Gilded Bay Till Valhalla

Towhee wasn't one for field trips, yet she decided to take the opportunity to distract herself for a little while. Besides, Fennec wanted to go and she found she couldn't bear such a separation. She didn't mention that to Fen, though Towhee lingered closely beside her daughter—nearly a yearling, now—as they made the trek north with their pack mates.

Towhee didn't say much as they plodded along, her mind drifting elsewhere. Today, she thought of another loss she'd suffered: X. She still didn't know what had become of the hawk, though she became more certain every day that X had been killed in the landslide, improbable as it seemed. Why else would she simply vanish?

She glanced over her shoulder at Sugar, who had fallen back from the group, but Towhee didn't slow or stop. She faced forward again, thinking of her little sister's recent, macabre discovery. But that hawk hadn't been X. A sigh escaped her as she caught herself and tried to push the dreary thoughts away and focus on the venture at hand.

Soon they were approaching the seaboard, where gulls circled, their noisiness unheard by Towhee. It wasn't long before the pack's general attention shifted to a carcass on the beach. Pushing aside an errant thought about Screech that drifted through her head, Towhee picked her way toward the dead sea lion along with the others. She didn't hear the Sovereign's command but she fell upon the food alongside everyone else, ignoring the clotted lard that soon coated her entire mouth as she burrowed through a layer of blubber to get to the proper flesh underneath.

When she stepped back a while later, licking her oily chops, Towhee idly scanned the group. She couldn't help but notice Sugar was missing. The former Kilonova combed the beach with her shrewd orange eyes, turning in a slow circle, yet there was no sign of the littlest Blackthorn. She opened her mouth to get someone's attention when a brutally frigid gust of wind blasted against her, rendering her momentarily insensate.

"The snow's coming," Towhee surmised, though she was no meteorologist. She tried to catch Wraen's eye in particular. "We need to find Sugar and get back." Without waiting an answer from the hunting party, Towhee turned and trotted inland, her steps deliberate as she kept her eyes and nose peeled for any sign of the wayward Sugar.