Blackfeather Woods and then one day you find ten years have got behind you

Looking over her shoulder, she stared at his one remaining eye, trying to read the emotions there. She held his gaze for a long moment, then turned, pressing her nose gently into the cache. Slowly. . .slowly. . .and she had a seed balanced on the end of her muzzle, barely discernible against the black of her nose. Maegi lifted her head up and out of the cache, turning with steady, deliberate steps to face Mou again.

One hobbling step, then two, three-- She lost her balance, the world spinning around her, and her head lurched forward; the seed tumbled to the ground. Giggling slightly, Maegi bent to retrieve it, sticking her tongue out to adhere it there.

With tongue held straight out of her mouth--she looked daft--she walked forward, quicker now, grinning widely (she had no choice, as her maw was open). She extended her tongue a bit further, eyes glittering with silent humor, her shoulders shaking with the laughter she was holding back. Everything was so. . .funny. In a strange way. Like someone holding your head underwater and simultaneously telling you the best joke you'd ever heard.

"Take it, or I will," Maegi mumbled, her speech coming out almost as garbled as his was when he'd first began to speak.