Phoenix Maplewood Tristan and Iseult

@Kael! We totally need to have another thread sometime soon! Sorry about Reek's jerk-assery. It's just the direction he's taking character developement wise. @Tavi, wanna fade here and have another thread soon?

Stress changed a man; Reek would be the first to attest to this simple fact.  He could feel it changing him day by day, choking the life from his once free spirit like a creeping vine. Life was so much simpler when he had no one relying on him for their survival. He had been a wanderer with nothing to carry but the lies that dripped from his silver tongue. Scamming his way from place to place on his march to the sea and only looking out for number one was the game he knew how to play. That life had been so easy.  So simple, but so lonely.

He pressed forward through the maplewood with Tavi in tow. This was his prison, dotted with iron bars taking the form of snowswept trees.  But, despite these feelings of incarceration and the soulcrushing weight of obligation, Reek wouldn't change a thing about his situation. The lonely life was not for him in the end, and to reach these ends he had been forced to change. Qualities and traits that once defined his identity slipped away, leaving a rigid provider behind. Everything he did now was for his family and this pack. However, in gaining all this, these connections and sense of belonging— Reek had lost himself.

Turning his gaze to Tavi as he trudged through the snow, Reek could see that Kael had taken his leave and left them to carry out their necissary duties. There was no time for shenanigans, not when he had a family to provide for. With that, Reek resumed his duties in silence.