Swiftcurrent Creek i used to be nice, soft and tender

She remembered this place. It had been well marked the last time she had come here, and Ibis thought fondly of those warmer days. She had travelled alongside her aunt Sarah and her friend Gannet. Here they had met the guardians of the river and spoken with their superiors, trying to make nice so that the Hollow would perhaps have more friends in the valley. Such a long time ago - a different time, it felt like. Ibis surely felt like a different person now.

And the markings were faded too, now. Changed. The girl wandered across them with some skepticism, as if to touch the borderlands would be tantamount to treason; maybe someone still waited here for those curious enough to investigate, and then strike them down? She was skittish in her steps, shy, fawn-like in her silence and her creeping. The river's roaring pulse could be heard soon enough and it drowned out all else; there was a segment that looked to have over-ridden the bank and flooded outward, and it was this she circled, sniffing and watching.

Pieces of rubble had somehow become scattered across the terrain. Some larger pieces - what looked to be stumps or massive old trees - were uprooted and half-drowned in the water. It looked as if a mountain had fallen to pieces over the river and redirected it. The girl frowns; she cannot remember if anything so disastrous had ever happened in the Hollow, and Elysium had been intact when she had last visited there... Evidently, the river pack had not fared so well.

She remained for a few more hours, trailing through the territory and scouring for remains. Wolves could've been trapped here, she thought. It seemed only right to honour those lives possibly lost. Ibis did not find anything and for that she was thankful; there were some abandoned caches though, most of which had been picked clean by now. She lingered over one, and noticed as something pale drifted in her periphery. It looked small, light, like a cloud. She sought to close the distance, and as she did the cloud grew in size, almost triple her own dimensions - but it was decidedly canid.

The wolf lingered on the edge of the water and seemed to be distracted by it, perhaps mourning what once was. Ibis could relate. She thought to leave them to their own devices but knew how it felt to find a home abandoned, a family lost. Her heart went out to the stranger - and soon she was drifting up alongside them, her reflection rippling in reverse from the flowing water. She was quiet for a moment, letting the other wolf take notice of her in their own time, and then said: Did you live here, once?