Ataneq was absolutely angered with himself, this was horrible. The thought that his mother had skipped out of town without notifying her only son that had stuck by her throughout this entire trip just sent him spiraling. As much time as he wished to spend with Po or even Lucero, Fiora would even be good, he simply felt that he would just want to hurt them. They didn’t deserve to be hurt. They were wonderful girls that he had come to befriend and he wouldn’t risk their lives just to fake himself out into believing that it would make him feel better.

It was upon his sudden decision to journey south that morning that he had found that his paws wished to travel further. Perhaps it was simply the itch in his feet after taking the two day trip to find his mother that left his paws aching for more. Leading him further and further south but that wasn’t the only that drove him forward. He felt watched; like a bird of prey was watching him from around corners, being a creepy stalker that simply couldn’t get their own fill of watching someone more interesting. However, he refused to drive himself mad and scream at the wind.

The amber-eyed yearling simply could not shake the feeling off, being mesmerized by the onset of eyes upon him. Who were they and what did they want? Ataneq had nothing to offer them, he was a lone ranger outside of his pack and inside of it he was a man of the law.

There were a multiple of moments within the young Tartok boys life that he would have deemed himself inevitably dandy. He was the exact replica of perfection, being well off in his endeavors. Even without his mother being well away from him he still felt incredibly strong and able to do anything he wished. Just because his mother had disappeared on him didn’t mean he wasn’t exceptionally independent. Now, he was simply forced to do such.

Walking along within the Woods, he could not shake the feeling that someone was watching him. Thus, he wasn’t sure if he should:
A. Act afraid for them to strike
B. Strut his stuff to show them how incredibly dashing he was.
C. Simply ignore it.

Obviously he had many different things that he could do in order to change things up but no matter the time spent trying to decipher what to do, the feeling didn’t leave him. Even if the place was creepy, he simply saw it as mysterious and needing to make an adventure of. If the stranger who was watching him eventually decided to move upon him, he’d react as quickly as possible to it.

The yearling didn’t feel lost but he certainly didn’t feel found either—he knew he would eventually come across another territory if he kept walking in one specific direction. He wouldn’t know where but he would know not to go back into the Woods. Taking the initiative he unknowingly chose to go west—straight towards the Mountain range.

There was a small part of him that certainly felt as though he was off course. Ataneq was usually a very strict wolf, guarding the wolves that he lived with and caring for them in the only way he knew how. Protecting them, sheltering them from the bad… but what if the bad included him? As hard as he tried to shake the idea he couldn’t. It was indefinitely hard for him to cope with the fact that he didn’t remember anything after coming home and having no luck in finding his mother. It had hurt him beyond comprehension that she had left him here, but she didn’t resent it. In fact, it left him feeling as though he had more room to stretch. Perhaps if she had left, eventually he could create his own pack… given that he learned more on it.

It was with the sudden ignorance of his thoughts that he hadn’t realized that some wolf had been trailing him. She came with an echoing thud, reverberating through the Woods as she stumbled backwards and from what he could tell she tried to play it off like nothing had happened. “You the one who’s been following me?” Besides the wolf’s figure, he couldn’t depict anything other than that they were dark pelted (like him) and quite small in stature compared to him. Although he would have liked to pinpoint this wolf as a female yearling, he tried to contain his joy of finding yet another opposite gender of his own age. At least, not until he found out more.