Emberwood The kids aren't all right.

Tuathal had half a mind to leave. Get away from this place, get away anywhere but this side of the mountain. He'd been better off in the west. At least the only demons that haunted him there were already dead.

But he also knew he couldn't leave her. This feeble girl, with her feeble words. She sounded so small, but her voice clambered over the walls of his concrete heart and tumbled down into the rubble, a tired heap, on the other side. Tuathal touched his nose to her crown. "Don't worry, I'll stay..." not forever.

He hardly squeezed out his words when her weight changed against him. Her frailty shifted to something quite heavy, and he gasped a small breath, and repositioned his leg to catch her.

"Kid?" he murmured, at the same time a new voice coloured the silence, and he realized they had never exchanged names. Too late for that now. Tuathal stole a forward glance, and settled his golden eyes on the newcomer - Kukulkan, he presumed - who had joined them them with cobwebs, and attention, and a great many questions.

The relation fell into place. Must be the pack's healer. Tuathal motioned for Kukulkan to come closer. He felt stiff from the effort of keeping Ibis propped against him but he continued to cradle her, as if she was his sister, his child. "Found a body, somewhere North of here," the words tasted heavy on his tongue. "Dammit." he cursed underbreath.

Why her?