Heron Lake Plateau Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful

Owen was starting to get a bit braver, more venturesome, a little better about not thinking that every little thing in the world was out to eat him. He was wandering the territory somewhat aimlessly, whilst keeping himself well away from that chilly blue lake that Father had warned them all about, when suddenly the threatening gray of the cloudcover that had been lurking in the skies since early morning at last made its move.

Owen skidded his paws to a halt in a cold patch of slightly squelchy mud and craned his ruddy-brown neck far, far back to gawk up at the sky. Normally he didn't much like getting too muddy, but at the moment he was a little distracted, with more important things on his mind than his paws dyeing themselves a wet dirt-brown to match other patches of his fur. Because from someplace high up above the skies were divesting themselves of small twirling bits of white that glimmered and twinkled in the dimming and fitful strands of light. What. On Earth. Was This.

His heart was pounding as he stood there and stared for a few long minutes that lasted an eternity. Then his muddy paws rocketed into action. He yelled half in terror and half in delight—or, well, maybe one quarter the latter and three-quarters the former—as he instinctively shot across the expanse of the plateau toward what his young mind still thought of as the safest haven in the world: Raven's old den where he had been born. And as he ran, he shouted, in increasingly breathless and not-entirely sensible patter: The stars, the stars are fallin'! Look, look look up, the stars!

Chest heaving, he careened to a less-than-elegant halt before the gaping black hole of the den entryway, his heart sinking as his brain started to catch up with his steps at last and he realized that the thing had probably accumulated several weeks' worth of dusty cold disuse by now, and odds were absolutely no one was in there. But he had to tell someone...he had to! He'd been told those falling stars were uncatchable, but now they were coming right to all of them! Though now that he thought about it, they were rather colder than he'd expected. And pretty small, really. It probably was a good thing the wolves'd never put in the effort to chase them down and haul them here themselves. Owen stuck his head indecisively into the dark earthern entryway, and then back out again to look down at the ground in puzzlement, where the tiny starflakes were quickly dissolving on every patch of dirt or blade of faded grass they hit upon. Yeah, these stars were much stranger and more ephemeral than he'd have ever guessed, and not entirely satisfactory. But still: they were here, finally, and @Quixote at least just had to be told, and preferably the rest of his family and everyone else as well.

Winter always felt like it came too early and lasted too long, like it was grasping out of the darkness and trying to pull both fall and spring into the void and take their place.  The weather had cooled, that was for sure, but as the day dragged on, there was something in the air, and that something was snow.  It was barely fall and yet here they were, threatened with colder temperatures.   Reminded of what was to come.  Evolution at least was going to match the change, as pelts thickened for the change in seasons.

Quixote considered his patrol for the day basically done, and he swung back in a long arc, idly wondering what the kids thought of this.  It probably would have been more fun to have actually been there but at the same time, running all the way home was probably going to cause more of a commotion than just hearing the details from Raven at a later date.  Or at least so went the plan until he crossed Owen's track that seemed like it was maybe heading back to the den?  How odd.  There wasn't really anything there at this point as far as he knew.

It didn't take long before Quixote appeared on the scene, pretty much oblivious to what Owen might be thinking.  He just wanted to see what the kid was up to, no biggie.  Some weather we're having, he mused as a greeting.  Did you leave something here?

The wolf who'd told him that the stars were too far away to catch, taller than the tallest of mountains could reach, even (though how did he know, Owen had to wonder—had his dad really tried climbing all the tallest mountains to find out? He doubted it, somehow!), came strolling up far too casually and nearly gave his son a heart attack. How could he be so blase about all this...! Did his father never turn his eyes skyward of his own accord?! Could he really have missed that those faraway stars were falling fitfully down to the earth even as he spoke, in tiny cold bits of scattered and melting white dust?! "Some weather we're having," indeed! This was a full-blown friggin' gosh-bedarned miracle, so far as Owen was concerned, or possibly the first small signs of the starting apocalypse, and here was Quixote moseying obliviously along like he was out for a casual Sunday stroll!

It took Owen a moment before he could speak, and not before he shot another hasty glance into the dark den entry. Surely someone more sensible might be concealing themselves there; surely it wasn't going to be his ill luck to have to try and singlehandedly get the stupendousness of this through his father's thick skull...? -Someone, anyone in there...?- Sigh. His mouth worked silently open and shut another time or two before finally: Da', Da' look, lookit the sky— Owen waved an inarticulate muddy paw in the vague direction of up. The stars! They're fallin' ALL the way down after all, you were wrong, they're coming rai' down t'us! Look!

