Blackfoot Forest A flock of metal creatures fleeing the onslaught of rust

Night bloomed around her as Pied, the newest member of Bon Dye, threaded quietly through the forest that would be her new home. Mag drifted overhead, just beyond the darkening treetops, the occasional flap of her wings silent as the grave. Pied peered up at her spectral companion intermittently, though mostly her oddly-colored gaze roved the woods around her. The shadows threw thick, like black, clotting blood, as she presumably moved toward its center, tracking the scent of her fellows.

The trees thinned and she emerged in a clearing. The moonlight penetrated the sparse canopy here, giving the underbrush a faint, silvery glow. Pied shuffled ahead and stopped to pluck out a few brambles that clung to the white fur on her chest. She then studied her surroundings, which included the magpie now perched in a sycamore directly to her left. Pied's head tilted as she wondered whether Mag always glowed like that or if it was just a trick of the moonlight.

An abrupt and unearthly cry made Pied turn her head, though she didn't startle at the noise. During their initial encounter just an hour ago, Jinx had mentioned the foxes that screamed at night. Although she hadn't yet told her new leader about her skill, she had assured Jinx that the sounds wouldn't bother her. Now, as another and more earsplitting shriek followed the first, Pied smiled vaguely and thought, These horny foxes ain't got nothin' on the wails of the dead.

Ignoring the cacophony rising up around her, Pied slipped through the darkness to the roots of the sycamore where Mag sat, beady eyes watching her. "What're you looking at?" Pied teased quietly. Unsurprisingly, the magpie made no answer. Pied sniffed at the tree's trunk, then began to paw at the soil in an effort to dig herself a shallow bed for the night. It was neither long nor hard work and when she finished, the yearling folded her piebald body into the groove in the earth.

She felt too excited to sleep, however. Remaining curled, she kept her head lifted and peered around the dark woodland, ears twisting at the ghastly noises ululating through the trees. Pied exhaled through her nose and pictured in her mind not darting foxes, not even lost spirits traipsing through the forest, but instead imagined animated skeletons darting through Blackfoot Forest, their tinny bones creaking in the damp night air.