Blacktail Deer Plateau My sister should be living here but is not.

Sebastian had stepped away from the Redhawks. He didn't feel like traveling would be good for his shoulder. He needed to heal it better before exerting himself. Sebastian was hopeful to see his sister. She told him about Morningside and even brought Catori with her, another female of the pack and the alpha's mate. Sebastian hoped they had a place for them in their ranks. He knew it was a few days travel especially with the deep gash on his shoulder limiting him.

He spent the night at the river again, where he found plucks of Andalusia's fur. There weren't any more signs of her returning there. No fresh scents. Sebastian even started to question if he even found her fur in the first place. It was all so confusing. Something happened to Andalusia, he was certain. He couldn't linger for long as he was eager to shed his lone wolf status. He traveled on past the river to the mountainside where her sister should be living with her pack.

However as he came closer he noticed that their scents were old, really old. Sebastian frowned. In fact, this area seemed deserted. There weren't any signs a pack was still living here. Sebastian tried his case anyhow and howled for anyone that was in the area. Maybe they knew what happened to this pack. Sebastian was starting to worry. He couldn't lose Aviana as well.

Hey old friend ;)
She’s currently at Silvertip - but looking at the distance on the map, I imagine he’d be able to hear her.

This can also be a cameo, if you’d prefer!

She had intended to continue back toward the river, but as she had surveyed her surroundings through the steam of the springs, she felt herself drawn Westward and away. Now, as the cool spring breeze cleared the air, she found herself within a land foreign, yet jarringly familiar. Another wolf might have shrugged the feeling off, but the leviathan clung to the quickened hope that maybe, finally, this place might finally hold some answers.

Yet the answers she found among the twisting mountain trails were pounding and dull, and never quite stepped past the base feeling that this place had meant something important to her once. Her paws had long left the soft peat of the forest, trading the comfort of grass for wind scored stone and a view of the wilds she turned to squint against. The vast river slithered like one of many snakes from here, nearly lost in the pattern of waterways that charted from the coast. The surrounding land lay no different. The wilds were a patchwork, an infinite pattern of lakes and meadows and mountains and woods. Unremarkable, and wholly unfamiliar. They would take days - weeks - years to chart -

And suddenly, all the confusion and anger and frustration and fear - all their pressure surmounted and snapped. The hope she clung so fiercely to sizzled and broke, and the leviathan found her jaws parting to fill the void with a bitter and anguished scream of a howl. The wind flurried about, and the ache of her chest sunk deeper than her scars. When she clicked her teeth shut, her chord still hung with a haunted chill, and she fell against her haunches, shivering and entirely alone.

OMG OMG SHE ALIVEEEEEEEE OMGGGGGGGGG, WHAT A PLOTTWIST

Sebastian didn't hear a howl or a response right away. He went along the old scents of the border. The grey tank of a male limped further in the direction towards the coast when he heard a howl. The male stiffened into place. He knew that voice. It wasn't his sister but he knew it. His heart skipped a beat. The howl sounded so raw, so much pain. Sebastian forgot to breathe for a moment. That voice. Forget his sister! This person was more important to him. He never thought he would ever think that but at this moment, the search for his sister was forgotten.

Sebastian jolted forward but with the rush of adrenaline, he forgot about his shoulder. It wasn't strong enough and he sank through his front leg. He collided hard with the ground. It didn't matter. He was determined. He 'jumped' up and got on three legs, ignoring the pain his shoulder. He could put pressure on it while standing or a light walk but a full-on gallop was not something he could do yet. He tried, on three legs. He summoned his own voice and responded to the howl to stay put. His howl so desperate to see her again. Andalusia. Sebastian tried to run in the direction the howl came as fast as possible though on three legs he wasn't very quick. Sebastian voiced another long howl that echoed through the landscape. He really was on his way. Let this not be his hallucinations again...

yeeee (: hehehe
whether or not he finds her is completely up to you... or we can milk the angst c:

She could hear very little from her vantage on the cliff. The wind shrieked a piercing note through her tall, coyote-like ears, and blended the sounds of the valley into one low and haunting chorus. For a moment she considered the familiar sound that edged the outer lines of the song, but then her wonder soured. That was just another play of her mind grasping for something more than a dark and inky nothingness. This place had meant something to her once - but that was as lost to her as everything else she should have known.

