Meadowlark Prairie rancid dinner with the pope

@Indra

He'd slept poorly after returning home - maybe getting an hour in before getting startled awake - but by the time Screech had fallen asleep it had been nearly morning anyways. He got to his feet wearily and dragged himself away from any chance of contact, heading towards the outskirts of the territory.

His head was pounding; the daylight stung at his eyes and every step he took felt like it was jostling the rest of his body too much, and he wondered if maybe he'd contracted some sort of disease from the dead girl - but it was probably just his freshly broken nose courtesy of his own stupidity. The thought flit through his mind like he was thinking about nothing more than a chunk of meat from a cache. This realization soured his mood even further. It churned Screech's stomach when he realized how detached he'd become.

The boy had half a mind to find Cassiopeia. Maybe she would have some insights in regard to how he was feeling - she had been a Blackfeather wolf, after all. They were crazy people. Killers. Maybe she'd witnessed something? He tripped himself up in that thought - maybe she'd killed someone herself. Screech froze where he was, swallowing a lump in his throat, and then shook his head as if that would remove such a weird thought from it by force - and kept walking.

He was nowhere near the Haunted Wood where he'd last seen her. In fact, he was crossing through the meadow where they'd first met, erring on the side of caution and keeping close to the eastern edge where the grasslands became the mesa.