Her body was hurting. The bramble had fiercely torn at her in a way both expected and annoying When Toad awoke that morning, she had wanted more than anything to push past the pain and begin hunting. She had wanted to fill the caches with nothing but groundhogs and chipmunks since those critters had been the most numerous. Instead, Toad found herself in pain and rather infuriated by her largely inability to move.

What made her angry was that she was not disabled. Toad had merely stumbled into some nasty blackberry thorns and then been entirely slave to the aftermath. The huntress was hardly one to be kept captive, however. She pushed herself up from her willow covered home and strode forth.

Toad occasionally felt mild but nasty pain in her side from where the thorns had dug into here the most. When it did, she voiced it with a vibrato, haa as though the feeling was funny to her. And as Toad moved she came upon a sandy, odd eyed wolf that she immediately made a chuff at.

The little wolf did not look directly at her. Her eyes were glazed. Toad smiled, answering the question with a question. You're Fennec, right? She sniffed lightly at the slender young woman, introducing herself. I'm Toad Amelia; Meerkat told me about you, she said, recalling what her friend had said. Fennec was sister to Meerkat, although Toad wasn't super clear on the parental situations. She and Bronco seemed to have a whole pile of siblings and four parents — Toad had trouble keeping the relationships straight.

Toad sat in front of the vision-impaired woman. She had been curious about Fennec as soon as Meerkat had mentioned that she was completely blind. She had trouble imagining a world without sight. She had known at least one blind puppy that had quickly perished — their world was not kind to those with disabilities. She knew that she must be fierce.

Toad didn't explain why she could tell it was Fennec. She had been taught that it was rude to point out physical appearance to anyone, regardless of the intention or circumstance. Yeah, was all she said, watching Fennec closely. Then, quickly, the odd wolf decided that she would laugh at her name.

Toad had many pain points that surrounded her name. At times, she had wondered why her mother had decided on such a name. She had been told by some that it was strange, or even cruel. Toad herself had never fully understood it, but had assumed her mother had an intense labour and been delirious upon naming her youngest daughter. Why her brothers had received non-ridiculous names, Toad wasn't sure.

No, she said. She hadn't picked it. She felt annoyed. She ignored it, or tried to. My mother, Amelia, did, she said. My family names our children after the animals they resemble, and I guess when I was little I looked like a toad. It was starting to become a bitter thing. It was difficult for her because she knew that her mother had not meant to harm her with such a name. She knew that her mother loved her with every ounce of her being.
It didn't change the fact that people had treated her differently even from childhood because of her name.

"Cool-looking." Toad thought about it. They didn't look cool. They looked the opposite of cool. She wondered what other weird ideas the blind woman had about the way anything looked. Maybe looking "cool" was a good thing to enjoy, at least for the time Toad spent with Fennec.

Toad laughed lightly at the declaration that any pup named after an animal, for Fennec, would simply be "Wolf." She was about to follow it with a joke of her own, but then Fennec said something interesting.
Our family does that too.
Toad assumed it must be a coincidence, but, maybe, it wasn't. She had long been looking for clues to the whereabouts of Fox's legacy. They do? As Toad had never heard of a fennec fox nor a meerkat, she didn't make the connection. Toad wanted to ask more, personal, probing questions. She wanted to know who Fennec's mother and father were. She wanted to know if Meerkat and Fennec were full or half siblings. These, however, are rude questions. She abandoned them as they popped into her head.

My family also doesn't allow surnames for girls. We're to take our husband's name, Toad said, probing lightly to see if it might be the same for Fennec.

Towhee was the one who was deaf, the one who had taught Meerkat the strange gesture language. Fennec described her family and Toad listened carefully, but none of the names she listed sounded familiar. Two families that named their children after animals might have been a coincidence had the blind woman not followed it with talk of the Redhawk name.

Toad felt her heart jump. The words after "my dad got it from his parents" drifted into a whisper. The world seemed to fade out of existence while Toad found herself alone. Behind Fennec, she saw her sister, Fox. Alongside her was the dark shadow of Peregrine.
Toad's image of the couple was pristine. Fox was thin and young, a modelesque picture of perfection. Toad had never met either of them, having only had them described in stories.

