Blackfoot Forest BWP3: Let me go out with a bang!

He had been trying to find his brother. It was stupid; Ego was gone and he knew it, but something had tugged at his senses and lured him away from the group. It was a foolish attempt to regain something lost; mixed with a child's curiosity to see the aftermath of the quakes, not understanding just how tenuous the situation was. If he could only find his brother in all of this! If he could only reunite the pieces of his family that still lived!

Mesa had no way of knowing if Ego lived and yet his efforts grew manic, he drove himself in to a run between the trees - until an exposed root he had not noticed was suddenly there, as if lifted preternaturally off the ground to grab at him, and he fell. The boy wheezed as he hit the dust chest first; for a moment all was calm, he regained his composure quickly, the blow having reminded Mesa that his efforts were a child's fancy - but then the rumbling started.

The earth hummed at first. Pebbles danced. The trees began to groan, all the while Mesa flattened himself against the dirt in anticipation for the ground to cleave open and devour him. But this was not a quake - a crowned head rose up across a powerful forequarter as the leader of the herd charged, behind him was legion, many churning limbs equipped with dagger-like points, the elk lord rose like Sleipnir as his horde pulsed onward, oblivious of the pup in their line of egress.