Stavanger Bay Starting Over Anew

Sorry for the wait! How’s Hershey doing?

“I hope that you will come across him in your travels,” Lotte said warmly of Rouge’s meeting Day. “He is a wolf worth knowing, like you.” The soot-stockinged songbird chuffed softly in amusement as she and Rouge continued to walk, her broad head bobbing in an amicable nod about the swift passing of time when it came to children. “I will soon have children of my own,” she intimated cheerfully. “They grow within me even now.” She swung her muzzle around to brush her whiskered snout against her lean flank. It was too early for a “baby bulge” to show, but she had no doubt that they lived. Doubt would come later — doubt and broken promises and bitter fear — but Lotte, blissfully ignorant of what would inevitably come to pass, celebrated her good health and the relative safety of Teaghlaigh with an ingénue’s naïve eyes.

Mention of Blackfeather Woods did dampen her good mood, though. Her brow furrowed as her lips turned down into a displeased frown. “Blackfeather Woods,” she muttered knowingly, her thoughts whipping back to the wounded wolves that waited back home with dismay. “I have come across their ilk before.” She didn’t speak in depth of how she’d learned of them — it was Family business, and despite Rouge’s being an ally, Lotte wasn’t altogether sure about her husband’s policies regarding pack politics.

“Ah — I forgot,” she piped up suddenly. “There is a pack in a mountain cave east of the forest we plan to visit, but I do not know very much about its wolves. I met one of the cubs from there during my travels.”