With every year that passes, she is certain she will never see him again.
Most of Piltover feels the same way, and so there are messages of support and hope that she reads with a smile before she switches her hexphone to silent, and - with only the barest adjustment to her pack - she strides into the woods, into the shadowed density of some of Piltover’s old-growth forests. She is looking for Old Ben.
There are Rangers and Wardens making the same excursion this week, heading up the mountain trails and fording the dense stretches of marshland, looking for signs of the herd’s passage. It seemed only fair to join them, given how she knows all the wildernesses of Piltover, urban or otherwise. The forests are where she learned to shoot, and to hunt, and where she first met the venerable old moose that Piltover holds in such high esteem.
Every winter, the nation worries they will never see him again, that the old giant has finally laid to rest. But every spring, Piltover’s protectors find him, and reassure the people that some legends still endure.
This early in, her footsteps are loud over the fallen leaves and twigs, and she makes a clumsy start. Humans aren’t typically welcome here. But little by little, moment by moment, she finds herself becoming a guest of the wilds, and soon her passage grows quieter, and swifter.
She moves through the shadows, eyes alert for movement, shadows, and signs of the moose and his herd.
