Sex: MaleThe temperature had been edging slowly upwards with each passing day, and with it, Lucien's sights lifted. The ice on the mountain paths was beginning to clear, and their call was nigh irresistible. Up and up he went, answering them, and turning his back on the mist-shrouded forests and the packs that lay below and to the west. The young man barely knew the place, but it was already beginning to feel unwelcoming, with its ghosts and thorns and secrets. It had been the mountains that had lead him into these lands, and to them he would return - the great peak watched over everything else from it's commanding perch. From there, he must be able to see where to turn next. His breath still steamed bright in the cold air, but the sky was mostly clear, and the snow felt soft and wet underfoot. Hunger burned in his gut, but he ignored it for now - he needed to go higher. Maybe he could just live up there, on top of the world. It looked inhospitable, but who knew? Or perhaps some greater land lay on the other side. He would never see if he didn't at least try to find out.
Since winter's beginning, Lucien Chastain had been traveling with no clear goal in mind. He professed to cherish that freedom, but lately it had begun to ring a little bit hollow. He had survived the winter, but with no clear purpose, no true friends or home, how much longer would he be so lucky? Luc wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he felt he'd know it when he found it - or when it found him. And so he climbed, because he didn't have any better ideas.
The mountain was proving steeper even that it looked - as the day wore on, Luc found himself straying further and further south in the quest for navigable terrain, the peak subtly but surely turning him away until he was circling round it rather than scaling to it's top. Muddy paths were left behind, traded for harder paths of stone and rubble, and still he went on. At last he found himself, not withing reach of the towering peak, but at least drawing near the sharp horizon of a ridge-line. The true giant still loomed just to the north, victorious, and probably unconquerable for all Luc knew. Still, a smaller sense of victory thrilled in him, for he felt sure that once he crested this ridge, he'd be able to see the East in all it's glory. There was a spring in his step, and his eyes were locked on his goal, when he faltered. The stones beneath a paw shifted and he lost his footing, sliding several yards down the slope of stony scree, legs splayed wide as he tried to bring himself to a halt, to stay upright. At last he came to a precarious stop, but every new movement sent a chorus of pebbles laughing down the mountainside, teasing him with the threat him with a further fall if he tried to move too boldly. Now the young wolf searched frantically in every direction, not just to the top, but for any safe path.
