Heron Lake Plateau animals

Kite had been asleep when the switch had been made, so she was genuinely expecting to see Raven or Quixote upon waking — and when she didn’t, her slightly more mobile ears drooped with disappointment. Fortunately, though, there were two very interesting distractions in her near vicinity. The first of them reminded her of Finley and Elwood, though she didn’t yet know them by name, and she cleaved to him eagerly. She lacked her siblings’ confidence when it came to walking and moving, and perhaps this was evident by the way she seemed to snatch a deep breath and center herself before she ever made the attempt. Dainty paws moved with growing confidence, but jittered and quivered intermittently, without any real rhyme or reason — and when she picked up speed, her hips veered left like a fishtailing car.

Propelled by her flailing hindquarters, she bumped into Eljay sideways before looking in bewilderment at Colt. Since when had Owen gotten so — oh, no, wait a minute. There was Owen. Her blurry baby eyes had a hard time differentiating between the tall stranger’s tawny and ocher fur and Owen’s ruddier hues, so it was an immense relief to her that her brother’s small stature remained unchanged. “Ororororooroorooooo!” she sassed him inanely, throwing back her head and offering an odd amalgam of a hound dog’s bay and a wolf’s howl. Then she turned toward Colt, keeping her body smushed against Eljay’s as she moved forward, rubbing her face and eyes against whatever part of the monochrome wolf she could reach. She stopped when she was near enough to Colt that she had to tip her head all the way back to see him fully, her head wobbling unsteadily upon its axis, and yapped saucily.