The Bracken Woods witiko wind, skeleton trees

Souvik hiked in silence. Naked trees flanked him at every turn and brown earth, stripped of verdant understory, sprawled away as far as the eye could see. The land spread before him, ravaged and abandoned. The matchstick woods felt haunted. Yet young Souvik followed the empty trail deeper and deeper into the territory, seemingly undeterred. He kept a clipped but casual pace, and his chin was up, his tail down. His ears twisted suspiciously, however, and his nose wriggled as he walked. He smelled little, and he heard no birdsong, no chitter of rodents. It was eerie. There was just the scent of kindling, and the sigh of the wind and the knocking of bare branches.

Even the burning sun brought no relief from the strangeness of this place. When it was not obscured by the intermittent clouds, it cast down hot, pitiless light on the trees and turned them into grave markers. Souvik felt like a ghoul as he picked his silent way between them. The deeper he went into the woods, the more the hair on his nape prickled. Eventually, not even the sun could drive the chill from his bones. Still, he moved on.

A thick bank of clouds had gathered by the time he finally stopped. They were bluish brown, and they boiled menacingly above the trees. They presented the first truly threatening sight all day, but after a glance, Souvik promptly forgot about them. He marked an old gray tree beside the path, then he walked past it into the eastern waste of untrodden timberland. He remained silent as he skirted rocks and thickets, and only when the path lay out of sight did Souvik stop again. Beneath a wide squat tree, he dug up a bit of earth and sank into it. The sun warmed his back. The emptiness lulled his senses. His eyes closed and he slept.

He dreamed the ghosts of the wood were watching him.

With the world laid to waste and food already growing scarcer, Wildfire's interest in exploring ceased almost entirely. In its place, a more pressing drive arose within the young hunter. From dawn until dusk, she used all her energy to track prey. If this happened to lead her away from the territory, it was mere coincidence. Actually, it was more than that: the sparseness of even small game forced her to range further and wider, scouring every inch of dead earth for any sign of something to eat.

Today's hunting grounds included the formerly thick woodland due north of Sleeping Dragon. Wildfire roamed restlessly between the naked trees, nose to the grindstone. She managed to flush out a young hare, though it gave her the slip and disappeared into a muddy burrow. Normally, the she-wolf wouldn't have bothered, but she couldn't give up so easily now. She dug at the yielding soil until she was filthy with it, yet still had nothing to show for her efforts.

Wearily, she slumped against a nearby log and sighed. She had really wanted that rabbit, not for herself but to take back to the Heda. Surely the Alpha female could look after and feed herself, yet Wildfire couldn't resist the urge to bring her food any more than she could explain her attachment to Thuringwethil. So she didn't dwell on it, only acted on her impulses.

A slight May breeze picked up as she rested, carrying with it the scent of a wolf close by. It was masculine. Wildfire tensed ever so slightly, rising onto her filthy feet and deliberating a few moments before deciding to track the scent. It was good practice, if nothing else, and she couldn't lie that a wolf this far north of the Teekon Wilds piqued her curiosity.

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Although ghosts haunted his dreams, his nap had been mercifully peaceful and brief. Souvik felt more rested than he had in days. He yawned as he woke, and stretched out his legs and raked the red earth with his toes. He lugged himself up and out from his makeshift bed, tail swinging. After he shook out his coat, his black eyes started skipping over the nearby trees. His nose started twitching, and his expression grew vaguely puzzled. He glanced westward where more clouds had piled heavenward, then at the sun which had slipped a little further past its zenith.

With an agitated ear flick, Souvik scanned the woods in the direction of the path. He knew it snaked south for a while still, but he did not know how much further the woods extended.

There wasn't really anything he could do about that, however. He couldn't go back, and he didn't want to head toward those clouds. He could head east, but there was no guarantee the woods thinned out that way anytime soon either, and given the choice between path or no path, he'd have to pick the easier route. Souvik deflated as he swung back through the woods and met up with the trail. It slithered below the trees just as he'd left it, like a brown ribbon through a graveyard. Souvik studied it for a minute before trotting southbound again. Except, this time he did not feel so alone.

Perhaps he'd only imagined it, but he thought he smelled wolf when the breeze had shifted.

Within minutes, she located a winding deer trail. Her heart sped up slightly, yet when she lowered her smudged muzzle to brush it over the muddy ground, she detected no sign of ungulates—nothing fresh, anyway. Wildfire licked her chops, then raised her head again and squinted further along the path before beginning to walk along it. She supposed the forest had been thick and shady just a week or so ago, yet now it felt almost haunted. It was as if the wilderness had been plunged into a sudden winter, minus the cold. Still, she shivered, unsettled as she passed through the dead wood.

She heard the slightest of sounds—a footfall on soft earth, maybe, or fur whispering against a tree trunk—and froze. The hunter tipped her muzzle into the wind, trying to pinpoint the scent again. It was definitely getting stronger. The bare limbs overhead rocked and clicked in a slight breeze and suddenly Wildfire sensed that the wolf in question was perhaps a hundred yards further north along this very game trail.

But when she slowly ventured in that direction, she found... nothing. Wildfire paused and tipped her smudged snout upward once more. Strangely, the scent had begun to grow weaker. As she plodded forth and still came up empty-handed, she reflected on her earlier errant thought about the forest being haunted. She didn't really believe in that kind of thing, yet a slow shudder passed down her spine all the same. She searched for a few more minutes before giving up on the brackish woods altogether and heading back to Drageda.

I edited a conclusion onto this since @Souvik went inactive. :)