Redhawk Caldera Freshly disowned in some frozen devotion

@Fox or @Peregrine ? Feel free to turn him away if you want!

He'd been away a while. A vacation, sort of. A departure from a life he was frustrated with living. It was a decision he hadn't made lightly - and Njal had struggled for that break from everything. But no distance could stop his mind from doing what it did best. He knew he should return eventually - to the caldera, at the very least. To the icy peak that was once his kingdom, maybe. It took longer for his body to recover without the attention of a healer, but he didn't care; he didn't want to waste supplies, or that'd be his story if anyone asked. Supplies and time which should have been utilized for others - the younger, more important folk of the caldera. Yeah, that'd be a good thing to mention to Fox next time he saw her - it was for the greater good.

But that was a lie. He just wanted to get away and wallow in peace, without someone looking over his shoulder, or checking in on his progress every few hours. His leg had healed, slowly, and there was still time before his hip was back to normal; his desire to slink away from the caldera was realized, but he wasn't that far from them. Njal couldn't travel far with his injury - maybe they knew that. But nobody came looking, and he was content for a time.

Eventually he had to head back, and that would catch us up to the present: Njal limping his way back towards the caldera's borders, his body having shed the scent of Peregrine and Fox instead adopted the dust of the mesa, the fading summer pollen of the meadow just beyond. Autumn was settling in now and he needed the pack now, more than ever. Winter would be upon them and, as much as it bothered him to fall back in line as a pack wolf these days, he needed that.

The only problem - aside from the pain he felt in his side with every step - was the chance that Fox would refuse him entry. He had made a promise and broken it, and she was not the most forgiving of such things, as far as he could recall. All the same, as Njal found himself surrounded by the aromatic stench of the pack's boundary line, he raised his head and howled.