Firestone Hot Springs filled with cancers and poppy tarts

it wasn't fair.

the blonde boy missed it. all of it. the den, the sea, the sand — his home. peregrine was still a bit too young to truly understand the difference between his island home and the inland location of the plateau; all he really knew was that it wasn't home, and it wasn't right. it didn't smell right or look right or even feel right. the wind tasted different on his tongue, and the ground beneath his paws felt far too soft more often than not. and to top it all off, prevost was gone. his favorite sibling (or at least, he imagined her as such, in the wake of her absence, though it would be impossible to decipher whether this was really the case prior to her disappearance), stolen from him as cruelly as his home. so he went around with a sour look on his face, and a perpetual biting edge to the youthful tones of his still-developing voice. to those observing, perhaps peregrine came off as an ill-tempered child; a boy cursed to begin life as stormy and cantankerous as any crusty old man whose golden years were more yellowed and dusty than anything.

but really, he was just angry all the time. angry, disgusted, overwhelmed — and perhaps, deep down, a little sad too. wheeling gull isle had made him happy. and now nothing did, it seemed.

so it couldn't have been a surprise to anyone when he started to wander from his family. he sought some sort of reprieve from the perceived grime of the plateau, if only for a little while. he didn't really want to leave forever, though the idea was certainly appealing when he felt at his lowest.

but then he made a wrong turn — or five. or ten. it was hard to tell... and he didn't care as much as he should, truth be told.

part of him sort of assumed that his mother would find him. she always did.

but that clearly didn't happen; while peregrine had no way of knowing exactly how far he was from the plateau, he'd ended up quite a bit further than any pup his age should be from the adults in their life. lost, actually, but he would never admit that. presently, the most he was willing to accede to was the gnawing demands of an empty stomach, which demanded sustenance he certainly could not provide on his own. but that was another thing peregrine would never admit to, of course. he was nearly a man grown, after all! more than capable of taking care of himself, surely. this in mind, the 3-month-old confidently marched into the unknown with an unearned confidence, certain that he'd return to his family victorious. whatever that meant.

he took it as a sign when he started to smell blood. meat. his mouth started to water almost immediately, and he took off running without a single thought spared for the possibility of things like strangers or danger — much less the infamous combination of the two, stranger danger. after all, he'd never had a real reason to think about any of those things.

so he didn't think twice when he barreled straight into the legs of some random brown wolf. he didn't really care, though he yelled and huffed quite a bit as he righted himself. food was at the forefront of his mind, so of course he went straight for it without even a glance at the stranger. naturally, he assumed they would let him eat. everyone did.