Redtail Rise Enter, pursued by a memory.

*creaks* ahh i'm sorry

He had been too caught up in his own turmoil to notice Portia's departure.  He had never been particularly close with the fisa; truth be told, he wasn't sure if he had ever even met her.  The grief of others was not something he knew how to deal with either.  His ears faltered to the sides, and he forced himself to look his cousin in the face.  Mine isn't, either.

His voice is flat, but it fails on the last syllable and he swallows thickly.  It would be easier to forget that Wildfire and Kiwi and Sequoia ever existed, and he'd been doing a pretty good job of it, too, but it was still fresh enough that he knew how it felt in the first hours and days after he'd realized and he wasn't about to blow Dacio off.  Maybe it was meant to be this way.  Because if he thought that, it'd be easier to accept that it was out of his control.  If he thought that, it wasn't his fault.

His eyes drew up to the mountain they approached, and he tested his paws against the snow.  It wasn't terribly slick, but if they wanted to climb it they'd have to find a reasonable trail.