Ronan had been following the trail of an infected bear, intent on putting the thing out of its misery. It'd been wandering around aimlessly for days, torn between its natural instincts to find somewhere safe to hibernate for the winter and the unnatural desire to further spread the infection. Ronan despite it all felt bad for the thing, because it was putting up a damn good fight even if it was only prolonging the inevitable.

The tracks led him to the far north; to a hole in the ice. It was uneven with cracks webbing out from the edges; no signs of struggle or claw marks to suggest the bear had seen or heard it coming. One moment the bear had been standing on what appeared to be solid, stable ice and the next it was gone. A merciful enough end, he supposed.

Shifting his weight, Ronan's ears flicked to the sides, listening very carefully. Though Ronan was not nearly as heavy as a fully grown grizzly, he was suddenly very aware of his heft; that if he didn't step carefully things could go from kinda shit, to the worst very quickly.

Lorelai wasn't sure how she felt returning to her birthlands right around the same time as the apocalypse came to town. Pretty bad tidings if you asked her, not that she was overtly superstitious or anything. It was enough to rattle her confidence all the same. Maybe she should have stayed long gone, spent more time with her kids, even if the brats (affectionate) were in that 'I'm too cool to hang out with my parents now' phase. But then again, nah, she'd put up with a lot if it meant getting to connect with her siblings again... Even a bunch of murder worms. Things seemed to have settled down, maybe hopefully probably. For the time being, except for the lingering sickness that had sunk its teeth into many of the critters roaming these parts. She'd caught the wiff of a bear that smelled off and was debating the morality of a mercy kill against the risk of becoming infected herself, just another vector of the pervasive spread. Luckily the risk weighed out to be null, apparently, if the crater in the ice was anything to go by. And double lucky was the fact that she didn't seem to be the only one investigating. Lore narrowed her eyes at the winged man, a few dozen yards away, his odd markings and extra bits obvious from where she was resting beneath the protruding scruff of an evergreen. She considered laying low, not that she expected her bright red coat to do anything remotely similar to 'blending in,' but maybe this guy was one of those self-absorbed sorts who was too busy thinking about himself to notice. But nah, she was too curious. "I gotta ask," she called out, hoping he wasn't a 'pissy sort' either. "Those little skin flaps actually do anything for you?" Maybe it was for the ladies, like one of them frilled lizards. She'd reserve judgement, personally. "Talk" "Listen" Think