Emberwood I'm inside out, you're underneath

going to be vague about the events of this thread and anything after since it's important to his timeline and hasn't progressed enough yet to assume anything

With Lainie (presumably) safe and protected, Kavik set out in search of something for her to eat. The treeline of the forest beckoned him from the second his gaze scanned over the sparse, skinny trees. The grey and brown of the woods was sometimes broken up by the occasional fir tree, and the colors combined in his peripheral vision, barely registering in his conscious thought; his focus was on the scents. He hadn't expected to find much, but he had found nothing so far, and it was discouraging. The forest held the scent of many others, leading the former alpha to believe that this place had been searched many times over for prey. The heavy scent of predator would do a good job of ensuring there would not be much for him to find here today. Still he searched, nose to the ground as he tried to sift through all the scents and find something promising. He was determined to return home with something for his daughter to eat. He had been hopeful that he might find even something for himself as well, but now that seemed unlikely. He would settle for something for Lainie, though, even as his painfully empty stomach protested the thought. It was a familiar feeling by now. Not that it was any more comfortable, just that he was used to focusing on other things and letting it become just a part of life. Hunger was, by far, less painful than the grief and guilt he carried in his soul every second of the day. The discomfort from his perpetually empty stomach paled in comparison to living with the fact that he had led his entire family to their death. His heart began to pound in his chest and a lump formed in his throat; it was what usually happened when he allowed his thoughts to linger too long on his family and how he had failed them. He forced his mind back to his task, drawing in a deep breath and analyzing the scents of the forest. This was not the place for such thoughts; they would distract him and keep him from being successful, and he couldn't return empty-handed.