Deepwood Weald there's a hound at your heels

<3 <3

Overnight, his world expanded. Overnight, the hidden ones moved.

And through all the changes, Melaneus continued to watch.

He had never known such a world could exist beyond the confines of their den: a treeless land, stretching far and beyond, to touch the horizon and the edge of the sky itself. He knew this to be true, for at some points he caught sight of another moon in the space the ground should have been - only broken, scattered, and surreal. Birds soared overhead, white and loud, and decidedly smelly, carrying a scent on their wings that he had vaguely tasted while nestled deep in the shadows of Shadewood, but never so much as in these hours that passed.

Melaneus did not understand why they had left the Shadewood. There had been an urgency in their mother's voice he had heard but was not old enough yet to piece together, and he had watched the adults respond to this urgency with an urgency of their own. With urgency, they had left - everyone together - and with urgency, here they were now - everyone together. Lycabas, and Pyraethus, and Metis, and Gabriele, and mother and father. He watched them, too, just as they watched him - and sometimes, he wondered, even more.

They arrived in a tree-filled place, dense with fog, and he blinked darkening eyes to see through the mist that shrouded them. This place carried a sense of otherworldliness. A place perfect for games of hide and seek (and, Melaneus thought, hiding would be much easier than seeking here). He willed his paws to drift closer to @Lycabas - his brother, he thought he had noticed, liked to watch things as well - and he wondered where his eyes were drifting to, in this strange new place.