Northstar Vale My rusty wings are weak and tired, oh.

Towhee stood over Leo’s grave, thinking of the other children she’d buried. Four others—Primrose, Blackbird, Butterfly and Marten—were laid to rest at the caldera. She might never visit their grave sites again. It was uncharacteristically sentimental of her to feel this attached to Leo’s remains. She licked her lips and strode away to the far side of Wraen’s Nest.

She’d asked @Phox to meet her here at midday. Towhee found him waiting underneath a tree and their eyes met. Despite hurting over Maxim like a missing limb—an ironic thought, perhaps, given her present company—she found comfort in her litter mate’s steady gaze. She slumped down beside him with a noisy gust of breath.

Fennec and Killdeer ended up at Moonspear, with Meerkat and her family, she told him, and Caracal and his mate, Heda, are going to have a litter on the island. Between Tikal camping out in the canyon and Maxim vanishing into the fucking ether…

Towhee didn’t complete her thought. Part of her wanted to grab Phox and the kids, then run off to be with family. But what if Maxim came back here? And what about providing stability to her younger two? It was way too early to do anything drastic, though as she drew in a breath and looked around herself, the place she had once compared to heaven now felt a lot more like purgatory.