Redtail Rise leggiero

she takes the small, gnarled bundle between her teeth and crushes it slightly. it's a pungent taste, different from the usual fare that hits her palate. she grimaces a bit at first, but concedes, after depositing the root back to the ground, that it lingers a bit pleasantly.

before i was born.

in case you needed it.

will i gehh' hh'—'hhick? Avicus asks, glancing up at him. 

she's still caught in the crossbeams of estrus, and for a moment she sees not Ashlar but a body, a male body, and it takes a moment's concentration upon the earth on which she stood, and the present moment occupied, to bring her back to their normal reality.