Sun Mote Copse A cornucopia of goods

She hoped to single out each and every Firebird for a lesson, starting with her older brother, yet Towhee hadn't been able to pin him down yet. There was one other name near the top of her list, though, and she managed to track down Sugar Glider pretty easily. She found her little sister beneath that same evergreen, awake and staring off into space. That same sense of wrongness washed through the mercenary as she approached and cleared her throat, snapping Sugar out of it. Towhee tried to decide: did Sugar Glider need self-defense lessons more or less than everyone else in the pack? Whose blood?

Before they began, Towhee tried to make conversation. Sugar didn't seem particularly enthused about either talking or training, though she came along willingly enough when the Tradesman coaxed her out from beneath the tree. And when Towhee made a passing mention of, "...finding your Aunt Raven," the youngster perked up a little. Seeing the hook catch, the mercenary continued by recollecting her recent conversation with Wraen and the idea of sending Sugar to train with Raven in the spring.

Then they were squaring up for a spar when Towhee saw Sugar display the telltale markers of someone reacting to a noise. "It's Wraen. There's food," the youth translated when she saw Towhee's curious look. "I'm not hungry but you should go. She's calling from by the falls. Come find me when you're done." And before Towhee could attempt to strong-arm her little sister into coming along, Sugar slithered back under the evergreen.

Leave it... Towhee told herself as she swiveled and galloped toward the indicated neck of the woods. When she arrived, the sight of the fish littered all over the ground pushed any lingering concerns about her younger sister to the back of her mind. She blinked down at them, then up at Wraen, then back to the fish. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, she bent to snatch the nearest one, gulping it down quickly. It tasted a little funky but that didn't stop her from eating a second, a third, a fourth... soon, she lost count.