Sleepy Fox Hollow Drags me under, takes me home.

The child caught the skull as it tumbled and did not return it, rather, they inspected it. Evidently the game of "toss the skull" or whatever wasn't going to be a smash hit. That was fine. But when Elfie asked him point blank where he'd found it, Mou grimaced slightly and his narrow shoulders rose like colliding glaciers over his shoulders; he had no idea how to articulate what needed to be said, and opted for his usual silence and mystery.

The skull wasn't the only thing he had with him. He grabbed randomly at his pile of goods (like a bird himself) and came away with the intact maple leaf. He held it by the stem and the palm-sized patch of red draped against his snout, curling over the black mask lining the bridge of his nose, until he carefully placed it down next to the skull. For a moment the light caught upon the leaf and gave Mou's face a red glow, almost like he was coughing blood in to a pool on the earth — but then he sat back.