Redtail Rise and what if I told you you could kill your imperfect self?

He gazed sideways into the trees, ears tilting forward at the distant call of a crow. But as soon as Aventus dropped his head, Atreus’s attention snapped forward to observe. He considered mimicking his father, though before he could drop his own head, the Bitan halted.

He instructed Atreus to sniff a particular patch of ground. The boy didn’t even look at Aventus before moving forward to do as he was told, his obedience a byproduct of his genuine curiosity. He inhaled overly emphatically, snorting a little as some dust tickled his sensitive olfactory tissues.

Atreus stepped back after a moment and said astutely, Piss.

More specifically, he had smelled his aunt’s distinct scent, along with a blend of others’. Atreus was too young to decode all the information their urine contained, though he got the gist of it: all were relatively young, healthy and strong. Avicus was, obviously, a female, whereas the others were the pungency of masculinity.

Was that what Aventus wanted to know? He didn’t know if he had the language to convey what his nose told him. Surely his dad could read all of that himself anyway. Atreus’s tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth.