Sleepy Fox Hollow maero

set for the 23rd

germanicus led @Nephele to the last place he had been within the sunspire.

he had not wanted to stop the night before. daylight found the imperator moving along the cursed slopes of the sunspire, down the steep rockways.

they descended into the bowl of the hollow. the air was laden with petrichor. germanicus shook out his ruff.

in the hour before, an eagle had passed overhead. he had watched it but he had not thought of editum. only crowfeather.

he did not speak. his legs had not yet tired. germanicus began to search along the curved sides of the hollow. perhaps the young ranger had slept here before going on. he explored the old hoofprints left by deer, the spoor of a fox, the smeared pawmark left by a marten.

the minutes passed to hours. the eagle went on.

and now the air grew thick and bloodstained. it was not a beast which lay among crushed branches and stones that had slid from the mountain, red with blood.

it was "@Crowfeather." the imperator's voice strangled to nothing, and he set about grimly excavating the shadow from the debris. the reek of nyra's fetid breath had slimed the black wolf's fur into bloody tufts. germanicus could not count the number of wounds. "crowfeather," he said again, seeking to see if the other still breathed.

his mind remained the cool and repressed animal that generals had created of him.

but his heart was a chaotic blur of a thousand things.