Starglow Basin [m] look what you [m]ade me do

It was strange how two simple words could be so striking. But they’d managed to comprehend each other, which felt significant. Towhee blinked, then remembered his wasn’t the answer for which she’d been hoping. It didn’t matter. She could locate her son easily enough.

I’m gonna go find him. Bushtit, she said, perhaps futilely. Towhee motioned—not exactly Ptero, though close enough—to help him understand. Adios, she added, unaware that this salutations learned at some random point in the past was, in fact, in the language he spoke.

If Soto reacted to this, she wasn’t aware. Towhee had already turned away, this entire rendezvous already fading into the background as she resumed her search for the young boy.