Redhawk Caldera Solutions to my gloom.

The many recent reunions had served as a distraction for Towhee, momentarily pulling her out of her funk. But it didn’t last. She roamed along the ridge line this morning, the old angst flaring right along with the stiffness in her leg. She had wanted to ask Bushtit to accompany her on a short trip but he was gone again and, anyway, the girls were too young for her to leave them overnight.

She ground her teeth and halted. @Tawny Lark and @Splendid Fairywren were just about old enough to be relocated to a rendezvous site, if Towhee followed traditional timelines. Since they lived in the Hobbit Hole, she had no particular plans to move them, but an idea wormed in the back of her mind…

She resumed plodding, ignoring it for now as she tried to work out the kink in her hind limb. When Towhee felt as limber as she thought she would get, she swiveled and began picking her way down the caldera’s exterior slope. She would wear her usual groove around its base, even as her enmity toward the land she guarded reached measurable toxicity.