Sun Mote Copse Shaking nations.

"More than happy to," Towhee repeated when Wraen requested a training session for herself. The mercenary felt another hit of guilt when the Sovereign asked for a rain check, citing her exhaustion. She made a mental note to wrap up this conversation and let Wraen get back to her nap, even if the leader didn't seem in any particular haste herself.

When the Sovereign brought up Sugar, Towhee's lips pulled into a pensive line. Whose blood? The words always lurked in the back of her mind whenever she thought of the girl now. She realized she should possibly mention it to Wraen, if not Elwood and Finley. But Towhee kept her silence. Maybe just a deer's, she told herself, intuiting somehow that it wasn't the case but shutting down the thought right there.

Her thoughts ended up somewhere else, though it wasn't much better. "There was Rue, in the grove," Towhee said, now frowning in full, "but she was hurt, then she vanished with the others." She shook her head. "I'm not sure where exactly they ended up either. They said they didn't intend to go very far and I meant to send X to find them..." She swallowed thickly, remembering finding the hawk's corpse just last week. She had laid X to rest beside Orca on The Roost; she wouldn't be winging any more messages for Towhee.

Now she felt like she needed to excuse herself from the conversation and go find somewhere to curl up in a ball, probably, but Wraen wasn't done with her yet. Besides, Towhee hadn't really finished her train of thought. After the Sovereign mentioned Eljay again, the former Kilonova (and possibly future Regent) picked up where she'd left off and said, "Maybe if Sugar's up for it, we could locate Raven's pack in the spring and send her there for training. I'm absolutely sure Rave would welcome it. And as for Eljay..." She remembered talking to Finley about this very subject, back in summer, and repeated exactly what she'd said then: "I don't think there's anything anyone else can do, aside from being there and being supportive. The rest is up to him."

She glanced off to the side, suppressing any further comment. She had never had much time for Eljay and truthfully felt like he was a lost cause. He was pretty useless, in Towhee's opinion, though she jotted down a mental note to track him down soon. She had attempted to train him before and it hadn't gone much of anywhere but he could be her pet project. Certainly, he would be among the most difficult to train, yet Towhee wouldn't let her personal feelings about him get in the way, nor let the challenge of it stop her.

"Anyway," she spoke up again after a beat, "I can let you get back to your nap now, if you like, and I'll get right down to that training business."