Japheth's long legs carried him to the peak of a hill that was blanketed in a sparse layer of snow. The tall dead stalks of weeds, bent and often broken, leant the place a stark appearance, though he supposed it would be a meadow of tall grasses come summer. The tawny male snorted softly at the thought of summer, wondering if he would still be in these parts in the warmer months. The area was vast and sheltered by the mountains, but thus far he had found the place to be as cold and lonely as any other he had traversed along the way from Eagle Ridge. Nothing compelled him to stay.
And yet he had not left; he lingered in this wilderness, perhaps for the thought that the weather might improve in this region sooner than further north, perhaps for the potential of bountiful prey when spring finally came, perhaps because he was tired of walking endlessly without purpose. He had not missed the scents of nearby packs carried to him on the cold wind, but he had no yet gained the courage to approach their borders, and he had yet to run into anyone outside those boundary lines.
Eventually he would have to either muster up the guts to petition a pack for a place to stay, or get up the determination to continue on in his journey. For now, he simply seated himself and overlooked the surrounding forest bathed in early morning sunlight, and sighed, the beauty of the late winter day lost to his teenaged angst.