When she wakes, there isn’t much that could have stirred her except for the shifting away of Constantine (her favorite cousin, as she believed him to be) and Samia. They were both so warm, so soft, and she was utterly smitten with the idea of them, pairing them in her head like some sort of cupid. She had fanciful dreams, even if those dreams were oft stunted by her own full sister of the litter before Samia’s own.

Her eyes are dreary as Seamus beckons them to follow, sending Constantine and Vladimir and Herschel to gather the others. She wonders what kind of strange ritual this might have been, her brother Alexander having been quite the storyteller of their Nanruan beliefs, until she sees the look on Samia’s face and follows closely to her sister’s shoulder.

It is when they find her father and mother that Feather’s fears and discomfort are truly realized. They had been so alive the last few weeks, so vibrant. Her mother’s eyes had been as blue as robin eggs, her father’s teeth more glittering than the snow that makes him sparkle in the moonlight now. The moon was moving from red to white, now, Seamus asking Alexander, their guide, to sing for them, for Mother Moon.

She goes, though, with choking breaths, and follows as her littermate steps forward - taking a place by her mother’s head where it lays forever more. Her heart is heavier than it had ever been and she is desperate that her mother’s eyes should open one last time - to remind Feather that she was loved and that even if she was built a little bigger - that she was still as beautiful as her sisters.

She lays her head over her cooling mother as the howl goes up and she whines softly in tune, hardly able to breathe - much less sing - until the end when her tinkling bell-like voice crescendos with the others.