<font color=white>we can drive it home [ALL!]</font> -- Hopeful Valley

Never before had the mountains abandoned him. Again and again he'd left them, wandered the world over like the vagabond he'd been all his life but there had always been these gorgeous mountains and valley's to come home to. Then finally he'd come home to a home that wasn't there, it should have felt like slipping into his own bed and instead it was like falling to a frozen pond. It was the cruelest feeling in the world.

And so for a year he'd occupied his canid form, lurking in the wilderness alone. He'd hardened himself against the lonesome lifestyle long ago and did not suffer much but for the fact that he'd not laid eyes on her in all that time. It was in this way that he survived: feeding on vermin, blending seamlessly with the winter's snow, and pining for a lover that could never be his. He'd never in that time been far from Hopeful Valley, watching over it and longing for happier times....As few as they had been, for him anyway. God knew he'd been a part of this country so long, he could recall the very first anniversary of it's discovery. Where had all the time gone? It sickened him some nights, to look out over their world and know that almost no one else held vigil as he did. There were others, he knew there were, he smelled them, watched them, longed for them. Moonlight was here, and that's why he didn't go completely from this place and let his heart heal. Sometimes when their paths crossed he shifted from his snowy wolf form and back into the equine to visit with her. However Vegas imagined she had no use for him so his stops were brief, always with him returning to the shape of a predator and retreating to the hills above.

Then, one day, just as you have heard the sun rose. It rose hot and bright and woke the white wolf from his slumber beneath the snow. 'Reno' as the secondary from called himself stood and stared skyward in wonder, at first bearing his teeth and the blinding light a day like he hadn't seen in so long, perhaps this really was then end, the flash before obliteration....No godly vengeance came, and like a child he stood blinking awkwardly into the sunlight. The wolf's sides were heaving as the warmth seeped into his bones and he'd been running for a half mile before he even realized where he was going.

Home. The valley, the future. He couldn't say what drove him, ripped him from his solitude and demanded his return but it was as though everyone was roused from their sleep, the scents of beings he'd not met in years filled the air, the cry of a dragon ripped through the air overhead and for a moment Reno was thrown off and he stumbled half cowering half shaking with joy as the great bronze beast flew low overhead. Exhilaration slammed through the wolf's veins and he was off again, grinning at the memories that flooded back to the forefront filling him with a new determination.

When the white wolf, Reno, Vegas by another form, descended into the valley his speed had decreased to a lope, forgetting himself and not bothering to change he ripped the valley apart with his dark eyes, he knew they were here, others, he could smell and feel them. It was finally time, he'd been so sure it was over....