Redhawk Caldera Love and great buildings will survive

Towhee stood at the far edge of the rendezvous site, aware that her godparents would be moving the pups here and waiting to greet them when they arrived. As she stood there among the longer, swaying grasses that fringed the clearing at the heart of the territory, the Xi squinted contemplatively into the distance.

Their ranks had thinned considerably since the food shortage had begun. Towhee didn't much care about most of them, though her thoughts lingered on Nightjar. Evidently he had gone blind not long after the eclipse. The youthful guardian scuffed a heel in the dirt as she quietly mulled his fate. He had left of his own volition, probably recognizing himself as a burden. The Xi likely would've chased him off eventually and she was privately glad it hadn't come down to that.

But she didn't want to dwell on her ill-fated older sibling any longer. The nearly grown she-wolf shifted her gaze in the direction of the Blackthorns' distant den, eagerly keeping an eye out for the incoming caravan.