Serpent Lake (M) Two straws, one check, girl, I got you.

The tension remained as Towhee waded to shore, never taking her eyes off the white she-wolf. She sneered at her over her shoulder as she walked away, though made no further attempt to engage or instigate. She wasn’t a spring chicken; she needed to save her energy for this trip and its hopefully happy ending.

She crossed the stream that trickled away from the looming mesa, then wound south along the lake’s eastern shoreline. Towhee didn’t even glance at the pale silhouette in the distance, her orange eyes trained forward. The breeze felt good on her wet fur, keeping her temperature manageable even as she headed toward the distant desert.

She suddenly slowed, then stopped, when she came to the delta where the lake emptied into the creek that petered its way out in the pass where Soto and the rest of Verapaz made their home. Because all of a sudden, his wasn’t the only face she craved. Towhee bit her lip as another, softer one took shape in her mind’s eye.

She turned, facing the water and peering across it, past the mesa and even the caldera. She couldn’t actually see the spine from this far away, though she could picture it almost as easily as @Rodyn’s face. What would he do if Towhee turned up at his doorstep in this condition? Would he indulge her?

But even if he found her attractive enough to do the deed, Rodyn deserved better than anything Towhee could offer him. He deserved romance: courtship, marriage and a young mate to give him years of children. She shook her head and turned south again, her core increasingly molten as she resumed her trek alongside the dwindling waterway…