King Elk Forest when i was a child

If there was one word that Arutro would use to describe the skeletal state of the world around him, death would have been more than sufficient enough. Beasts still lingered in the barren remains of what had, no doubt aided by imagination, lush and brimming with life: predator and prey alike — yet, despite the faint scent trails he'd picked upon he did not see the scurrying under paw, nor hear the familiar click of joints of larger prey. He assumed, by the littering of bug carcasses underfoot that locusts were to blame for the devastation wrought upon the Wilds, whether it was considered lucky or not part of Arturo was glad that he'd avoided the swarm. The aftermath was a different nightmare all together, he surmised, but he was not in the state as to which worry was a constant annoyance, yet. Sure, there was a rumble in his stomach but he was a survivor by nature. He persevered: that was his skill.

He took to what had likely once been a lush forest, shrugging through the skeletal underbrush and naked limbs, pausing long enough to lower his nose to the ground to inhale the smell of bracken beneath him. The scent of decaying bugs filled his nostrils but beneath that there was a warm aroma of some small woodland creature, relatively fresh at that. Intrigued, he followed it hoping that it had not taken refuge into some place he could not reach.