Haunted Wood He said that you should tremble 'till he chose his hour.

Adrenaline surged through Reyes as he sought shelter. He needed to calm down and to think, but he couldn't do either of those things. He felt like he would be sick - knowing that Sorana was being held captive from him in the caldera, poisoned against him by her mother the same way Towhee had poisoned his other daughters; he was full of disjointed emotions over it. Anger, despair, desperate love, even regret — he was a mess.

What was the point of anything if he couldn't see Sorana? How dare Teya take this from him, this one thing he needed, his one solace while he toiled for the pharaoh. She didn't know what he'd been through and to Reyes that part didn't matter; but she was denying him, again and again, denying him.

He worked out some of his rage on the forest floor: clearing branches, fashioning some kind of nest, almost, and digging in to the frozen ground until he'd made some space for himself; and afterwards, Reyes was too amped up by the work and his emotions to do much else beyond obsess.

welcome to be a cameo or short if you like <3 I just needed a new one for him!

Ceridwen was somewhere off having adventures.  Aiden had gone out a few times, and Chickadee and Ani also.  Now even Sorana was somewhere else.  Jay hadn’t been too interested in wandering, but after this last bit, he did have to wonder what was so great about places outside of the borders.  Was there really that much to see?

So far, survey said… no.  No there wasn’t.  There was some cool stuff to smell but aside from that he was pretty bored nearly immediately.

Initially Bluejay figured he would try out hunting so he could maybe, today, actually say he caught more than his brother (this never happened).  But of course, as usual, he lost interest when he didn’t find much after the first hour of looking and instead started exploring for new random hideaways or something neat to take home.  Something his mom or Chickadee or Sorana might like.  They’d all been kind of worried and down lately.

Since he wasn’t on Brecheliant lands, the sight of a stranger didn’t worry him much.  He didn’t remember Reyes all that well, having had little to do with him since the early days of his life.  Hey!  Have you seen anything cool around?  Maybe whoever it was could help a guy out?

He'd barely settled (if you could call the anxious circling, recircling, and arranging in any way settled) when a figure emerged from among the trees. Reyes' first thought was that Sorana had heard him! That she was here now, having chased after him for their reunion. But it wasn't her - he could tell by the way the boy moved, and then the sight of his dark body, and the sound of his voice; this was someone else's kid, and Reyes didn't have the time or patience for him.

At the same time, Reyes was starved for the attention of his own children. His initial reaction was to bristle and rise up from where he'd tried to set his bed, intent to tell the kid to leave him alone, but he couldn't quite bring the same ire against the child as he could against Teya. All those weeks of toil within the mesa had done something to him, on a deep level that even Reyes couldn't fully comprehend.

So he did stand up, and he did bristle, but when he realized the kid was just looking for some adventure he sort-of... Deflated back down. Hips first, then the rest of him looked askance to the darkwood, as if an adult might materialize to tell him off. No, kid, ain't seen anything cool here. Just me.

I'm gonna fade this unless you want to continue it <3

Jay blinked at him as it took him a moment to parse out that answer.  You could be cool.  There was genuine baffled confusion in his tone as to why Reyes might not think that was the case.  But not as a gift, I guess.  At that his features fell a little, as though he had actually considered wrapping Reyes up and carting him home.

Funny enough, that would have been the perfect gift to lift Sorana's spirits.

There was an awkward pause in which Jay realized he had absolutely nothing else to really ask this guy.  A more emotionally discerning wolf might have noticed Reyes seemed a little off and tried to do something about it, but not this one.  Alright, well... later!  He wouldn't waste time before skidaddling off to hunt down a trinket or two to cart back.  Unfortunately he'd fail to find anything that stood out as rad enough for either of them and would wind up running home empty-handed.