Nomads Pass let it be

One-shot of Chan discovering Seiche's body and marking the site, at @Caspian and @Aleister for relevance.

He had wanted to stay with the others and care for the orphaned child he'd discovered, to help the young boy adjust and feel safe in his new environment. However, there was something that needed to be addressed that would not afford him the luxury of procrastinating. If he was to ever know what happened to Caspian's guardian, he would need to look now. The longer he waited, the more likely any evidence would be vanished away by nature's mechanizations.

After making the climb back up the mountainside, he was able to relocate the stony structure he'd found the pup tucked within. The scent of his mother was now completely gone from the area, leaving him without any clues much less a trail to follow. As methodically as he could manage upon the uneven terrain he canvassed thoroughly, checking each and every nook and outcrop for sign of the wolf in question.

It was not necessarily relief that he experienced when he did at last find her, half-scavenged and sunbaked. Near enough to the den he felt certain this had been the boy's mom, Chan forced himself to look upon her ruined remains and memorize what could be gleaned from them. She'd had smoky grey fur with dark accents and a fighter's frame. She had passed curled into herself, likely suffering from dehydration or malnourishment or both. He did not see any suggestions of a fight, though she could have been wounded and the evidence eaten away by the creatures that had fed upon her, or even ill.

It was a scant few details, barely anything, but for all he knew they could one day mean the world to Caspian, to at least know something about the woman he'd been born to. To know she hadn't abandoned him by choice, that she had strove until her last breath for him. If the child ever had questions, Chan would give all that he had.

He altered the landscape, pulling at stones and pushing them into a pile, creating as best he could a cairn to mark where the mysterious wolf had passed. Her body he left untouched, allowing the process of her return to the earth continue undisturbed. It had always bothered him that Tagg's skeleton remained in place rather than being properly scattered, and he would not entomb Caspian's mother in such a way.

When finished, he parted from the corpse with a simple promise; "He's safe, and in good paws. We'll do right by him. I swear it."