Shadow Mountain i've got fire in my soul

Making references to signs of struggle from the Ocra/Ithrik threads.

It took him days to climb the mountain, but there was a certain ease that came along after a while. The physicality of the struggle, the familiarity of it, made him keep going. A few times there were odd stains on the stone ridge - strange smells, like prey almost but also wolf, but sour, like you'd expect from a rabbit overcome with adrenaline. Larus was unaware of the lone wolves that had recently passed through the mountain's corridors to Little Goat's peak; he didn't know of the woman they had with them, nor that the foul smelling mess of old blood and dirt was from her trauma. He saw the stains and found them odd, and then again he found some signs of struggle and that wolf scent along another path, and it was at this point he chose to go the other way.

Whatever Larus had found, it was none of his business. He was climbing along the lower reaches of Shadow Mountain hours later — but again, there were wolf scents. It seemed as if the mountains were crawling with wolves but he had not encountered any yet; was this a blessing? Maybe. He wondered, though, if he belonged among them. If these slopes were part of his home, and these wolf scents were supposed to perfume him in some way, marking him as a wolf of... Some place.

The mountain had no answers. The trees stood tall and silent around him, the birds were silent. He was left with questions and confusion, and the empty road ahead.