The Bracken Woods Sort of green..

A new plan budded in the firebrand’s mind.

He had left Moonglow and charted North again, to the land where glaciers broke and snows held late into the spring. Far enough from his family and every prying eye. Near enough that they might hear, see, if — when — he achieved the path he set down for himself like stones in an uncharted river.

A limping shadow materialized first, a man who had surely seen better days — and now, a man in need!

Could the stars so bless him? Stratos didn’t watch for long — hardly at all — before he drew towards the stranger through the sunlight dapple of the forest green with a great wave of his fox-red tail.

This one greets you! he said — perhaps a little too enthusiastically, but trouble has greeted you first! What had felled him? A cougar? A bear? Another wolf! He glanced for signs of bloodshed, but he wasn’t close enough to say.