Lost Creek Hollow underneath the black locust tree

Months slipped away as the height of summer came and went, each day no more remarkable than the next. Luke had departed, as lone wolves did, leaving Valtyr to wait, and wait, and wait... until the youth had practically forgotten what he was waiting for. Survival consumed the lone wolf, but he never meandered far from the eastern claim. The Sveijarn was a patient creature - or perhaps he simply maintained the vice of sloth.

Valtyr snapped to attention when a baritone howl sheared the forest's silence. It was as if he had woken from a reverie with a start; was the future finally to be in motion? The man swallowed a hard lump in his throat, a sudden and unexpected anxiety brewing in his gut. Without dwelling too long on his inhibitions, the young blood broke into a coltish troit towards the group, calling to the party as he moved.

Now more than a year, the late bloomer's northern blood ran strong. His reedy frame had filled in, tall figure evenly made with a slim cut more refined than his sire's. A deep chest provided Valtyr's lungs ample space as he marched while athletic, fire-orange legs were both spry and robust. His brackish, sandy pelt was short with the season but it would undoubtedly thicken when the frost arrived.

Strange scents grew stronger as Val drew near until he, eventually, entered the waterfall glen. New faces dotted the idyllic scene, but the loner couldn't help but notice all but one were women... Bronze eyes scanned between slender figures of ivory, slate, sand, gold, and umber. The were all hot, he thought to himself.

Smokin' Hot.

The youth loitered uncertainly, graze drifting back towards the central pair. The man must be Mordecai, thought Valtyr to himself... but where the heck was Luke?