It was a shrike that zipped by overhead that first caught the Sun-wolf's attention. A small, silver and black bird - anyone giving it only a glance would assume the tiny thing to be a songbird. Solulfur's breath misted on the air, as her gaze followed the brisk wingbeats.
She knew the efficient, clever predator the shrike was, and the snow creaked underfoot as she followed the bird for several feet. Its feathers glittered silver in the sunlight, and Solulfur was momentarily distracted from her patrol by the bird's flight. Then, it veered sharply into the pines and disappeared. Solulfur huffed lightly, already turning to return to her path when a pink petal drifted by on the lightest breeze.
Pink petals, fat and rounded at the edges, drooped off the blossoms that clung to the dark branches lining the path that lay before Solulfur. The branches were thin and jagged, the blossoms a stark contrast with their springtime lusciousness conflicting with the harsh winter still icing the edges of every pine tree that stood stoically nearby. Strange. Stranger still was the swath cut through the snow, lined with those petals and healthy green grass. Solulfur's paws carried her down it before she could think, equally curious and so unnerved by it all she couldn't help but stick her nose into what was surely trouble.
This disaster was the last thing they all needed right now, she thought. The sweetness of the flowers that hung so low on their heavy branches a couple of them brushed the top of the Sun-wolf's head was almost cloying, and she was relieved when she seemingly finally reached the end of the path. Alpine sweetness, pine and snow wiped the floral stink clean, and Solulfur sucked in a deep and relieved breath.
Her gilded gaze searched the horizon for a familiar landmark to orient herself.
It was the jagged, slate-colored cliffsides of the Jawbone that filled her vision. The mountain range had been named for its silhouette - resembling the fanged bottom jaw of a wolf unfathomably large, curving just slightly to cradle the bottom edge of a valley and an unknown expanse on the southern, nearly impassable descent. Solulfur didn't care about descending.
It was the high peaks and icy caves she'd been raised in. It was her birthplace Solulfur made a break for, gliding up the treacherous terrain and finding familiar footholds with a speed borne of taking this route up the mountainside countless times. There - just ahead - loomed the darkened maw of the cave she'd been born in. Solulfur came to a halt, her heart racing from anticipation and not the brief climb and brisk trot it'd taken to reach this summit.
Not a single scent, not a familiar voice, no wolf-fur dared enter her line of sight. The Jawbone was empty of all lupine life, although the snow was shed in some spots to reveal the earliest springtime flowers and bright green grass. A bird whistled to itself in a far off tree. A deer trail's scent criss-crossed Solulfur's own path.
Not a single Isblod remained.
Solulfur realized perhaps not even herself.
