Blackfeather Woods don't ask the gods to help

tagging for reference!

wintersbane sets his sights to the kintla flatlands after letting @Derg and @Faeryn know that he was venturing out. he was vague about where he was going and why only letting them know that there was something he needed to do and that he needed to do it alone and that he would return in a few day's time.

he doesn't forget his dark priestess lover, nor her shadowed and phantom daughters. they often haunt his waking thoughts and at times his dreams. he has not been near the dark woods since his departure from their ranks and there is a part of him that refuses to sever the connection to them entirely — it is the real reason he still wears the crimson paw print upon sinewed shoulder.

the sun has just begun its rise in the horizon, warming the snowfrosted world with its generous golden rays but the day is still chilled; chillier than they previous days have been, at least. wintersbane barely notices; his fur is coarse and thick and built for the harshest months of the season. wintersbane's steps slow as he nears the dark woods, noting that the pack scent itself has faded away, washed away by the lack of care to the decaying borders and yet the scents of astara and averna appear remain ...but absent relmyna's.

there is a painful beating of his heart in his chest, as if a heart's reached into his chest and grasped his heart in a tight and iron knuckled fist. he suspects what it means but there is a part of him that denies it even so; because he doesn't really want to believe his suspicions to be true. he trudges into the semi-abandoned dark woods but doesn't go very far, feeling a weighty sorrow upon his shoulders and wonders if the heaviness in his heart and upon his shoulders is how atlas feels holding up the world.