Phoenix Maplewood The greatest adventure is what lies ahead

After leaving Brillo, he'd headed north.  He'd gone looking for Bracken Sanctuary, but in all honesty, he couldn't recognize it -- the passage of time and the fading memories of childhood left a blurry mark.  He probably had walked through part of the territory, but nobody had stopped him and he ended up turning around and heading back into other unfamiliar lands after surrendering his hunt.  It wasn't like he expected to find anything anyway.

So all he'd gotten out of that detour was more miles on his paws.  But at least the weather hadn't been awful or something?  Whatever.  The whole trip so far hadn't done much for his spirits -- there was a lot of nothing out there and Mal hadn't had the fortune of finding anything he wanted.  So now what?  The only certainty was he wasn't going back to the beach.  He plopped his rear down somewhere in the middle of an unfamiliar forest, taking the moment to scowl.