Dragoncrest Cliffs one more moment of this silence

Alone, and late in the afternoon, for his break from patrol, he made his way towards a spot overlooking the sea—one he knew well, one that had seen its share of sunrises and sunsets, with the good and the bad across the years. He hadn't come in weeks, however, and hadn't cared to with everything happening. Now, with all that was newly impending and Artaax freshly returned, he felt the need to shed these attachments soon, and these weren't even the worst of it.

None of it was coming easily, yet, although he had done it before. and he knew the need. Age had set him in his ways evidently but strike after strike drove the point home to leave him no other choice—it was this, or agonize. Their to-whelp mothers had chosen the sanctity of the wilds over their own cliffs, elected the fate of such unknown instead. Their strength suffered, a warrior down before that even, and others going too, considering he had only barely involved himself in Ephraim's tethering to the cliffs. It wasn't good. They had fragmented already, perhaps irreparably so finally after loss after loss had weakened them steadily over the winter and beyond. By now, the pale wocha was bitterly numbed.

He greeted the sea's horizon with a frown. None of it was what he'd hoped. None of it had been for so long. He mourned, even still, for those gone and still here too but very soon, he may never return, either.

for @Tirgatao