Bleah. He wasn’t finding Brutus. It was upsetting. But with the growing doubt, Cesar felt free to explore out a bit farther. Not that he particularly wanted to – he loved the West just fine in all its ugly barrenness. However, sometimes he just drifted away, into the greener pastures of the South. There were trees and bushes and all kinds of green grasses. Granted, the winter had sucked most of the green out of everything, but it was still a pretty place.

The most recent journey up had made him a good deal tired, and so, upon entering a forest of draping, shady trees, his first plan was to find somewhere to nap. It was the perfect place – dark, with the branches reaching down like blankets to enshroud him in shadow. He wove in and out of the hanging strips, brushing gently against them and enjoying the thought that perhaps they were affectionately patting him. After a few minutes of aimless wandering, he decided on one tree and tucked himself in between some of the emerged roots. It was snug. Maybe there was something like this somewhere in the west. He certainly would have liked to find himself something like this to sleep in. Closing his eyes, he soon dozed off for a small nap.

Winding through the grove of small willows Rœkia garnet eyes stayed sharp, looking for any sign of plant life she could add to her collection. Winter was a poor time to herb hunt. However, she'd had the luck to stumble across a partially buried mountain lion kill and had managed to gorge herself for once in quite a long while. As she disappeared deeper into the woods Wolf landed lightly between her shoulder blades. "Find anything?"

The bird nodded. "Aye, I did! I believe there's a patch of white willows a good… oh…. 900 feet to the southeast." Her ears perked. Fantastic! The bark could be used to make poultices for wounds and it also had the marvelous effect of causing internal bleeding in the unfortunate. Sparse pickings she supposed but winter had a tendency to kill off plants and her stores were limited though she planned to head farther south where the weather was warm enough to keep the plants in good shape. She had to admit the terra here was in pretty good shape and far warmer than the East where she'd been lurking though there was still a good dusting of snow.

Delicately pawing around the streams of water that nuzzled the roots of the trees Rœkia continued on, enjoying the calm serenity of the place until she arrived at the patch Wolf had told her about. Perfect! She trotted up to the tree, nose sniffing and scenting the bark, mind working to match the smell with that in her memory. Wolf flew down from her shoulder and perched on one of the roots before muttering. Rœkia turned to gaze at the bird. "What was that?" she whispered. The magpie gestured to a dark form curled beneath the roots. "I think it's dead!" Rœkia rolled her eyes. "Well then he's not our problem is he?" She couldn't bring the dead back to life and she had no interest in eating another wolf so why the bird felt this was useful information she had no idea. Rœkia went back to working on gathering bark when Wolf carefully slipped down into the roots by the strange wolf's tail and reached out with the goal of seizing a single hair between his beak and yanking it out as he took to the sky. Just to check that the creature was really dead.

"Speech"