Elohim had come, and Elohim had gone.
It had just like that - a snap of the fingers or the fleeting life of a snowflake. His mother remained a ghost, his siblings a foreign entity and Spirane remained a strange place full of strangers. It felt as if nothing had changed. It felt, in fact, like nothing could change. At times, he felt as if he had more weight on his shoulders than he could bear - he would awaken with a sudden need to fulfill expectations despite no longer remembering who had assigned them to him; at times, he awoke with a flahs of red hot pain up his leg and flank, the lick of fire unwilling to be forgotten so easily. Some nights, he awoke and caught the full moon staring down at him from above, Underidge's gaze unfaltering. He could not outrun anything. There was humor in that, at least.

But the snow had come again and so, he had been pushed from his usual place towards the lowlands of Spirane. He had no issue leaving his makeshift home, a clutter of rocks in which he could squeeze himself, and yet he despised the labor of hobbling down the slick stone and gravel. The snow had started already, after all. What was a cripple compared to that? Nature tended to have the last laugh, something he could not share in as he felt his paws slip once more across the stone, a frustrated growl expulsed as he crouched to catch himself.

As he crouched, he noticed her then. In that brief moment that he had been able to catch her eyes, he had immediately noticed it: she was hiding. Rather than rise, he remained crouched, though mostly out of fear of displaying his weakness - after all, crouched he was able to hide his missing leg, bluffing his way to normality. The paths that way aren't good, he stated with a nod towards the way in which she had been heading. The moment he said it, however, he almost reeled back, as if he had not been worthy to make such a statement; in reality, he feared that she might wish to descend with him and in that, notice his weakness.