Heron Lake Plateau Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful

The wolf who'd told him that the stars were too far away to catch, taller than the tallest of mountains could reach, even (though how did he know, Owen had to wonder—had his dad really tried climbing all the tallest mountains to find out? He doubted it, somehow!), came strolling up far too casually and nearly gave his son a heart attack. How could he be so blase about all this...! Did his father never turn his eyes skyward of his own accord?! Could he really have missed that those faraway stars were falling fitfully down to the earth even as he spoke, in tiny cold bits of scattered and melting white dust?! "Some weather we're having," indeed! This was a full-blown friggin' gosh-bedarned miracle, so far as Owen was concerned, or possibly the first small signs of the starting apocalypse, and here was Quixote moseying obliviously along like he was out for a casual Sunday stroll!

It took Owen a moment before he could speak, and not before he shot another hasty glance into the dark den entry. Surely someone more sensible might be concealing themselves there; surely it wasn't going to be his ill luck to have to try and singlehandedly get the stupendousness of this through his father's thick skull...? -Someone, anyone in there...?- Sigh. His mouth worked silently open and shut another time or two before finally: Da', Da' look, lookit the sky— Owen waved an inarticulate muddy paw in the vague direction of up. The stars! They're fallin' ALL the way down after all, you were wrong, they're coming rai' down t'us! Look!

He stared at his father apprehesively, his oversize red ears flattening themselves to his head; he wasn't certain what the man would do once he realized his son had pointed out the obvious miracle he'd been missing, here, and Owen wished he had at least another sibling or two if not Mother herself to back him up, here. His greening eyes couldn't resist flickering spastically upward in a nervous little tic, however, even so: what would happen if enough tiny bits of star fell down here to start covering the whole planet? Were they all about to be buried in stardust? Most of it seemed to just be melting still as it made contact, Owen was actually somewhat disappointed to see—some small part of him really wanted to know what would happen if these tiny cold stars stuck around—but maybe, if it kept coming down... Just how many stars did the sky really have to spare, up there? Was this why it had drawn that modest covering of cloud across its face the night before, so that no one below would see its starless expanse and be shocked at the indecency?