Zane was alone again. 

He had wandered with Ara for a while, and that had been nice. He'd found someone to talk to, had a friend in the world. He wasn't even sure if he knew what had happened between them, other than that it had been unspoken and it had been mutual. They'd wandered separate ways one day and he'd felt no need to return for a while, then when he did circle back round to where they'd parted ways there was no sign she had ever turned up. And then he was alone.

The greenleaf sun was nice on his pelt as he wandered through the territory, keeping his ears pricked for anyone nearby since the land was unknown to him. He'd tried going back to where he had come from with the sudden idea of trying to find his mother again, but a narrowly avoided encounter with a few cats from Lukas' group had reminded him what he'd been running from and driven him even further away than he'd ever travelled with Ara. Every now and then he smelled the odd cat scent but never tracked anyone down, and other than the couple of stormy nights when he'd returned to the one-eyed cat's group he and Ara had sheltered with once or twice he hadn't spoken to anyone in about a moon. And as much as he'd never been bad at solitude, after getting used to having Ara's companionship he was starting to crave a simple conversation.