Old stomping grounds

[Skoll]

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Here you go =) It had been quite some time since he had walked this familiar hill at twilight as he did now. He looked out at the land he had once protected, now covered in snow, and apparently would protect once again. A lot had happened here, but mostly in his mind. He had done a great deal of thinking here, a great deal of growing, though he wasn't sure who he would comfortable telling that to. When he had first come to Bleeding Souls, he had been a hardened and sometimes merciless warrior. He had wanted to kill Hearse for stealing a meal, had killed Imlan for much the same charge. The wounds left by the Four Pack War and the Raven Feud had been fresh back then, he had even held an irrational belief that the presence of human weapons would bring war, which had since been proven false. Part of his prediction had come true, what had started as open flaunting of the tools by people like Ahren and Rurik had turned into some groups hording the things, Inferni had brought many to bear the day he went to talk to their leader, many which they had possessed before they'd known anything about him. Still, Inferni hadn't utilized them in its attack against Syemv, possibly just because it desired the speed of a four-legged strike-force, but perhaps also for some less fathomable reason...perhaps it just felt unnatural. He knew that he had felt more comfortable with his own fangs before he'd learned to fight with claws and hands in wereform, and he knew that he had then been more comfortable fighting unarmed than with human tools. Maybe morale just wouldn't stand for an attack using such alien instruments. Who knew? He had grown in other ways, too. Since being cast out by his family, he had not constructed another family-related bond, not until meeting Layla, one of Storm's coyote pups. In her charming youth and innocent curiosity, he had found something to love again. She had been as a niece in his heart, though her presence had been taken away too soon. Even suffering her departure, though, this place had continued to do him good. Being surrounded by Storm and its mild ways and policies, being insulated from the harsh and bitter cold of his old life as a disowned warrior who belonged nowhere, had allowed his spirit to grow and flourish as it had not before. After his time in Storm, he had gone on to help save the children of Imlan, children whose father he'd killed, leading dozens of wolves into the War of Shadows. If he had never found Storm, he doubted he could his soul could have survived that battle. He owed his spiritual well-being to this land, the same as his great great grandfather, HawkWind, had. Despite the hardships he had known defending it and his friction with some of its neighbors, he was glad to be back. ~The lyrics are from the best song ever written.

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