Moonspear are you up right now?

He heard it too, the cracking of some hapless branch long dropped. Presumably at least, as the sound was there and gone in the time it took him to draw an ear to listen. The turn of his head to follow did not reveal anything particularly out of the ordinary, but in the depths of any woodland it was exceeding difficult to tell what was out of place. Whatever innate sense of knowledge he had of that old timber was minute; he did not know their types or names, let alone the position of every bough, inch of bark, or weathered stump.

But he did know the dangers of evening, of the winter and of the creatures that roamed and gave little care to the claims of other animals. Stock-still and aware, he almost cast his gaze to look lazily upon his surroundings. As though whatever, if anything at all, had disturbed the near silence he had been partaking in for the better part of the twilight hour. How fortunate they would have been to skirt the end of winter without some hazard to come—he also knew that fortunate was in some way also tied to fortune, and if he had gleaned anything at all about the history of his extended family it was that fortune certainly did not often leave them fortunate.

It was all in folly however, he decided on the next breath, when nothing more tousled and turned in the low lit foliage. He lacked the patience to wait and see any longer, and further lacked the desire to investigate it. It was probably Hydra, he decided, already lying in wait to spring her next exciting wave of teeth to tease his flesh—among other things—and worry at the courser hairs of his winter coat.

The thought alone livened him and he stalked on, drawing away from the sound.