Witch's Marsh Running with blood on my paws

Perfect!

Day scrabbled his nails against the icy ground and then leaned down to sniff the marks left behind. There was a scent here that reminded him of Doe Cairn, strangely, and after a few seconds of reflection, he remembered meeting her in that swamp. There was a similar scent of mud and decay to this place, along with traces of an aging female. Her smell was all over the place, and - after taking a moment to wonder about his old friend and how she was doing - Grayday decided to get out of there.

On his mental map of the area, he marked down this marshland as a possible place to take the kids when the world began to thaw. There'd probably be frogs here, and he thought Sunny in particular would enjoy trying to hunt them down. Hopefully, the presence of the aging woman will have passed by then. Day was a little wary of strangers, lately.

He turned and began to pad back the way he'd come, knowing that his children would be missing him, but paused when a new scent wafted toward him on the chilly breeze. Turning his head, the weather-beaten male scanned his surroundings, ears perked and nostrils flaring. There was the scent of a child where there had not been one before, and Day stood rooted for a moment, wondering if it was a scent worth investigating. Where there were children, there were probably protective mothers nearby, but Day had seen much since coming to these lands, and he couldn't help the ugly thought that came to mind: What if there isn't?

It shouldn't matter, he argued back. After all, his kids could be out there and he'd left them to fend for themselves. Not Sunny and Dawn, but the nameless seed that he'd lost to that nameless woman. If he didn't care about them, why should he care about someone else's child?

But no matter how he argued with himself, his paws still dragged him toward the source of the smell. His eyes were not strong enough to pick her form out of the brush, but his nose and his ears were working just fine. He could smell fear and exhaustion, could hear the sharp sounds of her breaths, could almost feel the trembling of her body.

"Are you alright, little darlin'?" he called, his voice soft and cajoling. "I won't hurt you. Where's your ma, huh?"

Crouching low, Day crawled toward the source of the frightened sounds, still not exactly sure where the child was hiding.