He stared at his father apprehesively, his oversize red ears flattening themselves to his head; he wasn't certain what the man would do once he realized his son had pointed out the obvious miracle he'd been missing, here, and Owen wished he had at least another sibling or two if not Mother herself to back him up, here. His greening eyes couldn't resist flickering spastically upward in a nervous little tic, however, even so: what would happen if enough tiny bits of star fell down here to start covering the whole planet? Were they all about to be buried in stardust? Most of it seemed to just be melting still as it made contact, Owen was actually somewhat disappointed to see—some small part of him really wanted to know what would happen if these tiny cold stars stuck around—but maybe, if it kept coming down... Just how many stars did the sky really have to spare, up there? Was this why it had drawn that modest covering of cloud across its face the night before, so that no one below would see its starless expanse and be shocked at the indecency?

Obviously none of this phased Quixote at all. This was all normal, this was the world.  Sure, the first snow always felt way too early but it was unlikely that it was going to stick around anyway.  He had to stifle a guffaw.  No, that's snow.  It's what happens in winter when it gets really cold -- water freezes.  If it was a little warmer, that'd just be rain.

In a few months, snow will be covering everything.  It'll be pretty annoying, but then spring happens and it goes away again.  Quixote had to wonder if he freaked out at the same thing, but at this point childhood memories were pretty hazy. Maybe he had.  Or not.  Kind of silly to speculate about it now.  We can head back and see what your sisters think?  It's new for them too, after all.  But they were likely with their mother (or someone else if they were babysitting), so they'd probably been given an explanation too unless they were zonked out and missing the whole thing.

Owen shot his father a long, dubious look. Just water... These little starflake things looked nothing like water, or had Qui somehow missed that. Owen wasn't dumb: he had seen water freezing before, and it was treacherously crystalline and clear, almost invisible unless puppy eyes looked very very carefully and made extra-certain-sure not to step on it or bonk their nose when reaching out for an early-morning drink. This? This was stardust, dangit: it matched the little bright twinkly bits high in the sky way better than any water Owen had ever seen. Or was Quixote going to next try to convince him that all the water could change color at will, too?

Owen was a little distracted from this however by Quixote's managing to confirm his son's worst/best inner terror/delight. (Owen really wasn't sure which one, or possibly how much of each, he felt: the roiling of emotions within him was definitely setting his heart thundering either way, though.) This "snow" would cover everything? Until a spring happened. Whose spring? Was this just a spring at imaginary food, or did one have to be chasing after a real rabbit, or did one have to "spring" at sufficient starflakes themselves in order to make this next bit of magic happen? Or—and this last seemed most likely to Owen, after a few moments' thought—or was Quixote actually just making all this up out of thin air to try and pull one over on his gullible son? Owen realized his mouth had come open and been hanging ajar at some point during all this furious rumination, and closed it up with a snap. No point in making his father think he was that easy a target for tall tales like this.

Still, the mental imagery caught at Owen's mind. Starflakey snow covering everything. He squinted up at the falling white stuff, blinking the lazy motes from his eyelashes as they melted mysteriously away, and then threw an apprehensive look over his shoulder at the echoingly empty dark hollow of the den. He had a very hard time envisioning this magically appearing-and-disappearing white starstuff coating everything all at once. It seemed so unlikely, especially with how fast it was hiding itself right at the moment, exactly as fast as it fell (though Owen supposed with a start that it could perhaps be very sneakily going to ground to wait, as it collected more and more of itself in order to pop out as a sudden and unwelcome surprise all at once, if it really was going to be a matter of several months' collecting of snow, here...and was his standing here and letting it hit him going to make him into an animated snowwolf as well, at that time? No, this was all too ludicrous!). It seemed so airy and ephemeral, far too much so to ever accumulate like that. ...But. But. Suppose Quixote was right, for a change, after all...would anyplace in the world be safe? Owen swallowed hard as he looked at his old denhollow home, and perhaps his eyes were misting up a little from something besides mere snowflakes.

