Mudminnow River nobody blames you

@Fire maybe? :)

To think of all the places he has been, the people he has met, and the circumstances that allowed such a fate, could've made his head spin. Tulimaq had only been in the valley for a few weeks but they had been studious weeks; he knew the layout of most of the valley and the nature of the wolves within it. Had he been a conquerer as Tartok intended of their children, he would have gathered them to him and they would have taken the whole of the valley — driven out the weak-willed, warrior-less wolves of Easthollow; uprooted the newly established pack to the east, and claimed the river by the mountains. All of it would have been their's.

But that was not his way. Tulimaq may not have been the most intelligent creature, but he was not the most wild nor feral of his people; their actions were ingrained in him as proper behavior, but he flouted that. He would do things his way. The tactical way, slow and steady and with considerations his less mindful kin would apply. His mind wandered further — to the potential of Merrit, the threat that his mountainous protector could present in Tulimaq's scheme.

He wandered north from the forest where the newest pack had settled; this was a place he had not ventured or investigated, and so he did that with furtive glances and occasional breaths of the cold air. There was a low fog clinging to the meadow as he traipsed through it and, as the meadow gave way to a more rocky terrain and the sound of water running in the earth's veins, he thought the fog had begun to condense in to clouds. There was an extra sharpness to the air but no smell of rain — no petrichor — and the man felt a smile spread across his rugged face. There was snow on the way. In his heart, he longed for the north. It was a good sign.

As he came through a gap in a cluster of trees, he found the river.