The Heartwood Never opened myself this way.

He suspected, suddenly, that she did not want to speak to him. Well, too bad, the panther thought, lowering himself to one haunch to take the weight off his injured leg. A sigh escaped him, silent but vaporous in the winter air.

"They have just returned home from a great hunt on the plains," he told her, his features sobering once more quite without his permission. "Moonwoman sorrows. A daughter fled in the night. Village Moonsong worries and mourns for its head. Moonwoman worries and mourns for her child."

This was supposition on his part. Dutch was only just becoming privy to the runrest between mother and daughter, daughter and village — but the divide had apparently been deep. Still, Dutch was sure that Kukutux was pained. He could not compare his own sorrow and worry to what he expected of a mother.

He wondered if she, too, was angry.

"I hope that a familiar face brings her comfort," he said, but he said it without much hope at all.