Gyrfalcon's Keep can't stop the swag

No, she missed the festival and that's why she's here now. :)

Her nimble black paws touched soil at the foot of the mountain and she raced toward the coast and, particularly, toward a familiar face that appeared in the distance. "Thistle!" she cried between her teeth, legs pumping as she closed the gap between herself and her foster mother. She did not notice the shadow that raced after her.

"Thistle!" she repeated when she reached the agouti she-wolf. Osprey grinned as the woman groomed her ears and forehead. She bumped her snout against Thistle's chin, tail waving merrily. "Yes, I'm by myself," she said with a touch of pride, adding, "My dad let me come. I'm becoming an Outrider now. I'm still a Warrior, though!"

The black pup took a step back to regard the wolf she considered her second mother when a sharp cry overhead drew her attention. At the same time, something dropped out of the sky and Osprey felt something simultaneously soft and sharp brush her head. She crouched in a futile attempt to avoid it, backpedaling away from Thistle instinctively.

She had a flashback to the day when an angry goose had attacked her. Although she was a Warrior, the assault was so unexpected and violent that she tucked her tail between her legs and whirled. Without thinking twice, she plunged back toward Gyrfalcon's Keep, hoping to find shelter in the rocks. Although her flight might have seemed cowardly, she also hoped to draw the feathered assailant away from Thistle.

Little did she know, the closer she came to the keep, the more persistently one of its namesake residents attacked. It dropped again and again like a bomb, screeching in her bat-like ears and scrabbling at her with its hooked beak and wicked talons.