Her departure from the lands of Relic Lore had been short lived and, for the most part, uneventful. It was, more or less, a complete and utter failure—she had not found Hotei (if he was even still alive) and she did not understand herself anymore. She had thought her family was unbearable, but solitude was worse; she thought the world outside of Relic Lore would be fun and exciting, but it was just more of the same old trees and hills but hardly as comforting. She had met few wolves in her aimless travels and, after a week and a half, Junai Tainn had lost her desire to travel (at least for a few months) and had ventured resolutely back to Relic Lore where her family awaited, just as they always would. And, confident that they would be safe if she left them for a few hours (as if she offered them a great deal of protection!), Junai had wandered into Cedarwood Forest, the sun shining as she made her way to a spot that could perhaps be of interest.
There was nothing. Everything had lulled, perhaps even stop—she was not detail-oriented enough to either know or care. All that mattered was the basics, the obvious, and what the returned Tainn noted was far from reassuring. The steady stream of water that typically rolled over Jasper Rocks had slowed to little more than a trickle and the smell of rotting flesh pervaded her nostrils. Dead fish lay upon the dry rocks, with skeletons of old companions littering the area. Evidently, the scavengers had happily taken a few of the victims of the evident disaster... Perhaps, if she were thirsty (and not so haughty), she may have settled for such a meal. Instead, confounded, the Tainn girl sniffed about the premises, trying to reason where the water had went and why it had gone—as if, most foolishly, it were a creature as flighty as herself that could come and go like the wind.