Moonstone Quarry ^____________________________^

Tiuttuk didn’t like to leave the mount, though she didn’t fear it as she once had. Her steps felt heavy as she crossed the stretch of no-man’s-land between its foot and the neighboring village. This visit was long overdue, she knew, and she didn’t arrive empty-handed. She had woken to find a dead gopher beside her, with no trace of wolf-smell on it, and Pie knew exactly who had left it.

Carrying the small carcass now, she paused at the edge of Moonglow’s territory, yellow eyes shifting over the scenery. She set the gopher at her feet and took a couple of deep breaths as grief swelled in her chest. Even now, it was hard to believe the Moon Woman and Sun Man existed only in memories.

She lifted her muzzle and called out to the village’s new leaders, her voice a soft croon. Pie caught a glimpse of a bird’s silhouette high above, though she barely glanced at it. She dropped her gaze to the ground, though her ears remained alert for any response to her howl.

When none came, a sense of foreboding descended over her. She considered crossing the boundary to check on the wolves in residence, though fear of what she might find made Tiuttuk reconsider. Perhaps they were few, like Moonspear, and preoccupied with things more important than loitering guests.

Biting her lip, she hesitantly retreated, leaving her gift behind. Rather than turn toward home, the restless Treepie decided to see if Forneskja still claimed the forest just beyond the spine. There was no one there, though she cut westward and remembered Cicero mentioning a quarry. Indeed, she detected the scents of a village as she came closer.

A shadow flickered past overhead, drawing Pie’s attention upward. Her eyes followed the familiar hawk as it circled, quirking an eyebrow as it swooped lower and lower. And suddenly, its feathers were brushing the back of her neck as the bird landed on the slope of her spine. Tiuttuk went as still as a statue.

Then, slowly, she turned to peer at the peculiar creature now perched on her back. The hawk trilled, its head ducking toward her right thigh. The Regent sucked air in through her teeth as the bird’s beak hovered precariously near to the itchy, painful lump in her skin. It had been there so long, she mostly ignored it, but she definitely didn’t want anything sharp near it…

It happened so quickly, she didn’t have time to react. The hawk plunged its beak into her skin and pulled out a hunk of it. Tiuttuk choked on a scream as she realized it wasn’t flesh in the hawk’s beak but a fat, wriggling grub. She went a little whale-eyed as the bird leapt off her back then, carrying away the vile thing it had plucked from the yearling’s skin and leaving behind an actual, gaping hole in her thigh.