Owen's mouth worked silently for a moment, and he scuffled a paw on the cold hard ground for a moment. Then, somewhat indistinctly, he hesitantly agreed, ...'Kay. He suddenly did want the bumptious comfort and warmth of his fuzzy sisters all around him, for a change, as well as Mother Wolf, of course. And if Quixote wanted to try and get all of them to swallow this cockamamie story too, then perhaps Owen himself could better gauge just how he himself felt about it all, and how much to believe even a single word. Right now all he had was this endless stream of questions and doubts dancing in his head, but that didn't stop him from turning to trail willingly in Quixote's footsteps, albeit with another irresistible apprehensive glance or three at the skies.

C'mon then, he said, bidding his son to walk alongside.  It wasn't like Quixote was taking him somewhere unexpected.  They weren't going to just teleport across the packland, so after a moment of silence in which he was really thinking hard about what to say, Quixote finally spoke up, I could tell you more about it on the way?  The snow can be good though -- if we catch a big deer, it'll stay fresh longer when it's buried in snow than it would in a cache in the spring.  It makes it easier to track them, too -- you can see their hoofprints most of the time instead of relying on your nose.

Hm.  Well, he maybe didn't want to freak out Owen too much, but there was another thing about the lake that hadn't come up.  By now they probably had at least kinda learned to sort-of-swim (good enough for their age at least) unless I'm messing up my timelines.
The lake will end up freezing over, too.  The top part of the water turns to ice, and after it's been really cold for a while then you might be able to walk on it -- only if you're sure the ice is thick enough though.  If it's been warm or you hear the ice making noise, get out of there.  Quixote looked over to make sure that was getting through to him.  It was kind of an important thing.  Well, along with avalanches but as long as they didn't leave the territory, that wasn't really a factor.  Maybe when they got older.

Hmmmm, said Owen, a skeptical thrumming so low in his throat as to be almost inaudible. He looked down at his feet as they walked for a moment, buying his racing brain some time to think. What Quixote was saying still seemed pretty unbelievable...but Owen's fancy was caught by the notions somehow nonetheless. You could bury deer in the stuff? What about wolves, or did it only work for food? And what would a deer seasoned by stardust taste like anyway?! Cold, obviously, for one, but beyond that Owen was uncertain. He surreptitiously flicked his tongue out on impulse to grab the fattest flake that had just landed on his nose—quick, before it could sneak away and disappear like all of its siblings! Then he had to run his tongue under his front teeth really quickly to try and scrape the foreign taste of it off, though there wasn't much to it besides cold and a bit of wet. Oh, this starstuff was tricksy, yes it was; Owen gave his father a sidelong glance and wondered how he'd convinced the "snow" to play along and pretend it tasted just like frozen water. It was a pretty clever trick, he had to admit, but then again that was probably why Quixote had been made alpha. Owen would have to find some way to surreptitiously check this with his mother; Raven would surely know, if anyone did.

Deer leaving hoofprints on the stars, though! There was just no way his father wasn't pulling his leg now, even if he hadn't been before. Next he'd be telling Owen all about how the deer could fly right up into the sky to get there, and trek all over the moon too while they were at it. (Though maybe that was what all those shadowy markings studding the moon's surface were...? No no no, this was ridiculous. Didn't even bear thinking about.)

Owen kept his thoughts to himself for once though as he plodded along, simply nodding politely in agreement with his father. Yes, yes; that frozen lake stuff all seemed plausible enough for the most part, Owen having already seen the process starting on chillier mornings with his own eyes. Though it seemed very strange indeed to think of being able to walk on water, frozen or not; that was where the boy was starting to grow suspicious again. It was so hard to sort out myth from fact when talking to Quixote, sheesh! He'd keep his counsel until he could talk to Momma Raven, though, Owen resolved to himself, and see what all his sisters made of this nonsense Dad was spouting as well. That resolve was broken only a moment later however as a response was startled out of him at last, as Quixote started listing off more warnings about the lake: The ice makes noises at you?! said Owen incredulously. I didn't think it was alive, or had a mouth to make noise with! Owen couldn't help but notice however that Quixote hadn't said anything about the monster that lived at the bottom of the lake. That seemed much more likely of a candidate to make noise than the water or ice or whatever else over that way, surely...? But the monster— Owen started to blurt aloud before he caught himself and buttoned his lip. Was this a dumb thing to be asking about? Was his father going to pretend he didn't know about the lake monster? ...Or was it maybe even possible that Quixote didn't know about the monster? No, surely as alpha Quixote must be aware of the lake monster! Someone would have told him. And he'd warned the pups to be cautious around the water, after all, right from day one. And there was no way he'd have done that if he didn't Know Something, right? Yes, surely that had to be right. Owen stood and stared at his father in growing doubt as the wheels in his head whirled around and around, trying to sort out just what was going on here and how much of all this he could really believe.

