Sun Mote Copse Cartoons in progress.

It was something of a relief to hear it just hadn’t happened, when so often these things were informed by tragedy of one kind or another. Towhee bobbed her head and raised a fisted paw to her mouth as the hiccups continued to assail her. She also tucked a tiny little laugh behind it at the reference to sizes, since her mind was always in the gutter.

Bodies and hormones are crazy bitches, she said, the declaration punctuated by a particularly loud hiccup. Mm. Sorry to be so nosy. I’ve just got babies on the brain, Towhee said, eyes sliding over to the snoozing Bushtit before cutting back to Reyson and adding, I had quite the fertility journey this year, though I’ll save that story for another day.

She glanced at the pup again. Towhee always hated to wake a sleeping baby, though she knew she ought to rouse him to feed soon. She couldn’t care less if Reyson stuck around while she nursed, though she wondered if he might want to dip.

Delaying a few moments longer, she said to him, So, how come you guys left the vale in the first place? It sounds like you were just following Tamar and Arsenio, but why did they decide to leave? And where did y’all end up?

It occurred to her that if Jack Snipe returned from wherever he’d gone, he would find no one and nothing. The thought bothered Towhee. She wished she knew where he’d gone and why. She wished she knew if she would ever see him again. But there was nothing for any of it.