Horizon Ridge i: the other half.

The sussuration of the rain has seemingly doused the life from the forest; it is the only sound for miles. There is a gray light overhead cast by the stars, shared by the sliver of moon when the sky clears long enough to witness it, and the world briefly transitions from the darkness to light—a lively silver. Each stone contoured, each depression of the earth filled to the brim. 
Among them, a shape that is wider than a wolf's broad tread. It leads east along the ridge. To a discerning eye—even in the dark while the rain sluices through the canopy—the trail is well marked.

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Caution: Whump prompt.

rain and more rain.

it was raining when he left sawtooth spire and it did not let up as he treks his way to the coast. why he doesn't know. he's never actually liked the coast. still, it was where the idea of him and his siblings were born. the reminiscing feels both strange and familiar. the past was the past ...but there was parts of wintersbane that clung to the past like a tattered strip of silk; tied 'round his paw.

a pawprint catches his eyes, makes the hair along his nape stand on end; bristling. uneasy. though his run-ins with bears have been few and far between, he knows their broad steps anywhere. they appear fresh too, the musk still lingering upon the air. wintersbane is cautious now, gaze alert and sweeping as he pushes forward, following the trail.

The steps he follows lead down in to a gulley. No doubt one of the many lines of descension from the ridge proper towards the coast. They deepen as the mud thickens. Some parts of the trail look even messier, accentuated with drag marks from where the giant had struggled for release.
Then, there is nothing.
The muddy trail terminates where exposed bedrock sits and soaks, followed by a sudden steep drop. No sign of any struggle here; a fall from this height would damage any wolf. Anything larger would have bent saplings, torn the loam from its holdings, and been clearly evidenced at the bottom. The absence of any such destruction is telling.
In the opposite direction there is only the forest—and, in all likelihood, a watchful beast hidden in the dark.

the trail vanishes; deep mud giving way to the temporarily relief of solid bedrock. temporary, because it is slick even without the coating of mud upon his paws, saturating his fur. the gulley offers little respite and a cursory glimpse is given 'round himself. there is forest at the opposite end and before him is a steep dropoff that gives way to choppy sea below. the waves froth and crash against the rockface.

a shiver slithers down his spine; not easily spooked. though if it is because of the fall that awaits him at a single misstep or the fact that he thinks he feels eyes upon him — a swell of paranoia at the bear tracks that he'd followed and then had vanished — he isn't sure. he takes a breath, steels his shoulders and keeps going; even more cautious than before.

For a still day, the air simply didn't move. The stillness seemed to suck even the sounds between the trees into nothingness. The rainfall was all there was: a whispering like static on a television coming in and out of focus. It was the kind of silence that descends right before you get a knife in the back; but the wolf is staring at the trees, and the cliff at his back leads to nothingness too, leads to void.
A gust pushes impetuously against the sentinel trees finally, like a breath exhaled between grave stones. Something shifts along the graze-line in the wolf's periphery, perhaps only a weak branch snapping in the wind. A scent billows from among the trees—metallic almost, acrid and burning.

Wolf.

it says, crackling like low embers in a fire; deep and thick like smoke. It would be hard to say from which direction it flowed, as it seemed to stem from everywhere.

The darkness shifts, condenses, and as the rainlight catches in the beast's infernal gaze it is inescapably clear how close she looms, until that first defiant lunge of her stride which despells the silence. The earth shakes, the trees tremble, and she is heading straight in to him.