Coming back to reality, she blinked.
I think we're related, she blurted, not answering the question she hadn't heard. Her mind was alight with the need to learn more, and fast. Your parents, where are they at? I have to talk to them, she declared, though really, she only meant Phox.
Phox Redhawk.

Family meant everything to Toad.
She had noticed during her time in the Wilds that it was similar everywhere, but others had family all around them. Toad had a strange desire to leave her birth pack in order to locate the family that her sister had left behind when she left this world. For some reason, it was more important to her than almost anything else to do this — it had always been her mission. Moonspear and now Firefly Glen as well had become her chosen family because there had been no trace left in the Caldera of where Fox's children had gone.

Fennec explained that Phox and the rest of the Firebirds were moving to their ancestral home soon. Toad relaxed a bit, sighing slowly. She did not want to go over or around the mountains to them if they would be coming closer soon. She would have her answers. For the moment, Toad returned to Earth and nodded to Fennec, even though she couldn't see it.

The Caldera? It was one of the first places I visited when I came here, she smiled softly, remembering how pristine it looked with fondness. I'd hoped they'd still be there, but they weren't, and so I wandered around for a while trying to find some sign, and well... Once more, Toad breathed a sigh of relief. Now I am here, and I feel very lucky that my blood is here after all. It really did feel miraculous to her.

Fennec didn't really share excitement, and she supposed that it made sense. Everyone else around her seemed to be drowning in family all the time, but Toad had always had difficulty controlling her excitement about things in general. The words from the blind woman deflated her, pulling the wind from her sails even further. Toad remembered being excited about meeting Fennec, but now it felt almost like the girl was disinterested in her. Maybe she was just reading into things too much.

She frowned, though, when she spoke ill of Meerkat. She didn't seem to say it like a joke, and wasn't sure what to do with it. Sisters, she supposed, often found one another annoying. Meerkat definitely hadn't talked about Fennec this way, though. Meerkat's not annoying... she said slowly, making a face, taking the comment to heart. She's been nothing but generous and kind to me. Heh, she even set me up on a date with Bronco! she laughed lightly, thinking fondly of the gesture.

Toad smiled awkwardly at first at Fennec's comments, confused about why she would act this way with someone who was speaking only good things of her close family members. While few people had Toad's sunny disposition and rose-coloured view of the world, she hadn't quite met anyone who was this... rude?

Unsure of how to respond, Toad laughed weakly, thinking about the date. She felt a bit weird about the whole thing, since she was now realizing that she and Bronco were related, sort of. She remembered that Meerkat and Bronco were... half related? Something like that. They had some kind of mixed family arrangement that Toad didn't really remember or understand. It was all no harm no foul in any case, and she smiled as she thought about him fondly. No, no, it wasn't terrible. He's a great guy, she said. She was quite happy to have followed Meerkat and him over to the Glen, even if she did feel a bit out of place. It was fun actually, although we tried to hunt some deer, and he, sort of got stabbed, she admitted, laughing sheepishly.

Now that she knew slightly more about Fennec, she thought she might find the whole thing crudely funny.

It was strange. Fennec seemed quite displeased at... something. Toad had no idea what. She could hear the sarcasm and feel the stiffness emanating from the blind girl, but she didn't know what she'd said that might upset her. Perhaps she shouldn't have laughed so much, or maybe she was expected to agree that in fact Meerkat was annoying. None of it seemed quite right to Toad, and she frowned a bit.

Oh, she said, at the herbs comment, though she still didn't make the connection. Okay, you too, she offered, but Fennec turned around and left.

Toad stood there for a minute, wondering what had gone wrong. Was it her? She must have said something. Fennec seemed to joke about it happening all over again, and Toad realized that maybe she thought that she and Bronco were like..an item. That definitely wasn't the case, but it also didn't seem like something that would particularly upset the sister. Perhaps she was sad that she was left out?

Toad wracked her brain for the next hour, wandering around the Glen, talking quietly to herself. She never did figure out the source of Fennec's reaction, and it bothered her for quite a while.