Redhawk Caldera northern downpour

The rain had started further south and followed doggedly along with the traveler's path, pulsing with the gusts of eager wind, so at times the rain itself was thrown sidelong against the trees, or the lakes and rivers that were passed frothed and roiled as if angered by the presence of the wolf. He knew better than to think the weather was sentient in any way. The chill that had settled in to Kigipigak's limbs did not slow him much (or so he'd like to think)—to the trader, the exterior now matched his tumultuous interior.

The hunt for Nutuyikruk had not stopped in a physical sense, but if one were to compare the image of Kigipigak prior to this latest venture and this one, who came now slogging through fields that had become fens due to the downpour, they'd see a different man. Gone was his bravado, his confidence, his grin, his focus; in their place was the yawning void of defeat. He moved like an automaton. One foot after the other. Eyes glazed, sunken, grim.

As he climbed to higher ground the rain seemed to thicken, and became like gobs of syrup as they pelted him. He came to the edge of his son's home, which he had left behind in his hunt for his daughter; but now he found only the pine scent of the woods, and nothing warm or inviting to suggest wolves. Nothing along the border looked maintained (but, it was muddy and dark, so maybe Kigipigak failed to see the obvious); and as he climbed to a point that he suspected would have many bodies, there were none.

To enter this place expecting life, and finding it a ghost town—the last dredge of Kigipigak's willpower gave out, and he sat there upon the hill, with the companionable downpour.