Three Years ∴ No banner held ∴ Looking for love in all the wrong places ∴ Soul searching

The harsh winds, heavy with ice and snow, howled over the crags like a forlorn beast, its white girth ravaging the land in wild frenzy. All things small and weak had turned to cover or long been consumed by this starved breath of winter, but Stark was neither. He seemed crafted for this season—or, perhaps, this season had been crafted for him. A wolf of such an ego as his might claim all season had been crafted for him, but Stark would agree that, in particular, winter suited him best. His tall, well-muscled frame carried him through the blizzard without foul or fault, his long, wisped coat, pristine a white as the snow which roared around him, giving him a likeness to the very land around him. The very spirit of winter—raw power and dangerous potential bound in a disarming beauty and grace.

The wolf’s large paws carried his weight over the snow-covered ice at a leisurely jog, his head dipped down against the blustering blizzard winds as he traversed higher into these unfamiliar lands. Just over the crooning of the storm, the sound of running water could be heard ahead, and that was an interesting sound indeed. Since winter took its hold over the land, Stark had found the few rivers and lakes across Moladion he had come to know to be frozen over. But this… This was undeniably the sound of something powerful, a current that could not be tamed by the cold, which yet thrived in the stillness of winter.

Forging higher into this land he would later know as the Susil Crags, Stark found himself at the bank of a rivulet, it’s rushing water split and channeled by rocks and diving over the nearby cliffs in a collection of small, dazzling waterfalls. Following the rivulet to its edge, the large, white wolf cast his silver gaze below, intrigue finding a crease in his brow as he took in the sight of the scene below. He had seen waterfalls before—many, in fact—but never ones which survived the seizure of winter. The pools below were much like one would expect: frozen slicks of ice, still and blanketed in snow. But the water that fell… It was like it simply disappeared into this frozen world, not even sending so much as a mist into the air. Even in his moment of fascination, however, Stark was not one to leave himself unawares.

A shadow a short distance down the hillside moved, perhaps, just a little too much. Turning his attention toward the movement, Stark collected his tall, proud posture as his silver-gray gaze settled on the creature. Black as a shadow, the bear of a wolf stalked higher up in the crags, his path in line with the rivulet and edge of the falls—in like with Stark and his lofty vantage point. Having seen neither soul nor shadow of another since the blizzard first hit, the tall, white wolf tilted his head in thought, wondering to himself whether this one was rathe brave or stupid, or perhaps both, as only one of those three conditions would be out wandering in this weather.

Not one to leave something of the sort a question, Stark began to work his way down to meet the ebon wolf at half the distance, stopping only when he was a good five lengths away. With the way the weather howled around them, words seemed of little use, and so, though he felt he had much he could say in a way of greeting, the white brute simply held the other with his gaze, curiously waiting to see how the other might respond to his presence.