Dragoncrest Cliffs some would sing and some would scream

@Arlo!

Since her announcements to the pack, Akantha had spent a considerable amount of time basking in the tide pools of Blackwater Islands and listening to Her words as She spoke in sweet prayer to the Sirens who sought refuge among the breaking waves. The water served to cool the sting of the wounds, and keep any festering infection from spreading into her blood—a death sentence to any mammal. She was not ready to acknowledge her mortality just yet, but she knew one day she would greet the churning maw of death with a smile.

But while she spoke to Her, she could not fully banish the thought of Wildfire and her pack of warriors from her mind. The Ambassador had mentioned a summit where the two leaders could discuss the option of a truce, but word had yet to reach her ears on the Commander's decision and that worried her. She, too, did not desire war with the land wolves, but she would make sure they were ready for it long before the first outsiders reached her shores.

Today, however, curiousity got the better of her. Upon scaling the cliffs of Ankyra, she struck north instead of the usual south towards familiar grounds, drawing in the ghosts of memory as they rejoined with her present. She did recall these woods; even passed the stream that she and Greyjoy once fished in, but her connection to them now was tenuous at best. Her gaze wandered over the snowy woods, ears set back as the trees grew taller, larger, and immense. The scents, too, shifted from the mossy earth of pine to include the musky oil of what could only be describe as wolf.

Akantha stopped dead when she caught sight of fresh claw marks in the yellowed snow, and the pungent smell of urine infiltrated her flared nose. The Matriach did not move another step. She held her breath, cupped her ears, and raked her eyes back and forth over her immediate surroundings.