splashed in blood, almost, this accipitra who had come out of the gloom with a sister carrying holy things. now one was here and one followed hex.

muskrat was no fool to what the next months would bring. once more she would avoid it, but the presence of the strange young women settled for her the problem of restoration among the shadows.

sunflower eyes now paused to rake over the specter.

tousaint's warning echoed in her mind.

"come," and she set off for the cliff swam upward with tendriling moss, a cliff which overlooked the no-wolf's-land where only two cairns stood.

beyond that, the vale. her chin lifted in fierce pride. "montagne, that way." cold wind chilled her mouth. "i told they want attack ridge."

"one came to me." muskrat's eyes were a copperhead glittering in that starfallen night; she smelled pinewood and moss around them, observed moths crawling the lacy fungi which climbed the cliffside.

"one tell me much. much. do i believe? or — careful?" she said, and pretended to walk her paws there upon the green-flecked stone. "not trust. you and sister, sleep in day. be ready for night." under the patrolling of daytime hunters, the two would be free to eat and heal and slumber.

night upon the ridge would forge them into specters.

for a while longer, muskrat watched the land of the cairns for any movement, any other sullen lurkers who might see fit to bring secrets into the blessed dark. "your sister say name acci pitra," the sentinel murmured, able only to speak its sound in syllables of separation.

her fanged grin was bright and swift. "but i think you are hidden place of secret things. pakasqa kaqkunapa pakasqa sitio," and how wondrous the flow of the words which had never left muskrat.

she winked. "pakasqa."

now the sentinel turned away from the cliff, moving back into the shadowland.

it would be so.

"when you rest, after sleep. come here. watch. see if others come to standing-stones. is peace. is a threat."

one of those two, and posting sentinels through the eldritch land would only ensure their safety if teeth should seek to surround them.

the ridge was as strong as its many eyes.

muskrat's coat darkened slightly as she bent toward the elritch hues of that place, a slight smirk curved beneath her sunyellow eyes. "has no name," the sentinel informed pakasqa, inching into the thicket.

come and see.

she herself had not spent overmuch time here; the thorns closed in upon them, dark red and crawling with vines of fruit.

an owl called somewhere in the gloom.