Did he say monster?  Dear lord where did they go wrong with this kid?  His brows knitted a moment but he kept looking ahead so Owen maybe didn't see.  Hopefully.  He'd have to talk to Raven for sure because they really didn't need him thinking all kinds of weird things were reality when they definitely were not.  Quixote tried, but his son was apparently pretty stubborn.

So, his actual response was thoughtful and, of course, reality-based, Trees make noises too -- because of the wind, not because of a mouth.  Things just move because something is pushing them.  Wind, your weight, whatever.  The world's a weird place, but it usually has perfectly reasonable explanations for things.  He looked over to Owen, confident in what he said.  It was the truth, and nobody was going to be able to deny that (aside from maybe someone with an equal amount of delusion).  But hopefully he could make Owen see a bit of reason and not a repeat of the antler...

Owen frowned a little as he caught the subtle scrunching of his father's brow—it was a little hard to see, darker shadows against the black, but Owen was being extra-observant of his parent at the moment, searching for signs to corroborate his peskily lingering inner doubts. This was obviously a sign of something, Quixote thinking hard about one thing or another... other warnings he might not have seen fit to pass on to his son yet, perhaps. Or...or maybe he was pondering just how gullible innocent little Owen might really be, and what further tall tales this kid could be relied upon to swallow.

Wind doesn't push the ice around, though, he said slowly, thinking pretty hard still himself as his gaze drifted in the direction of the lake in question—though his voice was a half-mutter and addressing himself as much or even more than his father. And Owen, slighter in frame than even most youngsters his age, really couldn't think of much of anything his weight had ever pushed around, much less stuff that'd talked back when he did it. But he looked back at his father with an obedient-enough, Hmm-mmm... 'Kay. Even if he still harbored some doubts rattling around in that pointy little skull of his.

Owen paced along a ways further in his father's footsteps before another question bubbled irrepressibly up out of him. Have you caught a lot of deer who've been caught in this stuff before...? Owen frowned afresh as he paused his steps for just a moment to squint dubiously at the falling snow before hastening to catch up to Quixote's strides.

There was only so much of the world that Quixote knew about how to explain.  He'd try, sure, but the finesse about why things existed were better explained by someone other than him.  Someone who maybe had a better understanding as to why but he wasn't sure if there was anyone in the pack who would be the best one to ask.  Maybe Raven would have a good explanation that would settle Owen's nerves about the whole thing.  Or not.  Either way, since they were headed that way they'd find out soon enough.

It's not like the snow totally traps them.  It just slows them a little, especially if it's soft since their small hooves just sink right in.  We've got paws that are big enough that it doesn't happen as much.  But yeah, we'll hunt them in the winter and it'll be fine.  You'll probably get to eat them more as the season goes on -- the birds that are left probably won't stick around.  Then maybe they could start acting more like a pack -- having everyone just picking off the odd bird was kind of frustrating in that they didn't have the big feasts that they would have if they picked off a caribou or something.

Owen had to slow down again to frown dubiously at the white-dusted ground as his father's laborious explanations continued. He scraped a large white paw of his own across the earth's surface, frowned down at his paw and turned it to and fro as he mentally tried to project the shape of a deer's hoof atop its form. He supposed that maybe deer did have smaller feet, generally speaking, so far as he could remember...but didn't that also depend on the size of the deer? What happened if there was a really big one, with much bigger feet than Owen or Quixote or any other wolf's? Did the snow jump out of those giant deerhooves' way then or what? Owen put his paw back down and hurried after his dad once more as he ruminated busily on Quixote's words, his young imagination working overtime.

His dad's last statement had Owen raising his eyes to scan the branches overhead, which in turn caused him to stumble a little over one that had dropped a stick inconveniently on the ground right in front of him. What happens to the birds, then?! asked Owen as he recovered his stride, trying to pay a little more attention to the direction he was walking in although his wide eyes kept wanting to look around at his father's face and the birds' potential perches high above. He had been noticing a few less feathery creatures around, come to think. Crap, what happened if they were all about to disappear—was the pack supposed to just eat deer forever, and what happened when all of those herds ran out too? Owen wasn't much liking the prospects this "snow" stuff seemed to bring along with itself much thus far, yeesh. If they're disappearing as the snow appears do they ever reappear again? And how do you know which ones are coming back and when and how?! Not all of 'em are good to eat, I mean, look at X. If all the birds turned into Xes... Then that wouldn't be good, now would it? And how many deer are around, anyway?! And what happens if too many of them get buried and hidden in snow when all the birds go poof? What're we supposed to eat then? Owen's eyes looked about ready to pop out of his head, opening wider and wider as more and more disastrous scenarios came to mind. Gee, it was a good thing this alpha had Owen querying the supply lines, now wasn't it—otherwise maybe the whole pack would just turn into starving cannibals, see if they didn't.

