The nights were growing longer and colder, and though she didn't wish to acknowledge it, Firenza felt a growing sense of urgency and unease welling up within her. The sense of impending doom swelled with each passing day, and reached its fevered peak when her late afternoon howl from one of the area's many mountainsides did not recieve any responses. She had been so confident that Violette, Sunbird, Mercury, and Tercel were surely nearby, but when she'd decided to call and rally them all together, Renza realized that she was utterly alone. If they were here, they'd howl, the grim thought repeated over and over in her mind. Either some harm had befallen them--though they were traveling in pairs and surely the other member of the duo would have alerted the rest of the danger--or they had simply drifted out of the area, too far for Firenza's wild song to reach them.

Whatever the reason, it left the dark del Bosque feeling abandoned and lost, even though she'd become at least rudimentarily familiar with the local landscape. She didn't yet know the names of each mountain, forest, or stream, but her paws carried her along the same half-remembered paths, and she had crossed this string of mountaintops once before. Firenza followed a spindly creek on its trek downhill through a forest, but her yellow hawk's eyes only glanced ahead of her to avoid dips and bumps in the earth that radiated cold up through her pawpads. She was less concerned with the pretty scenery and much more concerned with her future.

Renza and her age-mates had intended to meet up, to winter over in the same pack, in this area that had seemed so promising and lush with life as summer drew its last breath and gave way to autumn. But without them, what should she do? Try to seek them out? If they'd been seperated, or if the boys and the girls had gone in opposite directions, searching for them would be a lost cause. Should she try to make it back to Murcielago Forest, would they have turned around and gone back? The journey was a long one, and whether her family would have the resources to support five ADSCITITIOUS wolves in the zenith of winter was highly doubtful. Love, they might have in abundance, but that wouldn't keep fat on their bones and food in their bellies.

In the end, there was truly only one option: to stay put where Renza knew the others would be able to find her. She'd make a place for herself in one of the local packs, and that would smooth the course for the others to join her when they returned. It was the only choice that made sense. It just meant she'd have to trust the other four could truly take care of themselves, without her leadership and sometimes overbearingness.

Firenza sighed, then dipped her head and drank from the icy creek. The clouds overhead betokened another cold and perhaps rainy night, and Firenza hoped against hope that they were all safe, wherever they'd wandered to. A gust of wind sent a shower of autumn leaves tumbling into the creek from the trees, and Renza knew she was making the right decision. It didn't mean she had to like it.