Blacktail Deer Plateau a drained bourbon bottle laying next to my head

For @Dante! Take your time in replying to this if you need to, don't feel obligated!

Clarity had a way of coming back in the most alarming ways. It had taken a chance meeting to give him a compass on where he really had ended up. Though in the reality of it all, hindsight had always been twenty-twenty; he should have expected a return to the Wilds by venturing down the coast. He had stumbled upon it almost a year ago by following the coast northward, so following it back south would have brought him there. From there it was only a matter of time before he found himself traversing familiar grounds. Or at least familiar as they could get, in spite of the muddy, snowy patches that lingered beneath the overcast haze that followed him on another particular day.

The plateau jutted from the mountain range in the same way he anticipated it, no longer obscured entirely by full canopied trees. There was a starkness to it all that drew him in, but it was not the only reason he was coming in close to their borders. He was curious to see if Dante was still there and how he fared. It was one stop among many he knew he would make, perhaps leading up to a bigger area that he did not wish to face. The Spine was out there still, somewhere. At least he certainly hoped of its existence still, less than confident that he had left it behind in the best shape. But the pressures had gotten to him, his rash move of making a claim on a place that he deemed as hallowed ground had come back to bite him.

And so, he had moved on.

Lingering just beyond the strongest of markers denoting the plateau's proverbial front door, he sent up a crisp call for his friend. Mordecai was certain he could scent him, but this was certainly the most direct way of finding out. Especially with the wilds clinging to him in lieu of more distinct, wolfish scents. He had been reclaimed by the wilderness some time ago and sported it in obviousness. Dante had recalled him from the last time, but who knew what had transpired? Mordecai hadn't even made the attempt to figure the time he had been gone, believing that he was walking straight into an early spring waking in the Wilds.

murder by death — spring break 1899