Bitterroot Valley shadows fall, and hope has fled

Under the aurous haze of eventide, the moonscape seems set ablaze… and the prince has never felt so far from home as he does now. Petite paws still in reverence, ears cupped forward. A rush of bittersweet on his tongue, a hollow chill in his chest both soothing and aching. In the days since his final departure, Amadis has learned the final lesson of freedom: it is cold and beautiful and empty as the sea — and in the dark of night, it is nearly indistinguishable from loneliness. He would not give it up for anything.
In moments like this one, struck homesick and joyously free, he almost feels whole again. When first his paws had struck coarse barren loam, Amadis had very nearly panicked. The Rattling Wastes over again, he'd thought, and despaired — but the similarities had ended there. Alien glimmers of life light the landscape; carmine dappling of exotic flowers hugging the gravel, nested in peculiar fleshy tendrils of sparse verdure; sporadic susurration of beating wings on the breeze; whispers of skittering murine feet. The titian glow of sunset energizes the land, and with it, Amadis. He inhales the green, earthen scent of it, so thick and foreign from the gossamer brineflower of Elvhenan, and he feels alive.
Revitalized under the evanescing sun, the prince starts forward once again, a giltfire smudge in the gloaming.