'Well done, you managed to stand up.'

Groan.

His towering limbs still harbored the cold, an iron grip sinking deep into his joints with such ferocity it felt like large, tangling dragging him down. The very same joints that had once been sturdy, flexible—uncompromised by time. Those days seemed but a distant memory now. But perhaps age had finally caught up to him, wrapping itself around his bones as surely as the snow that had once swaddled him in disassociative euphoria.

It felt like ages before he reached her side, his breath curling into the frigid air. His gaze swept over her features, a quiet acknowledgment settling in his chest. She was just as he remembered—slender, white as freshly laid frost, and every bit as cranky. The possibility that this was nothing more than a dream hadn’t escaped him, but at the very least, Faeline appeared as she always had. Rhydian’s eyes narrowed slightly. More often than not, his dreams painted she-wolves in a... much different light.

'I've not the foggiest where we are,'
Her steps came to an abrupt halt, jarring him from his thoughts just in time for his broad skull to collide faintly with her hindquarters. He grunted, recoiling slightly. If she noticed, she gave no indication. All that fur, he mused.

Lifting his head, he peered beyond her, the once-familiar landscape now drowned beneath an oppressive, soupy brume. The meadow stretched ahead, but it had become shapeless, colorless, its features smothered beneath the thick haze. The setting sun struggled to cut through the gloom, bleeding what little remained of its light into the mist—a deepening orange, eclipsed by the thickening mist.

His gaze sharpened. A shadow loomed ahead, indistinct yet familiar in its silhouette. The treeline.

"Continue forward," He called, "There's a forest due straight ahead. It could offer us some shelter."