Sex: Male- Linkin Park, “When They Come For Me”
The rank odor of death clung to his thin frame; all around his body where his pelt should have been downy from the acquisition of his winter pelt, tufts of fur were matted together and sticking up where the ought to have laid neatly. His left wrist hindered his stride; if one looked close enough, it seemed like he had almost lost the ability to bend it, let alone put weight on it for a long time. His eyes were distant – starved and yearning for something familiar. Every so often his nose, dry from traveling and the change of season, twitched and he blinked. Time had been cruel, leading him in constant circles and blurring the days together into a string of endless thoughts, lightness, darkness, and the vague moments in-between.
During the first weeks of his disappearance, the ex-leader of Cedarwood Forest had been obsessed with finding his first-born son, whom he realized was missing the evening the pup did not return to the den when Jaysyek called. In time the craze from keeping his hopes up turned the Renegade into something not unlike a soulless corpse.
His flight of ideas went on and on in strings of jumbled words: <i>search, search, search... Was he here? Could he have gone this far? Did he drown? Would the River wolves take him in if they found him? I should have prevented this from happening. Maybe I could have saved him. Let's search here… Maybe this… Perhaps that... This was my fault. I am being punished. My pack is suffering for my inadequacy... This was my fault.</i>
For days he had followed the river until he had persuaded himself that Grizzly Hollow would do best without him. Kiche had been right and he had been stupid to think otherwise… to think he had left <i>Hell</i> behind. He had brought it with him from the Mountain! Wickedness had trickled into the workings of his pack; that was why the rust-pelted preacher had come to join their ranks. Traveling north had been the <i>right</i> thing to do; if he stayed away his children would grow up as they ought to, untainted and guided by better role models. If he stayed away, Grizzly Hollow and Relic Lore as a whole would do best without him… and, in time, forget him completely.
The latter seemed to be incorrect, however; and, it seemed that every so often the crows overhead, perched high above him in the bare branches of the Orchard, remembered. They twittered amongst themselves, scolding him with a harsh cry before he left their sight. Growling to himself, he trudged on at an uneven pace, simply listening to the sounds of the place that used to be his home.</blockquote>
