Moonspear up in the morning, up and on the ride

backdated to after he brings kukutux to MG

arcturus left @Kukutux in the makeshift den he'd arranged, frowning over her poor condition. her pelt was ashy grey, her wounds ugly -- he'd done his best to tend to them, but his best was rudimentary. there was nothing left to but wait and see.

the mountaineer returned to the mountain -- the great halls of his family empty of all, save ruin.

nothing but smoke and ash remained, curling malevolently around the rubble and assailing his senses. his throat, raw from insult of stonesmoke and smog, worked to force one last searching howl into the thinning air.

no response save the gradual uncurling of serpent-like smoke, which parted as he walked through an unrecognizable field of toppled stone and collapsed earth.

gradually arcturus' hope was replaced with a sinking feeling far more realistic: grief. his family was dead, and he, the lone survivor, stood in the ruins of their ashes wracked with tangled feelings of twisted grief and self-loathing.

alone in that grey and cheerless expanse, arcturus wondered how the most prominent thing in his life -- family -- the very thing which had defined him -- could one day up and disintegrate into nothing --

and he wondered, when would his day to slip into nothingness come too?