Porcupine Ridge It crashed into this lonely town,

caróg has spent many days doing nothing much. and that can be fun at first! but even he gets bored on occasion, and he has been with the court for so long that he knows most of the good places to go inside the willows for the things he needs. so even though there is no real need to do any wandering, and he has never been that inclined to wander, caróg ventures up the ridge and into the sunspires as the sun rises high in the sky.

vrána comes with him, and she is much better at keeping an eye out for strangers, so mostly caróg does not bother. he snuffles around at the earth for anything that seems interesting, but mostly all the interesting things he has found are high up in the mountains, so there is not much to see besides ash and grass. 

and that is fine! he yips to vrána as she soars from branch to branch above him, tail swaying high above his hind legs, and enjoys his walk until he stops to sniff curiously at a patch of flattened grass nearby, and it smells –

– familiar.

caróg pauses mid-step, tail still sweeping back and forth. it smells like a faerie, but it does not smell like faeries. and many of the faeries have been gone for quite some time. maybe this is one of them! maybe they are coming back to the court.

licking thoughtfully at his lip, caróg pivots around, chirping a quick note to vrána, and sets his nose to the dirt as he bounds off in its direction. he has come all the way out here to find interesting things, after all! and he has expected them to be plants, but he does not mind if they are actually other wolves.

it is a fresh trail, so it does not take long. caróg crunches through the undergrowth without paying much attention to what he is stepping all over, and then, at last, emerges into a tiny clearing dark with ash and a figure he very much recognizes, even though it has been some months since he has seen it.

he blinks owlishly, rubyred gaze locked on the figure as he lifts his head – and then, eagerly, trots forward, ears forth and nostrils flaring. his tail tucks neatly against his hind legs, because caróg has remembered that she does not like that sort of thing in her presence and he does not want to get yelled at again.

"orlaith?"