King Elk Forest It's a cold winter.

At first, Mato had scoffed at any mention Burke had made of dying …if only because Mato had been young and in his own ways extremely naive, but there was also the simple belief that such was what all old men spouted when they reached Burke’s age. The decline of Burke’s energy and presence within Tindómë was harder to delude himself with. It is winter and his bones are old but the truth was this has begun before winter seeped in and stole through the Wilds. There was a great and fierce concern for Burke that burned within Mato’s chest and what he stumbles upon only re-enforces it. At first… at first Mato thinks Burke is dead. He is snow covered and Delight is near him, attempting to get the Rochester patriarch to rise. “Grandfather?” Mato asks, voice thick and heavy as it leaves his lips, drawing near and moving to the elder’s other side hoping that this wasn’t how Burke had died. Alone and out in the cold. Where was Malice, Mato wonders with a small flare of anger that causes heat to rise beneath his fur.