Something... wasn't right. For the past few days the realm of Cedarwood, though covered in frost and sheltered by snow-laden trees, felt... off. Numerous times he had counted the soundly sleeping cubs within the den, made sure Trisden was nearby, and comforted himself with the fact Jaysyek was within the depths of burrow resting and both Kade and Aniu were within earshot. He had noticed in the past few weeks that the bobcats had made themselves scarce, but in their place several sightings of fleeing creatures. To make matters worse, the other day he had spotted, not just one, but two dead raccoons, frozen and stiff in the snow beyond his markers.
Further inspection of the lifeless creatures yielded no firm answer as to why they had perished. He could have assumed they had died by some sort of poisoning, but his experience with pestering and keeping raccoons in their place told him that these two individuals were old enough to know that some plants were toxic when ingested in large amounts. Additionally, the sight of their mouths and twisted positions had him convinced something had gone terribly wrong, as if they had possibly convulsed and met their demise. With Taima going off on her own for several hours at a time, Renier and Ryvet constantly going about their own adventures, and Angier supposedly somewhere around the territory Borden's mind was about ready to crack underneath the addition of this newfound information of deceased vermin.
Unable to go back to sleep, he abandoned his post at the side of the main entrance to the old bear lair and began making his way along one of his favored highways, a path that took him from the center of Grizzly Hollow to the northern edge of his homeland. He strolled away for as long as he could but after no more than a couple hundred feet, he stopped as though an invisible cord, pulled taut as it zigzagged through the trees, kept him from going any further. The fear accumulating as deep as his bones made him tense. Something is not right, his mind continued to echo, but what was an aging patriarch able to do in order to protect his family, his home? No threats had made themselves known, yet the sight of the deceased masked mammals had given him a start. As if desperate for an answer, he looked over both of his shoulders, even up to the lightening gray sky above him between the treetops. The only answer he could conceive was to wait. If things grew worse, if any other pack member could make sense of what was happening in the east, Borden Lyall could probably leave himself no choice but to move his family... or defend them with every ounce of strength he still possessed.