The Heartwood the wolf and the lion

The barren Heartwood beckoned the young and the curious. Its sooty soil and blackened trees were unpleasantly attractive to those who had never witnessed the damage of fire, and the foreign scent of decayed woodsmoke did little to deter such an ignorant tenderfoot like Rickon. He moved through the burned down forest with the intent of discovering everything about it— but as he continued deeper into the ruins, he soon concluded that there was nothing really to discover here. Whatever had happened here, had stripped the entire area of life. Bits of green had sprung up here and there, but there would be many more years of sterility before it would sustain anything again.

Rickon did, however, come across the laid out and charred skeleton of a mountain lion. He circled the bones, sniffing, nibbling, and otherwise trying to discern what the bones had been before meeting an unfortunate demise.

@October ;D