Owen probably had enough questions to use up the entire family's worth of silly questions for the rest of the year.  Seriously, where did he get some of these outlandish ideas?  Quixote was pretty sure both Raven and himself were firmly rooted in reality, so where was it coming from?  Were his sisters somehow just making up random nonsense that he just gobbled up as truth like they were delicious candy?  They go away. I don't know where.  South, I think.

They don't change, they just head off somewhere else that's probably less cold or something.  There's plenty of deer and caribou and moose and other things around that we can eat, though.  They're just big, so we'll need a few people to take them down.  That's what most packs end up eating that don't have a lake in their territory like us.  I don't think I've ever seen them get totally buried either.  They just get kind of bogged down like in the mud or something.  How else would he explain it other than through experience?  Man, it'd be nice if he wasn't worried Owen would find something hideously concerning with that fact too.

But maybe something smaller would be less... ominous?  Heck, you can get good at hunting rabbits and voles and stuff if you want to just get something for yourself.  They're quick snacks, but they aren't going to really be able to hurt you, either.  Though now he was just imagining Owen with a squealing mouse hanging off his nose.  If he got caught under an antler, surely a small-creature hunt would go horribly wrong in some way.  Lots of screaming would probably be involved.

Quixote just didn't seem nearly worked up enough about these potential catastrophes for his son's taste. How could the alpha just be so, so calm, when Owen was literally talking about life and death and potential cannibalism here. Gosh! But what if they don't come back, he muttered unhappily about the birds, but mostly to himself. Could a pup really survive on just deer forever, if worst came to worst?

He was also trying to imagine hunting deer visually if they only got almost-mostly-not-quite-all-the-way-buried. Just how much of a deer could one see; how much of the hooved beasties could one go off of? What if, say, only the very tippy-tops of their ears or antlers or something remained visible? Would that really be enough to hunt them by? Owen knew all too well how little you could trust even the most innocent-looking set of antlers after all, and besides, they'd probably just look like branches or something poking up out of the snow from a distance. And to compound this concern, Owen was already noticing how the bigger flakes stung and numbed his nose as they were falling... How easy is it to smell everything once it's covered in snow? Or mostly if not all hidden? he fretted aloud as he tripped hastily along in Quixote's wake. How Quixote could compare this snow stuff to mere mud Owen surely didn't know. This cold white fluffy crap didn't seem anything at all like any mud Owen had ever seen. His father was obviously taking all this far, far too lightly.

The stuff about the rodents and things was kinda reassuring though, except... But if the deer don't get quite buried doesn't that mean the littler prey must get buried in it several times over?! The snow might swallow up all of them before any wolves can get there if it keeps falling and falling! Whaddaya do then!?! Owen's disproportionately large feet were slipping and stumbling, also slightly numbed and bewildered by the new experience of this snow stuff, but mostly Owen just had bigger things to worry about than where his toes were landing. Especially since Dad didn't seem worried enough, so obviously the son needed to make sure he was worrying enough for the both of them, and thinking of all the things Quixote seemed to be missing about this freaking snow stuff. Thus it was pretty inevitable that Owen at last caught his paw on a protruding root and went tumbling facefirst into the fresh coat of snow, bruising his nose on the frozen ground glittering mere millimeters beneath the snowdust. He flailed immediately upright with a yelp, his tail tucking itself tight against his hindquarters. An' what if it's trying to bury and eat me so I can't compete with it! he squeaked, and bolted up ahead of his father toward the presumable safety of his mother and sisters. Though, well, sisters really weren't exactly safe it was true, but even their prankish and needle-toothed companionship surely had to be preferable to this monstrous turn of weather. Hey PhoebeVasaKite guesswhat you'll never guess what dad's been saying about this snowstuff!! he yelled in forewarning, not seeing any of them quite yet but hoping nonetheless they might be in earshot of his shrill young voice. Obviously he was going to oh-so-helpfully pass on nothing but the unvarnished truth of everything Quixote had just told him, here... yuh huh.

