this life does not end with death, there is a journey left to make;
ancestors watch over us and guide the path we take

These lands were foreign to him, different and strange in many ways. So accustomed to the barren wastelands of the tundra was he that even the slush of melted snow beneath his paws felt strange. He had passed through many different regions on his travels, seeing the towering forms of trees and the vast expanses of permanent freshwater lakes for the first time. His was a mind young in years, but aged in experience as the life upon the tundra is wont to do. The unfamiliarity of the world around him did not make him uneasy, nor did it capture his mind and send him into awe. It simply was, and that was the way it would be. He accepted each new change within his stride.

The soft give of the wet earth that he moved across had veiled the realization that something had lodged itself within his paw. For a time he simply moved on, ever closer to the towering trees he had spotted on the horizon some time ago, attributing it to merely another change in the terrain. It was only when the metallic scent of blood reached his nostrils and he took enough notice to glance down that he picked up his paw to take a step and saw the bloody print left behind. Pausing, he lifted the limb and looked closer at the pads, noticing a rather large thorn embedded between two of his toes. Frosty eyes looked at it for only a moment before he leaned down, teeth and tongue digging at the spot until he got a good hold of the large thorn and ripped it out. Blood proceeded to flow from the wound, and he set about licking at the spot until it stopped, or at least slowed. Only then did he place the paw firmly back upon the ground and proceed towards the forest without so much as a limp in his step.

Moving within the shade of the trees he could feel the way the temperature dropped a degree, and though it was not a particularly warm day in the transition from winter to spring, his thick arctic coat had barely begun to shed out from the bitter tundra winter. Typically it would be well into summer before he had need to be rid of the denser fur. For now he was glad for the shelter of the trees to keep him from the sun, and he moved towards a large, low rock with breadth enough to hold him. He stepped up onto its surface, circling once before lying down and letting the coolness touch against his abdomen. As his forepaws stretched out in front of him he noticed the blood that had soaked into the fur of his paw, and immediately set to cleaning it. He had become desensitized to the taste of his own blood, so frequently having to clean wounds upon his flesh that it was like no more than lapping water from a puddle.

ILUQ