Heron Lake Plateau I fought death and lost.

Raven continued to work on Towhee's wounds, lapping at the slashes on her shoulders until she was satisfied that they were clean. When she finished, Towhee continued to share her thoughts and Raven was content to listen. Clearly, the young alpha needed someone to talk to, and while Raven didn't have the age or experience of Elwood or Finley, she was a good listener. Sometimes, she even got lucky and gave reasonably good advice.

Towhee had so many doubts about her actions of late, and Raven didn't blame her. Everything had turned out to be such a colossal disaster, and she could only imagine how bad her sister must have felt about it all. It was not a good start for a newly-minted young alpha. She could have told Towhee the hard truth about the blind foolishness of some of her decisions, but she didn't want to kick the girl while she was already down. Instead, she tried to put a positive spin on it as she replied after a moment's thoughtful consideration. "Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, Tow. We can't always do everything right all the time. The best thing you can do, in my opinion, is own your mistakes and learn from them."

A dull pang in her abdomen reminded her that she was due any day to come into heat, and she sighed. Great, she thought. This again. She pushed that to the back of her mind, however, and stayed focused on Towhee. On the subject of X, the healer had mixed feelings. She had helped nurse the bird back to health when he'd turned up with a broken wing and she felt that his friendship had provided Towhee with something she really needed. Raven had developed an affinity of sorts for the raptor. But there was no denying that putting the fate of the pack into the bird's talons was a bad idea. "You should forgive X," she commented softly after a brief pause, her eyes on her sister's finely-angled face. "He did his best to do as you asked, and he did find us a beautiful place to live. But he is a bird, and there will always be things about us and our ways that he won't understand. He can be a great helper to our pack, but I wouldn't give him too much responsibility."