Blackfeather Woods And all the roads we have to walk are winding

@Rowan if you have time <3

Except for when she was sleeping, Taktuq mostly kept to herself, and Taki didn't push her to talk or spend time with her. She stayed within the borders and worked on her hunting skills, and so she felt like her niece deserved to spend her time how she wanted. 

But that meant she was often alone with her thoughts. She missed Taikon even more than she had anticipated; she was most reminded of this in the moments where she had no one to distract her. Nothing distracted her from the worry, though. Every second of the day, she wondered if Taikon was still okay. She knew he was more than capable and had wandered on his own long before they met, but none of that soothed her fear that she might not ever see him again. There were many things against him: winter, the mountains, a cougar, Sagtannet—they were all things that popped into her mind and caused it to terrorize her with all the bad things that could happen, or might have already happened. 

So she often found herself patrolling the borders; she told herself it was to keep busy, and that really had been her intention. But as more time went by, her patrols became more of an obsession; she walked the edges of the territory hoping that maybe he would return early and she would see his form approaching. She stopped often to scan the horizon anyway, but now it was not only to look for things that shouldn't be there. 

Today had been the same as the days before, though—there was no sign of Taikon. With a lump in her chest, she pushed through her patrol anyway, at least making sure he had a safe place to rest when he did get home.