Ashes to Ashes

His internal alarm woke him without external prompting just before the sky began to lighten with dawn, and Apollo came awake all at once. He didn't experience any disorientation from awakening in a new den, but he lay there for a long moment in the darkness with his eyes open, allowing himself to adjust to wakefulness. Finally he came to his feet, stretching carefully as he did so. At five he was still at the peak of his life, but there would come a time when his body began to fail him. He saw no need to hasten that time by neglecting to care properly for the mortal vessel that he inhabited.

With his lean form as limber as it could be made within the confines of a cave, he padded out onto the ledge that ran along the exterior of his den. In one direction it led off towards the top of the canyon only to taper off into nothing before it reached the rim. Careful leaps could bring someone who knew the path to another series of ledges that would allow access, but only someone familiar with it could do so. The other direction led in a series of switchbacks towards the canyon floor, meandering enough to take some time to reach his den from the bottom though he could, in a pinch, get down to the bottom quite quickly by simply dropping from ledge to ledge. It was ideal for his purposes, and would be comfortable enough with the addition of some pelts. Even if he would have to trade with outsiders to obtain them - he did not know if any of his kin had made it a point to learn the trade of a huntsman in enough detail to properly preserve a pelt, and he certainly didn't want the stink of pelts going bad to linger in where he needed to sleep.

Today he was in no particular rush and it was still dark within the canyon, so he took the easy, gentle switchbacks to the canyon floor. He thought he might take the morning as a sentry patrol before beginning to seek out more of his kin to reacquaint himself with them and get a sense of where their ranks stood. For now, however, he set himself upon a wide, flat rock to continue stretching, while also allowing his senses to keep a watchful guard on the canyon around him.