Bearclaw Valley I slithered here from Eden

For @Xan or anyone else affiliated with BCV.

It had been months since he'd passed beyond the valley he'd found. The maple forest had intrigued him, reminding him of a woman he once knew somehow (the way the leaves held color perhaps, or the crisp glow of that vivacious orange, he couldn't be certain). He slept beneath those trees and let them block the stars, and in the morning - every morning - he found more and more criss-crossing his body. So he'd shake them off and move on. Their crunching grew louder every day, until finally he'd slept beneath the final trees to have any leaves at all; that day, when he woke, his gray fur was flecked with silver and white. When that fine dusting of snow fell from him, the wolf knew it was time to move on for good.

He traced an easy path from the trees to a meadow, to a river, and followed that through the heart of the valley until hunger began to tug at his insides. The wolf had to be careful though - there was a dangerous scent upon the air, and he had yet to face-off against the carrier. Somewhere out there, a bear must have been watching him. Maybe it hunted him? Maybe it was just as curious of the thin snowfall as he was, being so terribly early in the season. He turned his masked face towards the oncoming wind and sniffed, surveyed, dipped his head to investigate a particular odour - turning his ears at every sound - but nothing came of his explorations. If there was a bear here then it seemed disinterested - good. 

The last thing Larus needed in his life was an angry ursine.