It was going to be strange not living under these trees any more. As she slipped back under the shade of the huge pines she looked up wistfully at the branches above her. She would miss this forest. But, perhaps, one day she would return. For now her pups deserved a better home. She just hoped that the new Amenti would be the right home for them. She was back in the forest to retrieve her family and to let Dempsey know of the change, to invite him to come along. She hoped he would agree... she had grown quite fond of the silvery brute recently and she thought he felt the same way, but she wouldn't force him to come to the pack with her if he did not want to. A new scent crossed her nose and she stopped, her violet gaze searched the trees around her for its source. It was such a familiar scent... But it had been so long since she had smelled it. Could it really be him? She hadn't seen him since Medusa's birth. She looked around once again for Deteste's form in the trees, wondering what could have brought the brute here after all this time. Speech Thought Others

The man visited the Red Forest often. Haunted by some strange sentiment of belonging. His responsibility to the land had not gone when ownership was shifted. When the life here shifted with it. His black body would be found resting alongside a redwood trunk, his posture as erect and alive as the tree that accompanied him. But in the darkness of the night only his eyes were visible to the observant traveler and with no one to witness his forlorn gaze it was as if he was not there at all. The sound of travel would stir him from a thoughtful state and his head would slowly turn to acknowledge the wolf that approached him. He recognized her in scent but her presence was unmistakable for her violet eyes glowed vibrantly in the scattered moonlight that poured through the canopy above, her immaculate pelt glowing in a ghostly white.



"Hello Alena." He would speak his greeting and when the words would leave the man he would be left with an uncertainty of what to say next. His interactions with the woman had been few and he knew only a handful of facts about her that left him without any context of her character. Her presence had both summoned him from contemplation and fanned the flame of his current thought. Deteste had realized upon leaving Amenti that he would not be able to move on to a life elsewhere. So he returned, constantly fueling a cycle that could not bid the hollowness of the abandoned forest away. He was a leader and he was a father. He desired to leave a meaningful life for his children once his time expired. Upon the close of discourse between Valhalla and Glaciem the man would set his plan to re-claim what he had come to think as his.

The dark form of Deteste was hard to pick out in the evening blackness, but his blue eyes gave him away and when she finally spotted him she moved forward on steady, light strides, curiosity nawing at her. Perhaps she wasn't the only one that felt drawn to this forest, felt like this was their rightful home. She stopped a few steps from him, easing down onto her haunches and draping her tail neatly over her forepaws as she often did. Alena dipped her head at his greeting, replying with her own, "Hello, Deteste." It had been so long since she had spoken to him and even then she had been through little interaction with the brute, so she was both curious as to why he was here and curious as to if he knew what had happened with Amenti as of late. "What brings you out here?" she asked, settling with having her first curiosity answered. In the back of her mind she knew she should be getting back to her children, but she felt the need to speak with him first. He was one of the only wolves that knew what Amenti was like before the bitch took her throne so in some strange way Alena felt a connection with the ebony figure. Speech Thought Others