Tormented Tarns you got time to reconcile with your fear

Around the bogs he went, careful not to get his already damp feet any more wet. A minor chill even in this weather could easily turn to something worse, but it was one of many pitfalls available to all of them with the late season. His gait was quick as he traveled along the breaks of earth between the small ponds; it was easy to cast the illusion he was headed somewhere when in fact he had no real quest to embark on.

The thought of Hydra's offer came to haunt him as he deftly stepped over a long rotten log—how easy it would be just to simply throw in with her and and her kin, which by some convoluted extension was really his kin too. But he hardly claimed one heritage over another, didn't feel any more an Ostrega or a Winterheart than he had as a child. Maybe, he thought, perhaps maybe it was some long deep seated fear that he was too much like one or the other, and perhaps that was why even now he forged his own path rather than take food from the hand that was offering it to him.

A delicate cropping of trees shaded him soon thereafter, and a rousing bird not yet bed down for the day's inclement weather sang a couple of notes. A prompt he took it then, to abandon the thought. He would ride this out like he had any other crossroads decision, eventually taking the inevitable path that would make things easier for him. Winter's arrival was not to be gambled with; it was the greatest predator there was.

At the exiting edge of the copse, he heard the call of another. Short, low, but enough to garner his attention and draw his gaze away from the course ahead. Dirge returned it with the same effort, a passing hello, but did not take his eyes far from the sight of the other wolf. How much things had changed along this particular pocket of earth was unknown to him and thus he had reason to be wary, but not quite a reason to stop yet.

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