The Heartwood invasion of the bodysnatchers

despite being in the great bear wilderness for about a week or so now, atausiq was still largely unfamiliar with the territories that neighbor his new home. as a hunter and aspiring mercenary both, it strikes him that he should familiarize himself with the neighboring territories just as much as he's begun to familiarize himself with neverwinter. it didn't take him long when he came upon the ruins of what had the looks of once being a majestic woodlands to figure out that it was unlikely to prove good hunting grounds.

there was little but blistered carcasses of once sprawling trees; blackened by smoke and streaked with ash of their own cinders. still, he is drawn to the ruins out of what he believes to be a morbid curiosity; switching to a small swell of relief as he catches the sight of a fleeing deer in a flash of buckskin brown and a flash of white tail raised in warning.

the sign of deer — even if it was just one — meant that perhaps it wasn't as desolate as he's first assumed and it was that thought that spurs him into the heartwood.

it is something all together different the further he goes as a familiar scent teases him.

as it grows stronger and he realizes that he isn't imagining it in a bought of homesickness, atausiq's steps falter and pause as he wonders if he should continue forward, if he should let her know he was here. he'd cut the cord so abruptly and fled just as quick so he couldn't be stopped, so he couldn't be convinced to change his mind.

newt misses his family with a fierce ache in his chest that will never be filled without them. atausiq considers that closing the rest of that distance, revealing himself to leta might incidentally drag her into trouble. not that he was in trouble, but the whole point of taking on a new identity and persona was to protect his family. just in case.

in the end, it is atausiq that takes the steps forward, slipping thru the singed and charred trunks to reveal himself. leta, amidst the anguish he feels at seeing her: the guilt and the unbridled affection, he is surprised to find her so far from home.