Northstar Vale you and me and the devil makes three

The child’s faraway cries were easily ignored by the soot-stockinged songbird; after all, Lotte was making a fair amount of noise herself. Fiercely protective of her meal — and put on edge by the hot rush of her blood — she whirled instinctively and dropped fluidly into a warrior’s waiting crouch, her moonbright eyes hard and piercing. Her lips peeled back from her fangs, hackles spiking along her spine and shoulders, but the warning snarl withered in her throat as she regarded the girl. Although she remained wary, she could afford to be magnanimous — she did smell weird, but the full implications of the darkling’s statement were presently beyond her understanding and her notice. “I was caught in a fire and got sick from the smoke,” she explained simply. “The treatment has a strange odor.” Stepping back from the carcass, she nodded toward it. “Are you hungry?” she asked, prepared to let the child feed if she wished.