Moonspear run away

Seconds after recalling her uneasy exchange with Quail, Treepie had another, much bigger revelation, triggered in part by Haedwig’s present mention of two-legged beasts. Unfortunately, she caught nothing else after that as her eyes glazed and a peculiar feeling—not quite painful, more like a flicker of light—arced through her head. Following this metaphorical flashbulb, imagines began to develop like photographs in a stop bath.

Suddenly, she could remember meeting her newborn siblings at Redhawk Caldera, followed by her foray to the nearby lake. Then there were glimpses of a forest and a wolf with an orange stripe, though she could not remember his name. The familiar murk rose up beyond that, though Treepie had the distinctive sense that those shadows would be repealed in time too.

“…I’m probably just old,” Haedwig finished right when Tiuttuk resurfaced from the fixer with a bitten-off gasp.

She realized her whole body was clenched and drew in a deep breath, then exhaled as she tried to coax the tension from what seemed like every single muscle. She felt slightly trembly in the aftermath and her head ached dully, though that was nothing new.

It turns out, I do know about dogs. I believe I met one. She told me about those same two-legged beasts, Pie said, hoping her lapse hadn’t been obvious.

She shuddered, though whether that had to do with the talk of humans or her resurfaced memories, she couldn’t be sure. Treepie blinked a couple of times, trying to gather her thoughts and focus, even though part of her wanted to look inward, explore the newly shrunken edges of the black hole in her mind.

Her stories frightened me a little, though Quail wasn’t so bad herself. Her looks caught me off guard at first, she admitted, not mentioning that she’d thought her downright ugly. And she wore this strange… thing around her neck that unsettled me. But she was perfectly well-mannered.

Her memory of that night seemed to sharpen with every passing second, to the point where Tiuttuk could admit to herself that she hadn’t necessarily been very polite to Quail. A tooth sunk into her lip and she glanced to the side, hoping perhaps she could redeem herself if she came across the dog who supposedly lived on the mountain now.