The quakes had begun while the troop of Tojo-kai yearlings were in hot pursuit of the biggest buck he'd ever seen. By the time they'd realized it was the earth itself trembling and not the great waves of the defrosting ocean slamming against the shores, they were more than halfway across the land bridge to Boreas. Kat, normally the last to speak up, screamed himself hoarse to continue on to Boreas. The other continent was much closer now... if they turned back, who knew what fate awaited them. His sides were heaving with exertion and his fur dried stiff with sweat. They had hunkered down for a few hours, getting their bearings, disoriented in the strange new red light that suffused the land. Katsurō wasn't sure he had it in him to lead anyone anywhere, but luckily, he was spared. A steady stream of traffic became apparent, creatures of all shapes and sizes drawn to some location in the West. The tide had come in for the strait and the land bridge was once again mostly covered by water. Without many other options, he chose the path of least resistance: follow the crowd. Foreboding stone spires stretched towards the sky, taller than any tree he'd ever seen. Kat thought of the shining ring of runestones in Auster and searched for some thread of familiarity but found none. Beneath the red light, his hackles slowly rose. He shivered despite the blazing summer heat. Kat spun around to see if any of his siblings had followed. "I... I'm not sure what to make of this." "speech"

If it were up to Seiko, they would probably stay tucked inside Tojo-Kai's bamboo maze for the rest of time- but that wasn't feasible. They couldn't grow stronger like that, couldn't gain the skills they needed to be as strong as they needed to. It wasn't like they hated seeing the world beyond their home, they just knew home was superior, and vastly so. They'd gladly agreed to join their siblings in a hunt, especially one that proved to be such a challenge. They'd never hunted something quite so large, so it was no surprise just how far they'd tracked it. Seiko had crossed this sandbar once before, though they hadn't expected to make the journey again so soon. What happened next though was even more surprising. The world begin to tremble and shake in a way that terrified even the normally-unshakable Seiko. Together the group ran, hard and fast, abandoning their hunt entirely. Food could come later. Being so far from home when the unthinkable happened was enough for Seiko to lose their appetite completely. Surely their siblings all felt the same. They hunkered down for the rest of the night, only getting bits of restless sleep, stirring immediately when dawn broke. The sky was blood-red, unlike anything they'd ever experienced. It was threatening, foreboding in a way that Seiko didn't quite know how to comprehend. The land they navigated too was just as ominous. They'd never seen anything like it before. Those tall stone spikes reached higher than even the trees in the dragon's blood grove near their home, something that Seiko fixated on for a long while. Tilting their head toward Katsurō, they breathed in a slow breath, feeling the humid summer air tangle in their throat. "I'm not sure either," Seiko admitted, feeling strange admitting any trepidation out loud. "This place- something about it doesn't feel right. Have any of you seen this place before?" Most of the yearlings kept close to home, but Seiko didn't keep tabs on where they went. Maybe one of them had been here before.

Kaizen didn't think he was a particularly nosy person, but it was hard to ignore the ground shifting beneath his paws. Tremors so fierce it could be felt all the way at the end of the world, even the bamboo shook- a fortress that was unyielding trembled. Kaizen had to know. And so the Hattori's travelled beneath the red sky, like the sun had been cut open and was bleeding. Their sire had been quiet, not in displeasure but an emotion Kaizen couldn't parse. If he'd known Hanzo better he would have realised it was an inkling of fear. Those who survived the Long Night dreaded its return, even if they wouldn't say as much.

It was only on the way here that he had met up with his kin, a coincidence but not a happy one.

Kaizen paused, brows furrowing. He did not like change and he didn't like this, a whole entire brand of different. Wrong.

"Did Father ever tell you about the Long Night? Is this it?"