Hushed Willows by the color tv glow

She started at his touch and he wondered for a moment if waking her had been the wrong thing to do. It was her warm greeting that put that swiftly to rest, bringing him back to the main purpose of tracking down at least one of his kids. Her groggy smile prompted him to return one of his own as he stepped away, rounding back on the scraggy branch.

"This," he begun, nudging the branch with his foreleg, "is a little something I found for us to have fun with. Up for a little game of tug-o-war?" It wasn't some smelly old hide they could tear apart, but it would work all the same. If a storm had knocked it loose from on high, chances were the wood wasn't up for much of a beating.