Fairspell Meadow shed every skin that no longer fits

for @Maegi

each step is a pained reminder to scarab that the world is oh-so-cruel. he'd assumed, given the state of the wilds, that he would find it littered with corpses fresh for the picking. he was wrong. though he had no issue with eating his own ilk when they were already in rigor mortis he doesn't have the desire to actually turn to hunting wolves — besides that, he thinks sourly, he's in not fit state to hunt much of anything. what little bit of food he's found since leaving the grove has been meager and mostly picked clean by greedy scavengers before him and far too scrawny for him to believe that the worst of famine was over.

he no longer knows — or cares — how long he's been moving or in what direction. he just knew that he had to keep moving. keeping moving has become his purpose. towards what? towards the sun and stars of his life but he didn't know where they were ( or where he was ) or if they were even still alive. even if they were he could not return to them like this: wounded, bruised, skin beginning to stretching gaunt over his ribcage.

he pauses to bow his head, readjust his grasp upon his prized petrified sandpiper, and once he is sure it is not in danger of slipping from between his jaws he pushes forward, into the tall grasses of the meadow, nose-blind to the scent of wolves lingering within its depths.