Moonspear fear is the hand that pulls your strings

The brisk air on descent was invigorating, the snow underfoot packed enough on the slope that he made easy work of it until the trail had fully opened up to guide him along. He knew parts of it out of memory—and how surprisingly easy it came back to him—in spite of the changes rendered to the earth by snowfall. It was here that he had spent almost more time than anywhere, he thought, barring the weald. That itself seemed another time now, as he had wished it to be, though as he kicked snow from trail in his wake he could not help but wonder what it looked like in its winter splendor.

The fantasy was crudely tossed away when he heard another set of steps join his; his ears fanned backwards to pick up the cadence of each step, his lips began to curl into a faint smile thinking that perhaps Hydra was returning to repay him a favor of being plunged into snow abruptly. He played it off like he would have any other time, playing almost ignorant to the increase in said pace until it was close enough not to be ignored... and then he chose to whirl around and meet her—

It was not Hydra.

If alarm had a moment to flicker to his features, it was there and gone like a glint in his eye. His hackles rose a half-second before their bodies collided, the blow full of fury and hardly in jest. The world spun beneath him, above him, and once or twice more before he found his footing in the disorienting world, and then he was upright once again in fluid motion. A snarl spit off his lips, muzzle crinkling menacingly to display his teeth. If it had been a run of his luck that the boy was after, he had found it, and Dirge tore after him to make a point.