Owen was totally giving him a headache.  Quixote was telling him the truth in the most clear way he could possibly do and somehow Owen was finding the most illogical spin to put on it.  How did he even do that?  He was pretty sure that he hadn't been dropped on his head or anything, so what crossed so many wires inside the kid's skull? 

It's not an issue -- the lake is there, so they'll come back.  No birds isn't the end of the world.  It just means we hunt other things until they do.  Not a big deal.  C'mon, Owen, don't pick everything apart...  Small things can build tunnels in it like they do in the earth.  Same theory, really.  I saw a fox do a faceplant right into the snow, ended up catching a vole or something -- then the trick is seeing if you can scare the fox into dropping the vole before it runs away. -- Rabbits will come up to the surface to travel, though, so not as weird with them.

Look, look.  See how fast the snow is gathering?  You can still see the ground and we've been walking for how long?  It's not that fast.  It takes a long time for it to get really deep.  You'll end up walking on top of it a lot of the time -- it's like if you kick a bunch of dirt into a pile, sink a little, but you can still walk fine. Kind of.  Seriously, why did he have to explain all this?  Next thing, Owen would be screeching about how suddenly they would be buried under sand dunes or something.

They were almost to the thicket by now and maybe if they had their ears attached, the other kids or @Raven (o hai, u want cameo?? >P ) might hear the hubbub the boy was causing.  All this fuss over a bit of snow!  He sure as hell hoped maybe Raven had something up her sleeve that could fix this apparent disaster he'd somehow caused without deceiving the kid in any way.  Who knew the truth and natural cycles would be so heinously complicated...

Well that was just nonsense—Owen was sure now that his dad had to be simply pulling his leg, as he flicked an ear back at Quixote and was told that the lake was somehow going to make sure the birds would return. Okay, so a few of them liked to go swimming some of the time, but for most of them and even for the swimmy ones the whole point was that birds flew. It was airspace that called to them, obviously, above and beyond any water stuff anywhere! Meantime, Owen really didn't see how if one's nose was benumbed and one's eyes deceived by a thickly falling blanket of snow anyone was supposed to be able to find any real prey by falling on one's face in random snowdrifts. Maybe foxes had some sort of sneaky trick to it, foxes being like that and all, but surely no wolf could ever hope to accomplish such magic. Why, only a very little bit ago Owen had fallen down nosefirst, and hey presto magicko had there been any prey grasped in his jaws when he came up again? No. So there, see Dad? If the rabbits ever figured out the trick of burrowing away under the snow (and sure, they were kinda stupid creatures, but not that stupid...!) then they really would all starve! What ever would Mom think of all this?

Owen did slow down to glance obediently but doubtfully about as Qui told him to check how fast the snow gathered. Owen shivered at this: he didn't like how fast or thick the stuff was mounding itself up. It seemed so ominous for such treacherous stuff to be gathering itself everywhere he went. And trying to hide all the food. And even if it took "a long time" that didn't mean it wasn't a big fat problem for it to get so deep! What if it just kept snowing an' snowing an' snowing until it buried everything? What if it snowed so much even the tops of the trees got covered?! I mean I guess all the birds in the sky would be a little easier to catch then, maybe...except they're all leaving, so there won't be any to catch!! Owen's breathing was getting more rapid and panickily shallow just thinking about it all. Owen rocketed into motion again just to have something to be doing, and hopefully very shortly someone else to talk to about all this instead of his dad who really was just making things worse and worse in Owen's little mind! Of course, by the time he at last reached @Raven he was so worked up that his words were starting to come out as mile-a-minute babbling nonsense rather than any sort of comprehensible conversation. Maybe Raven's poor mate could help clue her in a little, here.

Oof, this was just looping around now, wasn't it?  Well I can't say it has ever happened as long as I've been alive.  And I'm just so terribly old, aren't I? he said, kind of bemused.  Honestly, Qui was almost to a point where he just would have to give up and let his mate have a  chance to talk Owen off the crazy train.  Trust me, once it gets deep enough it'll be good fun.

Anyway, they were pretty much back at the little clearing.  Ray, you're gonna have to help me on this one...  Time to figure out what the girls thought of this all.  Hopefully a lot less doom than for Owen.  Many snowy days were ahead... He better get used to it.