Duskfire Glacier Suppressing who I was inside,

Lane loped from the caverns with the look of a prisoner escaping from a dungeon. Wintersbane was stretched a little thin these days, parenting two separate litters and feeding two mothers, and so she relished these small breaks when he could sit with the children and she could get away for a moment. 

Lane stopped to empty her bladder, sighing with relief. She'd only done that a pawful of times since the children had been born, reluctant to leave the pair alone even to take care of bodily functions.  

When she was finished, Lane simply wandered around the heart of the territory, noting with fascination how everything outside seemed too bright, and too quiet. The air smelled too fresh. All of the pleasures that she had been denied he past three days assaulted her at once, and she found herself needing to readjust. 

She happened upon a stranger, emphasis on the strange part. Was that an owl sitting on his back?! Just.. sitting there? Lane knew that they'd added some packmates while she was gone on her pre-birth walkabout, but she hadn't heard anything about one of them being a bird. 

"Is that.." she started to ask, but then realized she was speaking too quietly. She'd gotten used to talking in hushed tones within the caverns, where even the slightest sound were magnified and echoed. "Is that yours?" she tried again, raising her voice to a more appropriate volume. Her incredulous, amber eyes were fixed on the bird.