Sun Mote Copse This is the thread that never ends.

When she drew in another breath, it felt like she couldn't quite siphon the oxygen from it. She felt a lot like she had taken simultaneous kicks to the chest and gut. As she struggled, Towhee's face contorted. Questions flitted through her brain, though she didn't have the breath to voice them. How? When? WHY?

She didn't register Penn's question, her eyes shifting to Avery for reasons she didn't even know until she found her tongue. "Avery, could you keep an eye on Meerkat?" Towhee managed to get out, voice mostly even but wavering toward the end, when it hit her that her godparents would never meet their grandchild. "Are they—in their den?" she added haltingly to Penn now.

Tears were already beginning to blur her vision but Towhee blinked them away. When that didn't quite work, she swiped at them, moving mechanically toward her younger brother. "I want to see them." It would be unbearable but she had to see, with her own eyes. They would need to bury them too, though the Regent couldn't think that far ahead just yet.