Silvertip Mountain i looked up

They were gone.

Naught but the faintest trace of the pack that once had called this mountain home remained; scents suggested they had traveled eastward, presumably to more fertile lands. Now no one was here, and Phocion stood alone on the peak, looking at the moon.

The boy that had fled this place in the face of death was gone, replaced by a man whose destiny lay in the stars. Fengari had tamed his tongue and cooled his anger. Down in the southern mountains, he had become a part of something infinitely greater than himself. He found his way. But he never had forgotten about the times spent in Teekon.

Phocion wondered if Steady, Ezekiel, Krypton, had survived the famine, and if so, where they were. He thought of his former crush Anita, and if she was well. Clearly, none of them were here now. Would he stay or go? Would he try to seize the life that once was his or carve a new one out on this mountain?

Fengari was a mere sliver in the sky, waking from his night of rest. Tosi had come a few nights prior, the stars weeping for their mother. Asteria winked like many crystals in the black expanse above, a few shooting away here and there.

"Fengari, guide my feet and steer my fate;
Mercy, please take
On this soul devoted to you
Loyal and true."

With the incantation, Phocion settled on his haunches, sitting, his icy eyes moving intermittently from the sky to the horizon, then back up again.