Jade Fern Grove so things are different tonight

She wandered. She wandered a lot, these days. Not that she doubted her father's warm welcome—she appreciated it greatly—but. . .

Well. Reconciling how he'd known her once as a perfect, pretty little girl, and now this grotesque husk of herself at his borders—

Lilitu swallowed and pushed roughly through the ferns, trying to keep away those thoughts. Her teeth gritted, she barely noticed the other wolf until she was almost upon them.

And then what she saw brought her to a stupefied halt.

Are you, she began, oblivious to the fact he was deaf, hanging out with a. . .squirrel?