Meadowlark Prairie Can't see the stars, but we're reaching

Truthfully, he didn't know the depths of death's mad embrace either. You only knew it when you died, and then it was too late to do anything about it. Maybe you could see when you were dead. Maybe you could see in fifteen dimensions, with different realities along every thread. If such a thing were even remotely possible, then he would have liked to reassure Indra about it, but he was only a little kid and knew nothing about such deep and abstract things.

All the while, Cicero watched their exchange from the trees, perhaps thinking his own things on the matter of death and afterlife. Ramsay would never know; even when he left the scene entirely, he would breeze right by his uncle without ever detecting him.

"Okay," Ramsay agreed. He would have liked to take her into the forest where there was food, but she didn't want to go there, and that was the extent of the pup's ability to help. In time his willingness to do so would completely fade as well. He still felt pulled toward Indra somehow, so he pressed a step forward when she swung back to him, but her exotic allure as an outsider paled next to Blackfeather Woods' pull on him. She planted something like a kiss across the top of his scalp and his short tail wriggled; it was the first and probably only time someone other than his litter mates had shown him such affection. A smile pulled his lips as he brightly chirped, "promise!" and then, as she turned to go, he scampered back into the forest on buoyant paws.