Blackfeather Woods one day it's fine the next it's black

she did not think she would ever have felt joy upon seeing the dark wood, and yet that was what set her tail wagging at her hind as she forged carelessly over the border, already calling out. "@Rowan! Rowan, where are you?" this was not the meek pup that had set out from the borders months before, before the quakes had wreaked their havoc on the wood. set on finding her brother, the girl pressed deeper into the wood, dimly surprised at the way the old trails seemed to have shifted, the downed trees, the air of solemnity that had not been there before.

Another day. Another in the cold fringes of the woods. Patrolling.
Snow brushed on the breath of the wind into him, and he turned his head, melting back into the woods clutches. Warmer, safer.
He continued, doing his best to glare out at the landscape for dangers.

He moved further in, looking for a quick snack. He knew he shouldn't, but the blistering weather made him divert for a little bit.
He knew he shouldn't have, especially when he heard the calling oof his sister.

Rowan.
His ears stood tall atop his crown and pressed himself to the borders of the woods, watching her return. Moonshine; her dark mass approaching the even darker woods. He grinned, tail a blur he rushed to greet her with a whine, licking at her in the excitement of her return.
He couldn't believe it.
"You're alive. Real." He grinned even broader, pressing himself against her. How cold must she be? 
Did Moonshine know she was returning? His heart fell for a second. His Mother, the one who he thought drove her away in the first place.

he was there, suddenly, and she greeting him just as enthusiastically. "rowan!" she calls, relieved and overjoyed an oddly uncertain that this is him, after all this time. he's changed; grown bigger, taller, the colours of his pelt shifting. but she's still her brother, she realizes with complete certainty when she withdraws. "I can't believe I found you." she'd been lost, sidetracked, and fallen in with more than a couple groups of wolves in her attempt to weather the changing seasons and the fallout from the quakes, but her family had always been in the fore of her mind.

His sister. He couldn't believe it. She was alive!
He whined low, overwhelmed with emotion.
"I didn't know..." If she was dead like Cassopiea, missing like falling Star. But she was back.

He then became overcome with protectiveness and worry.
"Are you hurt? Hungry?" He cast his gaze about quickly to locate the nearest cache so he could fetch her something. He didn't think to call his Mother. He cared for sorely her in that moment.
"Where have you been?"
Where could she have been?