Winter always brings about a certain...agitation, though not from a place many might expect. The snow falls and with it, memories of Ehiyeh and others, of Achlys and more. Snow meets autumn and for a moment, one cannot help but see blood in the snow rather than leaves being buried. But it has been years since winter was last a violent place; now, it is simply a cold and quiet place but it still makes one's heart pump with hotter blood. If it hadn't, perhaps I would not have found that whisper of a scent, as quiet as a whisper. It sneaks across the borders and with it comes Underidge.

His scent comes first but soon enough, he calls out, a sharp sound like cracking ice. I am already close by then, having come to observe where he might have been going with that great prize of his. I was sure he might have been going to Kamala first, hungry to reclaim the closeness and warmth she was offering all those seasons ago. Am I satisfied to know he calls for me first? Yes, and yet cautious too - who can say what shadows cling to his own. Will he bring Blackthorne and Eve in his wake too? Ah, just as we had all gotten comfortable with Iromar's queen. It will not surprise me to find that the comfort will lure Blackthorne back and into Moladion's shadows. Underidge, undoubtedly, is some kind of harbinger. It is simply his nature to be so.

I do not call back to him, but I do finally make a move to reveal myself wholly to him. I jog forward towards him, my eyes intense on him as I move between him and his prize - a moose, or once it had been, its flesh and fur flecked with death and speckled with age. I breathe in deeply, taking in his scent and the moose's own, searching it over. He has been many places, far and near, and my head tilts in silent inquiry. Where? And why? Had he been so disgraced the last time he had been here that he had seen it fit to leave? I had not exiled him, no, I had merely moved to keep him closer.

Nonetheless, I bridge the space between us, until I am but only a foot or two away. I stand close enough to truly observe his face, his eyes, to truly breathe him all in. There are flecks of white in his fur now - scars, I see, slicing through fur and skin alike. He seems more alive though, more awake. He seems more Underidge. I exhale sharply, pleased with the realization. "I did not think there would come such a day that a wolf would be gladdened by the return of a Thorn at his side," I say, my lip twitching up into the ghost of a grin. I am pleased about his return, but I cannot help but want him to explain himself, to feel some pang of guilt over having taken off so unceremoniously.