Blackfoot Forest the woods are lonely, dark, and deep

I just realized how far away this is, oops. I guess this can be set some indiscriminate place in my timeline. I don't know, haha. HI STEPH.

His trail led him further south than he had truly dared to venture before. There was much along the mountain range from where the Plateau lied that he did not know. There was much of the Wilds he had not ventured out into, so many nooks and crannies that he had not explored. It was hard, at least for the time being, for him to completely root himself with the wolves of the Plateau. Having only spent a fraction of his time outside of a pack since his departure from the Spine, the freedom and necessity to venture outward from a home base was one not easily conquered.

Not that he had any intentions of conquering it; Dante knew what he was up to. He had spent a few days lingering at the Plateau, trying to integrate himself. But he was also an explorer at heart. His findings, were there any, he had no qualms about sharing. It was part of what he needed to do to keep himself situated there. To see what the spring would bring and ultimately for himself, to see what he would do from there on out. As time went on, barring the pauses for breaks, he realized he had taken himself far out of the range of the Plateau.

But following the mountains had a certain allure to them, one in which he couldn't stray from. And truthfully, something drew him out there though he hadn't the faintest clue why. Some subconscious nagging, prompting him to spy out the vast terrain and territories that lied beyond what he knew. He had come this way once before, when he had left the Spine. That recollection came to him as he delved into the deep forest and was greeted by wolfish scents on the wind. He knew the memory well, pausing momentarily to think on Harlyn and then, how he wondered she fared.

It was interrupted though, as a dark figure began to emerge from the terrain ahead of him.