He hadn't been this way since...well...since he had moved up North with his family. Or...what was left of it, anyway. He wasn't even sure he'd really been this particular way before. He was born closer to the eastern and southern lands, and he supposed the furthest west he'd been was the battlefield. But lately, he'd been feeling pretty glum. He still couldn't get the fact he'd lost in the raid out of his head despite all the training he'd done, and each loss continued to eat away at him since he was a kid. Yeah, he had lost some and won some, but what really ate at him was the fact that he had lost against Theta of all wolves! She was a coward and a cheater. She fought dirty every time, and although he had tried to fight like a real warrior, it seemed to be when his losses came. It was starting to piss him off, and he wondered if the life of a warrior was really for him or...or if he maybe had some other calling out there that he had yet to find. His hunting was subpar, his fighting skills were decent. At least, that was him rating himself. His uncle had said he was one of the hardest working warriors in the pack, but what did that matter if he couldn't secure a win every time? What good did training do if he was just going to keep failing? Maybe he was being too hard on himself. And the fact that he seemed to seclude himself probably didn't help. He couldn't help but compare himself to his littermate, Tsunami, and some of the other warriors. After all, they had all been promoted after the Ashen raid. Maybe he was being a bit ungrateful...after all, he was a Knight. One of the recognized warrior ranks in the pack, but...it just wasn't good enough for him. So here he was. Walking along the sandy shores of the river that wound through this land, lost in his miserable train of thought. Wondering if he should give up what he had and find something else, or just say fuck it and turn to the side that had been practically begging to come out when things got dark in his head. Under his uncle's influence, he had been able to remain the honorable warrior he was. But deep down, he felt like it was merely a mask he had to wear for the entertainment of others. He felt so confused about who he was, that he didn't even really know himself. Did he ever really though? "Speak"

The peacefulness of this place ought to have calmed her, but instead it simply left Caelia feeling just as restless as when she'd first left Valhalla's lands. Consistently she kept going on little adventures away from home, however long or short, as if these little reprieves might offer her some kind of guidance on.. well, anything. It was easy to feel like she was wasting her time training in a field that might never really come to fruition. She felt detached from her siblings even more than usual lately, and it was hard to shake the feeling that she didn't quite fit anywhere in particular. Valhalla was home, yet she sometimes felt like she didn't belong there at all.

Her sky blue gaze drifted across the horizon, where the brilliant green valley met the skyline. The contrast was extreme, and for a long moment she was fixated on it, wondering how long it would be until the foliage here began to wilt. The west was luckily blessed with a far milder winter - compared to, say, the north - but things did not stay perfectly fertile throughout every season. But for now, things hadn't changed much. Maybe that wasn't such a great thing though. Maybe change, something extreme, was exactly what she needed.

Sighing as she heaved herself back onto all fours, she finished her trek up one of the knolls of the valley. By the time she reached the top, she spotted someone down below, walking alongside the lazy river that wound through the valley. At first, he was nothing more than a stranger, but after a moment of thought she realized he was familiar to her. It'd been a long time since she'd seen him, and their interaction had been brief - but memorable, apparently. Somehow he'd bested her, despite being just a kid, and she remembered being quite embarrassed by it at the time. She'd vowed she'd kick his ass when he got older, something she suddenly remembered too, but... that sounded like an awful lot of work. Her younger self had been much more determined; she felt like a ghost of the wolf she'd been then. For a moment she tried to muster up the courage to challenge him, but she decided against it. Why waste the energy on a stranger? At the very least she could greet him though, and that was exactly what she decided to do, loping down the incline to pause a short distance from him. "So we meet again, Tyto," Caelia drawled lazily, her voice tired though not completely unfriendly.