’d come to know throughout the years, that alone did not keep the yearning at bay. He wished to see the world again, wished to experience the same joys as he once had back when time and youth allowed him to travel. But times were changing now, as things occurred that he could not stop. His fellow leader was growing older, just as he was, and he couldn’t help but wonder how long it might be until the woods lived on without either of them there.

How long until they were left alone, without a proper leader to guide them...

It would not happen, he could not, in good conscious, allow it. But Maegi had gone away again and his own children were nowhere near, which left the youngest of their small family—@Astara and Averna, the daughters of his Listener. He considered the sisters, going back and forth between them, before settling on darkest of the duo and calling for her.

a howl shuddered through the forest, sending a cloud of black crows skyward. astara watched as their dark forms blackened the sky, moving eastward to less disturbed roosts. 

that call had been for her; she knew it — her eyes trailed the shade-dappled forest for their leader. it took a few failed attempts to find kove: first she looked in his den, then she popped up expectantly where she had often seen him sunning, and then she was sure he would be near the caches... but he was not there. 

in fact, he was not at all where astara had come to expect him to be, and so when she finally found him, there was a grim semblance of confusion to her features. her solemnity did not last long before the white sovereign — nuzzling his muzzle, she wondered what she had been called for — and why he looked as if something had chewed at him all night.