Wapun Meadow It's a trivial day with nothing special

When someone has a poor memory like Larus, it makes some aspects of life difficult but others surprisingly simple. Take for instance his current travels to Bearclaw Valley: the past few weeks of roaming close, then the hours spent in Blondine's company, one might expect him to recall at least a bit of it. Friendships made, a home speculatively built; but no, all of that was gone already. He would linger in the vicinity of the valley until some whim pulled him away — and then conveniently return the way he'd come, perhaps compelled by his own residual scent.

The downside would always be the lingering feeling that there is something important he needs to be doing, or a place he should be visiting, and these hints plagued him as he journeyed. Instinct directed him as surely as the wind, or the direction of the snow — as said before, whimsy. He was getting better, though. He could recall the sight of the valley's steeply curving hillside and he knew, deep down, this wasn't the same place. The meadow sprawled out around him until it terminated along the horizon.

And there, creeping along the banks of a river that Larus had no memory of (despite it being his actual birth place, how fortuitous—), was a dark shape. Immediately upon seeing this curved stygian figure his brain shouted, BLONDINE! Yet he stopped, he stared—and quite rapidly he knew this was wrong. Not her; someone else, someone new.

Silently he began to prowl closer, his heavy steps unhindered despite the snow; he did not call out to the stranger as they lingered at the river's edge... Just to be safe.