Redhawk Caldera Solutions to my gloom.

You're wise, Bassetki.

By her own measure, Bassetki will not be wise until her eyes are as blind as her bones are brittle, but presses her chin to her chest in silent thanks - it is an honor that the Elder Mother would think she is anything but a silly child, even at three. "It is the mouth," she says, eyeing the caldera's slopes and knowing from its desert cousin that it gapes like a hungry sand worm. "It eats and eats and hungers still."

"Mother Towhee," Bassetki repeats, then just, "Towhee," because she senses a preference for informal titles. Had the desert wolf known that Towhee not only stood at the root of an entire bloodline, but was also a great and storied warrior, it would have caused her physical pain to exclude the proper honorifics.

"Shame brings me here," Bassetki shares without missing a beat. Her tall, sharp ears sag, and she struggles to keep her face neutral. "I was tempted by a snake and betrayed a sister." The metaphorical snake in question had been a man of some account, but certainly not worth exile. Not even particularly handsome in bright light, Bassetki would one day think, when time in the Teekon Wilds had loosened the chokehold she had on her own thoughts. "I made a mistake. I am sorry to beg you for scraps - for a man of no account, a low man, a servant, to help me hunt." She cannot help it - she bows again. "I could not ask you, Elder Mother. I am not worthy of your energy."