Morningside Cuesta i'm coming home tonight, meet me in the valley where the kids collide

The instant her surroundings became familiar—the sights and smells of the Teekon Wilds washing over her like baptismal waters; she was born again!—she stopped. Bat sensed them coming and let all the various feelings crash into her, giving herself long moments to simply experience them. Her eyes closed and she breathed deeply, waiting for the inner dust storm to wind down and settle.

They reopened and she began walking, her stride slow but deliberate. She had come from the east, so her feet led her westward across a vast, dormant grassland. A small mountain rose up on her right and Bat thought she saw a winding river ahead. It wasn't as familiar as the far side of the wilds, though Bat knew where she was and, more importantly, where she was going. She tipped her chin and squinted at the mountains far off in the distance.

Across that jagged sierra and beyond another, larger one, Bat hoped she would still find the Firebirds nestled in their copse. The journey would take a week or two, especially as she would need to find a route that didn't include the coastline; she would never set foot within sight of the ocean again, so long as she lived. It would take however long it took and Bat wouldn't rest until she found Tegan's family (and her own) to tell them... to tell them... to tell them...

i think towhee is gonna bite my dick off when we see her, said a voice that absolutely merked the fuck out of the pleasant, winter silence. and who’s voice was it, you ask? 

tegan fucking blackthorn!! who! oh my god! he’s alive! tegan’s alive! well, no shit, honey. you think i’d kick this dumbass to the curb so early in the game? deprive the whole site from having to read his god forsaken posts? okay. yeah. sure. 

anyway, on with your newest season of tegan, entitled ‘i’m not a fuck up this time’. we’ll see if you can read a book by it’s cover.

i mean — last time i saw her i did kill a bird. and the other bird left. granted — i guess she was leaving to start her own pack so she might not even be there anymore, he paused again, do you think anyone’s still there? — wait, well i guess mom and dad have to be there — and i bet eljay’s umbilical cord is still attached so he’ll probably be there. and — ugh what if clover’s still there? we’ll have to go somewhere else if clover’s there i’m not dealing with that shit. 

another pause, one a little more blank than before. what was your question?

...to tell them Tegan was dead. Well, braindead. (Maybe that wasn't precisely the correct term but it wasn't like Bat was a medical doctor or anything.)

She slowed a little, one large ear cupping backward at those familiar dulcet tones behind her before Bat glanced over her shoulder. There was fondness written all over her face at her companion's blathering. There had been a time, not long after finding themselves somehow alive after being chewed up and spat out by the Pacific Ocean, when Tegan hadn't been capable of speech. It might've been funny, if it hadn't scared her half to death. Considering she'd been half dead already, well...

They'd both been in rough shape, to put it mildly. But slowly and surely, they'd recovered. So what if Tegan was a little scatterbrained these days? Bat didn't love him any less. And she'd never lost her patience with him, not even once, nor left his side. It was some kind of goddamn miracle that they were both alive and she didn't take that shit for granted for even one second. She still didn't know how they'd managed that. But Bat tried not too dwell on those final moments too much, nor what it had been like waking up in the aftermath of the wave.

They were together and, now, they were home. "Well, almost," she said to herself, facing forward again. Speaking a little louder, she added, "I said, who the fuck is Clover?" The corners of her mouth twitched up into a playful smirk as she picked up the pace. Nowadays, she could laugh (good-naturedly, of course!) over Tegan's brain damage.

okay fine, it wasn't the same old tegan. it mostly was, but bat's inner monologue was right -- he was quite scatterbrained. he could remember just about everything, but occasionally they needed to be repeated to him. and multi-tasking? not right now, no ma'am. clover's my sister, he said, giving her a pointed nudge to the shoulder, keep up. he'd get better with time, it was just a relapse of that old concussion. i mean, who could be mad at him for that? he got sucked into a tidal wave. jeez. it's a miracle they washed up on the same beach.

okay i know we've been through this -- but we're not staying with the firebirds, right? going to see my parents, checking in on the redhawks, and then we're like.. going elsewhere right? his ears flicked. he would bash his brains out to have to stay in the same, toxic pack again for another month. that's what the redhawks were, right? toxic. god knows how bat had managed to escape that branding -- and even then she'd been on thin ice for a while... but we'll move on.

"Keep up," he said, which was funny for all sorts of reasons. Bat paused to let him catch up to her, cuffing him playfully on the shoulder and then falling into step with him as they continued their trek. It was still mid-afternoon but the sun was already dipping low. Soon, it would hide out behind the mountains and they would need to stop somewhere to rest for the night. For now, the yearling squinted her silver eyes against the increasing glare before turning her face toward Tegan.

"Right, that's the plan," she agreed, bobbing her head. They had gone over this, more than once, but Bat patiently repeated the itinerary: "We're just going to swing by and let them know we're okay. They don't know about—" She breathed in sharply before continuing. "—but they haven't heard from us in a while so they're probably wondering. We'll just visit for a few days, then we'll decide what to do and where to go from there." Bat smiled brightly, showing teeth. "Doesn't matter, as long as we're together," she concluded, ducking in anticipation of being whacked for her cheesiness.