"That was very quick. That was suspiciously quick."
"It's a clearing. Dwellings. Fire pits. A few bigger structures."
"Dwellings. As in buildings."
"As in buildings."
"Werewolves have buildings."
"We also have furniture, Mel."
"Do you have a place I can work? I need a flat surface, clean water, and somewhere that isn't damp. The paste can't get damp. If the paste gets damp I have to start over and I don't have enough moonbright to start over."
"There'll be somewhere."
"Somewhere is vague."
"It's a big clearing."
"Is there moonbright growing near it? Wild moonbright? Because I'm almost out and the cultivated stuff is useless, it has to be wild, and if there's none growing nearby I need to figure out a supply route before Kestria's next application, which is in about five hours, and—"
"Mel."
"What?"
"Breathe."
"I'm breathing. I'm walking and breathing and carrying a chicken and doing mental inventory of my herb supply, which is pathetic, by the way. Three usable bundles. Maybe four if I can dry the wilted ones properly. Do you have drying racks?"
Kestria's quiet for a second. "I don't know."
"You don't know if you have drying racks."
"I've never needed to dry herbs."
"Right. Werewolf." I step over a root. "You just eat raw deer and call it dinner."
"We cook, Mel."
"You cook the deer you killed with your teeth."
"Are you ever going to let that go?"
"Absolutely not. That's a lifelong reference now. Twenty years from now I'll bring it up at meals."
"Bold of you to assume we'll still be eating together in twenty years."
"Bold of you to assume I'll stop talking about it."
Kestria grins, but it's thin. Her hand's drifting to her side again.
"I'm fine."
"Didn't say anything."
"Your face said it."
"My face is minding its own business. What about water? Clean water."
