Haüyne hadn't been as badly affected by the endless night as his siblings had, but now that the sun was up his paws itched to explore more again. The pack was gone and they'd stayed in the north, which suited the young man just fine. His parents seemed to have settled into a sort of easy retirement now that they had no more pack life demands and while Hau wasn't eager to fly the coop just yet his paws were itching to explore at least a little bit. So today he'd gone beyond the wall, icy blue eyes reaching skyward to gape openly up at the massive trees. He'd never seen trees so large! "Speech"

Art by mariiaartwolf

From up in the trees, Aster poked her beak into an abandoned woodpecker’s hole. There wasn’t much to be found, but there were a few grubs—not to bad, for picking over someone else’s hard work. Woodpeckers were a stupid lot, as prone to forgetting their grub spots like squirrels forgot their acorn caches. With the last grub clutched in her beak, Aster hopped off the branch.

She landed on one of the tree’s lower branches, well out of reach of the wolf below, and gulped down the last insect.

“Hello, strange wolf!” Aster shrieked. Non-birds typically ignored her if they thought she was talking to herself—which, fair enough, most corvids often did—and she wanted to make her understanding of the wolves’ language obvious. “My name is Aster. What might you be doing underneath my last-night’s-shelter-tree?”