Whack-A-What?

Aoife bounded along cheerfully despite the long distance, and the fact that she was taking at least two steps to every one of her family members' steps. Even if she had been tired, which of course she wasn't, she was just plain too stubborn to not keep up with everyone. At this point she was getting used to the way her legs always ached trying to match gait with everyone else and thought nothing of it. It was just the way things were. And, really, she was getting a lot stronger and more enduring for it, too. Maybe she could get a big friend like her mother had with Aelloshir, so it could pull her around in a wagon or something. Hmm but then she'd get fat and lazy so maybe she could just walk and still have a big friend, like Tay was her little bird.

The aforementioned little bird was now fully feathered and able to fly, though she still wasn't great at it, so she rode in style on Aoife's back, where a rather holey cloth sling from Tay's baby-days was tied around Aoife's neck to hold her quills down to keep them from sticking the swift. Tay was watching everything around them with the quick, sharp gaze of an insect-hunter, and indeed every once in a while launched off Aoife to catch something and return.

Then her mother seemed to pause, and change their course as though following something, and Aoife raised her head, straining her nose and ears to catch the same trail as she followed along with her mother. They stopped to see... Aoife, and Tay now having fluttered to Aoife's head and clinging to one quill with one foot and her forehead fur with the other, peeked around her mother. "Those aren't a harbinger, Mama," she sighed, disappointed. "Those're just boys."