Sex: MaleHe'd had to change tack. Two days of wandering had come and gone with nothing to show for it. In all likelihood he'd passed breathtaking sights: wide endless sheets of glistening snow and vivid red under blankets of stark white that stretched for miles. Hodr had been able to see none of it. All he knew he was getting even hungrier and that he had yet to pick up a familiar scent. Unable to hunt and even less able to defend himself, he'd kept quiet.
Two days of growing desperation made him change his decision. He alternated between rage and despair. Dark brown hackles rose in blades with every tree that found his abused nose. Almost an adult, taller than his mother, he was being defeated by a non-cognizant forest. He had tried! He'd done everything his parents told him, listened to every hunting lesson. A whine slipped free as he slogged through an unexpected puddle of slush. It didn't matter when he couldn't see well enough to catch up to the prey. Finally, the extent of his inabilities rubbed in by the past two days, he sat down and called out.
He didn't care if it brought every scavenger within miles as long as his searching parents heard him. Like a pup he pointed his nose at stars he couldn't see and shouted over and over for them to come. He sang long enough to roughen his throat and for a northern wind to make it's way into the Spectral Woods. In one of his breaks, head hanging and panting, that wind began to stir the trees. Over the pounding of his heart he heard a response. Someone was singing back to him, and oh, he recognized their voice!
