Big Salmon Lake in the corner with the scarlet letter

For @Finley and OMG IT'S BEEN FOREVER SINCE WE'VE HAD A THREAD AMIRITE.

The day brought a late summer resurgance of heat and humidity. If Mordecai had understood weather better than he did, he might have thought there was a storm brewing. The weather had made the day seem sluggish and slow, and he had left the cover of the Spine behind him once more to make a venture out into the vast unknowns beyond. He intended to be gone no longer than what was necessary; his legs needed the stretch. And so he had run and run, and ran a bit more after that when the ache had turned his legs into what felt like liquid fire.

The downtime between travels and living with the former Silvertip wolves had wore at him. Running unbridled, free to every whim that struck his fancy had become more than a nagging sensation at the back of his mind. He missed it, more than he realized as he broke across unfamiliar ground. It was yet another attempt to work through things he didn't want to consider, weigh and balance decisions that he didn't want to make. Oh, he tried to stay out of the politics of what was and wasn't when it came to the Spine, but when it all boiled down to it, he was concerned most of all about his own survival. And right now, that survival was precariously hinged on whether or not their pack survived.

Some time later, as he stood chest deep in the cooling waters of a lake he had never seen, those thoughts had left him entirely. Muddied and at rest, his strides were slow and long. Off-key and out of rhythm, he listened as the frogs scattered in the shallows and continued their song elsewhere. He had half a mind to try for a fish, but was simply content with being; a feeling that had long escaped him for lengths he could not fathom.

odesza — say my name