Bearclaw Valley She's got the high score and you're coming off way too keen

as overjoyed as indra was to see their family partially reunited, she could not help feel a spare thread of dread to return to where it had all started.

bearclaw looked much the same, at least to indra. but for all the faces it had once held in its walls, none remained. she wondered if even the black does that she and blondine had followed (what seemed years ago, too) had calved any fawns this season - and if they too shared the dark pelt of their mothers.

she fell in step behind lucas, admiring his ability to be unsinkable. he presently seemed to be ripping across the grounds without a care to trouble him -- snow, grass, and mud slung underfoot. indra was not yet in a mood to entertain such boisterous activity, though she did share an amused smile with laurel before following after lucas and marten with a watchful gaze.