The Sentinels come to my arms, my beamish boy!

i hope it is ok for me to slide caligula in here?

even in the dusk, there is something alien about these woods.

it is preferred, in a way – caligula has always found things easier to handle, the farther removed they are from the places of his youth. if this place is still alive, it is only in the smallest of ways; in tiny sprouts amidst the ash and soil, in the young heads of growing trees, in whatever might lurk beneath the ground. there is no canopy and there is no rustle of wind through its leaves; even the crickets are quiet here, among the burnt out husks of trees and the delicate crunch of ash and brittle pine needles.

he has seen fire before, in the briefest snatches; heat and smoke, in its wake only blackened ruin. perhaps not this much of it, sprawled all around him.

it is hard even to see his paws where he places them. the ground is black and wet, clinging to his pads where he walks, and the eerie silence of it all – broken only by pawsteps, by the soft patter of the dying rain – calls him back to the snow, to the long cold months of winter when the forests grow so white they swallow up every sound.

the thought is a sharp thing that bids him pause, and in the long moment it holds him, he hears the echo of steps that are not his.

caligula freezes – he does not think of the action any more than it simply comes upon him – ears now high and angled forth, he waits for the next, and when it comes he turns to follow, the colorless gleam of his eyes just visible in the gloom. the watery light is barely enough to distinguish the silhouette from the surrounding trees, no more visible than he himself.

the louder fraction of him calls for him to run, that there is nothing here for him beyond danger. and for a moment he wishes for nothing more than to heed it. but perhaps it is curiosity that wins out – perhaps nothing more than foolishness – and head lowered, caligula offers a cautious chuff of greeting, and waits.