Noctisardor Bypass Let a couple years water down how I'm feeling about you.

As she watched the sway of vibrant wildflowers in the Summer breeze, listened to the chorus of birdsong in the canopy above, Paarthurnax reflected on when last she last looked upon Shadow's territory. She'd taken her leave undercover of darkness on that cold night, slipping with ease past the guard who'd been positioned at the Western entrance of the bypass - her silent departure witnessed only by the watchful eye of a pallid owl. She remembered the thin mist that blanketed the meadows, the frozen due that clung to blades of grass, the bright moon that lit her path. Her heart sank with the memory of how she felt: more certain that ever, yet not enough to mask the undeniable guilt she carried. Each fine detail had been forever imprinted in the bi-coloured Frostfur's mind, a constant reminder of her greatest shame.

She pressed onward to begin trailing the rolling fields of a home she'd once called her own, copper eyes closing to recall how she'd loped after her former mate here with excited anticipation of the wonderful life he'd promised her. It'd been short-lived, her hopes dashed by his stubborness and pride as time stripped her of her beloved Shadow to reveal the brute that was Hadrian Angelus Mortis, robbed her of her happiness and forced her to re-evaluate their partnership. Paar would never regret her decision to bear her young in Swiftcurrent, but there were times when her heart stalled at the quiet consideration of the many what ifs that plagued her since.

Shadow had loved this land. He'd brimmed with excitement to reveal it to her in the early days of their courtship, so much that she truly believed him to have held his rule over it. It surprised her to find it vacant, void not only of the man who'd previously been hers, but of the son he'd taken in her absence. Of all her offspring, it was Trainaus who she believed to have lived - her former mate had loved the cubs fiercely, as was clear in his determination to father them despite the distance and the bitterness between their respective packs. Paarthurnax knew that Shadow would've doted on the boy, which was a small comfort that followed the realisation that her pups had likely perished following their separation.

Blinking back to reality, the aging wolfess looked out past her lashes and over Noctisardor in the evening dim sunlight, feeling a great weight settle within her breast. If Shadow had taken his leave, surely Trajan would've accompanied him? If so, to where? 

She hoped they were happy, wherever they'd wound up. She hoped her firstborn was thriving, as handsome and strong as his sire before him. She hoped he remembered her fondly, as she did him. Having never re-mated or bore another litter after the failure of her first, Paar could not deny the selfish discomfort that came with wondering if her former lover had found company in another she-wolf. Shadow had promised to love her endlessly just as she had admitted that part of her would belong with him for eternity, and despite the years and the sorrow that followed the severing of their mateship, she never stopped aching for what he'd once meant to her.

Her life had been quiet since the event that took her babes from her, having reluctantly returned to her kin in the deserts of Samarkand. Nita's solid advice and non-judgement had helped her heal, while the endless love of her vast family reminded her that she was never alone. She thrived there where she belonged, tending to the pack's ill and rearing its pups, while living quietly beneath the rule of her litter-mate, Nebuchanezzar. He'd claimed his place following the dethroning of Sahrotaar and the demise of their elderly sire, and his rule had been kind to her despite the belief that she did not deserve it.

Paarthurnax was not entirely sure what force it was that roused the desire to return to the place she'd last seen her babes, but she knew that it would be her final trip. With age catching up to her and arthritis slowing her, her long-awaited death would surely come for her sooner rather than later - by the year's end, at most. The Teekon would be her final resting place, she hoped, in a land that had surely claimed the lives of Julius, Durnehviir and Relonikiv. Her visit to Noctisardor was for her own benefit: an opportunity to look upon the face of her boy for one last time, and offer her sincerest apologies for letting him go.

Exhaling a sigh, the slim wolfess stole one last longing look at the Praetor's beloved bypass before ducking her head and pressing deeper into now unclaimed territory with every intention of venturing the the other side to continue the trek toward her next destination.