Sex: MaleInstead it turns your joy into sorrow, & i can't breathe with the dust of retreat, I'm choking
Ryder had learned why the wildfire smoke had worried his guardians so. Here was the nearest evidence he'd found, too close for his own comfort as the many-humped back of Serpent's Pass was visible from this charred land. Most of the trees that had made it to this altitude had been felled, kindling to a desperate flame that only icecaps had been able to quell. When he dug through the snow, he found blackened grasses and ash that turned his typically-pale paws into a mottling of salt-and-pepper smears. He wondered for the hundredth time if Caspian had come across anything like this where he'd gone, or even the fires themselves.
Ryder let out a sigh, and turned toward the water. It trickled down from the Wellspring to his level now, pooling before his paws. The ice which tried to cover it was brittle and broke easily when pressured. The soot dissipated as water soaked his dirtied fur, carried away in ribbons that were mesmerizing to watch. He had been alone for three weeks now, and it was eating at him. Still, there was a lot of ground to be covered before he was at the Falls again.
IT'S A HORRIBLE WAY TO BEGIN
