Silver Moraine he's got an everloving bone to pick with one and all

her search for lucas carried her ever further from home, and each day that dragged on, brought with it only deepening peril. her searches became more desperate, her time from the puppies in bearclaw more frequent. xan or laurel, when not searching, watched the children in solemnity -- but indra, lean and hardened by her roaming ways, pursued lucas still.

no trace of him existed anywhere, and she had exhausted nearly all of the region's northern hemisphere. soon she would have to go south -- a task she dreaded, given her fear of the wolves in the south, and the disastrous treason that had befelled her in the flatlands.

as she traced north, the evidence of snarling fires grew: the air was murky and thick gouts of black smoke rose from the hinterlands; in the distance, she saw a glow of hellish orange -- a field caught-afire. she would avoid that area, and hoped lucas would too.

part of her was vexed there was so little trace of her nephew - it gave her hope, in some small way, that he was still alive -- for she had yet to stumble across his corpse.

that was good, right?