Summer had settled warmly over the Giant's Throne, wrapping the ancient valley in birdsong and the endless hush of falling water. Sunlight spilled through broken columns and across stone paths so impossibly broad that they seemed carved for creatures far larger than any wolf alive today. Time had softened the ruins moss creeping over fractured pillars while wildflowers rooted themselves in cracks that had once been cut with impossible precision. Somewhere beyond the veil of mist, hidden behind countless waterfalls, the mountain itself rose into the shape of an enormous throne. Whether giants had truly ruled here or whether the stories had simply grown alongside the stones hardly mattered anymore.

Flicker preferred believing the stories.

His paws followed the familiar rhythm of the oversized paths with practiced confidence. Sight had long ago become a luxury he could no longer depend upon, the world before him existing only as blurred silhouettes and shifting patches of light and darkness through cloudy yellow eyes, enough to tell where a cliff stood or where a tree interrupted the skyline, but little else.

He paused near the edge of one of the streams, lowering his head to drink. Cold water rolled over his tongue while the waterfall nearby thundered. He listened for a long while afterward ears lazily turned this way and that a faint smile tugged at the corner of his muzzle.

Suppose if giants ever did live here, he murmured to no one in particular, his gravel soft voice barely louder than the stream, they certainly knew how to pick a view he would snort at his own joke before settling down on his haunches.