He had slipped away one night, taken by a surge of curiosity. Between patrols like husks between teeth.

Not that he was missed, exactly. Not by the wolves, at least. The jungle's last ragged breaths and the insects called to him, every night, begging to burrow within his fur, to taste his skin and the filth he laid in, to grow and feed and thrive. He would not speak of where he had gone, but he had brought a prize. His jaws were set upon the rotting leg of a young fawn, and he dragged the whole sullied carcass alongside him, the train of a sweetly decomposing gown.

Maggots writhed and flourished in its eye sockets, its belly bloated with the little beasts. He could taste the rot on its bones, its flesh. Could feel it as surely as he could feel the death rattle of the jungle before them, heaving and fighting to its last breath. It too, would find its home here. And so he returned, standing upon the border. It was only polite to ask that he may return after his absence. He longed to return to the depths of the jungle, his home in the bones of some great giant creature, caught between the trees and vines and left to starve when the jungle was young, deep within the remains of a once-glorious empire. 

Perhaps again, it would be.

He dropped his prize, eyes set between the trees of the jungle, as night fell over the rotting behemoth. A giant centipede perched on his shoulder, nuzzling into his neck fur, chewing at his skin.

It was time to come home.

ooc: figured since i was gone so long, i should have him reaccepted jfmhfnfnf