On a day like this one with the winds blowing in and the morning mist just starting to evaporate away, Sköll Archer had a feeling in his gut that something was terribly amiss. Though, the feeling had not lasted long, for when the young royal made his way to his usual haunt of one of the several small streams that stemmed from Heartleaf Creek, he discovered something that send his spine tingling and his tail up into the air in jubilant wag. The creek might have dried up in this part of the Willows, but in its stead he had found the most amusing of playthings... Something long, slimy, and twisted in the most strangest of positions. The unfortunate thing, a common garter snake by the sight of its bold yellowish stripes, was belly-up on the dry riverbank, something that told the prince right from the start that it was no longer living.

Just in case, he barked loudly at it to find that it did not even do so much as twitch a muscle in reply. He had to stop a moment to suppress the memory of finding Skana motionless on the ground, and once he had recovered, he gingerly clasped his jowls around the snake's tail, dragging its head along the cold mud and pebbles until he was back on the grass. Its lifeless eyes stared up at him as he inspected it. He knew Morganna had once confronted a snake when she was little, but he questioned now if she would still be scared of it or absolutely put off by the sight of it if he deposited it in one of her usual hangouts.

Sköll's mischievous grin spread across his pitch back face, tugging the ivory markings that outline his lips up in a rather flattering smirk. Once he had rolled it over with a few prods of his large paws, he snatched up the legless thing in his jaws and began to travel in the direction of his sister's closest hideaway. He had been nearly there when the air around him seemed to change. The wind that had been blowing just only a few moments ago had ceased and the fog at his feet seemed to be retreating out and away from him wherever he stepped.

Hastily, he scented the air, but unsuccessfully garnered from it the hint of a stranger who had quite possibly just arrived into Relic Lore. He whirled around to scan the hazy gaps between the trees. He had traveled too far, that much was certain; and, in hopes of quelling the doubt that was bubbling up from the pit of his stomach, he dropped the snake to let out a bark of warning...