Alone on this precipice, for all she knew, she was a nameless void that the world had forgotten - if it even remembered her, or knew her, at all.

Thick flakes of snow began to fall from the overcast sky and clumped her fur in wet and tangled patches, blurring the air and the visibility of the valley from her sight. The sudden flurry would soon render the mountainside inhospitable to anyone hoping to climb up or down. And so, the leviathan pulled herself together and turned her course to chart a descent in the opposite direction from which she'd climbed, leaving nothing behind her but a thin film of tracks which would soon be covered by the gathering snow.

The long howl echoed over the plains. His ears were perked up as he limped forward with eagerness in his step. The male was beaming but slowly that grin faded as he didn't hear a reply. His courage deflated. What if he had a hallucination again? Sebastian started to doubt himself. He howled another time, longingly so. Then he stiffened into place to will ever fibre in his body to listen. However, the wind was making it difficult. His attention faltered and the idea that he heard Andalusia faded. He must've imagined it.

Sebastian instantly felt upset and at the same time, mad at himself. How could he even think that? Was he really that stupid? He shouldn't abandon his mission to find his sister instead of chasing a fever filled ghost. Sebastian turned around, tears in his eyes. He blamed the sharp wind for it, though secretly he knew he was just an emotional mess. The large grey male looked up at the height he came from, too much effort to climb, he decided.

So the male followed the river upstream. The wind howling around him, instead of listening he tried to block out most of the sounds. He didn't want to hear any of those fake howls again to mess with his brain. He made his mind repeat one name, Aviana. Aviana. Aviana. Avianda.. Anda... Andalusia.

She descended the mountain, oblivious to the man in the valley below who had offered his voice to her. The only sound that filled the ghost came from the blizzarding wind, her flesh and marrow numbed by the cold. What had she expected to find here? Memories, yes - but more than that. Memories in themselves were not enough.

The snow eased once she reached the lower slopes. Only the wind struck her now, and panting through the pain, she stopped, closed her eyes, and leaned against the rock for respite. A familiar burn spread over her chest where the coyotes had dealt the severity of their blows, and she groaned. Beneath her skin, her heart turned with a similar ache. There was something too familiar here, and she grasped for understanding again.

But when she didn't find what she reached for, she gathered herself and continued down the mountain, slow in some places, stopping in others, until the sun sank well into the other side of the sky. Finally, the ground leveled out, and the leviathan sighed and stared groundward, until her legs grew steady and the pine needles stopped their spinning. Only then did she lift her head to gaze over the thick forest she had found.

And then she remembered.

A trickle of thoughts, and dim memories - looking for her sister, the glint of cattish eyes, a strong and familiar embrace. Ciervo. The overwhelming sense of fear and saddness, followed by the gentlest reassurance that she would be okay. That she was forgiven. That he would never leave her, like she had left so many before. The softness of the face she searched for.

And she understood.

--

Her rescuers had bid her in a general direction, and Muse had followed their prompts and then some. Over rocky mountains and loamy shores, walking and wandering for what felt like ages, finding traces of millions but none of the one for whom she searched.

But the forest changed that.

The beginning of a heavy fog filtered through the leaves around her, and nothing but a moist chill met her scanning nose when she sucked in the sharp evening air. Yet she would find something through these woods, she believed that. She didn't know what, but she had something now, and a light sparked through her shadowed face. Hope, and Muse plunged through the trees and allowed the dark to envelop her. And this time, her paws remembered the way.