take apart the counting and the flock it has bred

For @Dante, set slightly to the east of Silvertip Mountain. <3

A cold northwestern wind rolled through the Wilds that day, and behind it came the clouds in fair form. While the sun broke through where it could, a certain pallor had been cast, and the snow white cap of Silvertip Mountain melded with the sky at times to the point where Mordecai could no longer tell where earth ended and sky began. It was damp and chilly in the foothills, but the smells came to him easily with the wind. Small prey had flourished where they had left, but for the most part he found that the woods around the mountain were often just as devoid of life as they seemed when he had first arrived there. Not that Silvertip had been a small pack while it existed; the properties that they had possessed then existed now in the Spine. They were quiet, reclusive, or at least that was how it would have seemed to prying eyes.

Bracing himself against the roots and trunk of an overgrown evergreen, Mordecai drew in a deep breath and held it. If he had wanted to, he would have tried to taste what lingered on that wind. Instead what he did smell was the earth, the fragrant boughs above him, and the warren of denned creatures nearby. Everything readied for the winter, it seemed, and if following their prey had been the wisest thing they had done, then they were doing well by any means. Though perhaps Mordecai himself was an exception to this rule, as in his preparations for winter he had yet to find himself any sort of shelter that would eventually save him from inclement, frigid weather. Even now, he paid it no mind, but simply savored the silence and familiar scents of his previous residence.

brand new — degausser