Sun Mote Copse The book is on the table.

One corner of Towhee's mouth pulled downward as Wraen elaborated. Her own feelings toward Colt's and Niamh's relationship would always be complicated. She would never forget the day when Niamh had showed up to tell her the news of his death, how the wedge between them had vanished. She recalled, too, how Phox had come along and opened the grove's arms to the grieving widow and how Towhee herself had taken a more pragmatic perspective. It was interesting to think about all that now.

"I don't think Eljay's the norm," came Towhee's reply, that thought the real cause behind her slight frown. "Niamh grieved for a while but she's moving on with her life," the Regent said. There was no tone of agreement (there was no tone at all), though she nodded her head as she concurred with the Sovereign's observation. She kept any other thoughts about her depressed elder brother's inability to cope to herself.

Now the subject of her litter mate turned that frown upside down, her orange eyes glinting with mischief. "He farts a lot in his sleep. I can't hear it but I can certainly smell it." She huffed a laugh, shaking her head lightly. "You're right about him, though. He's a wonderful person," Towhee continued in the next breath, her words almost fierce with fondness, "and he's going to be a great dad, again. I think they'll be good for one another," in spite of their recent argument, which had boiled down to semantics, in the end.

She paused, glancing idly around the copse, before her gaze settled on Wraen again. "I may not be able to have kids of my own and theirs won't belong to me the same way Fig and Fen do, but they've both made it clear I'll be very involved in raising them. I'm still a little..." She trailed off and shrugged, leaving that sentence incomplete, knowing Wraen understood. "But this makes me happy."