Ah, yes. Cypress. Hearing her name in the context of a budding new (old?) relationship with Birch almost made Jacopo wince. He bit the grimace back before it could escape, but couldn’t entirely hide the grim expression. Cypress’s anger towards Birch was a teenage storm which had been brewing since the latter’s return to life, occasionally bubbling over into shouting fits. Thus far, Jacopo had stayed out of it, deciding it was none of his business. Now he had no choice but to meet it head-on.

“I’ll talk to her,” he grunted, pulling Birch a little closer. The prospect of managing a teenage temper tantrum wasn’t making going home sound all that appealing, especially since the alternative was uninterrupted time with Birch.

Just as the phrase uninterrupted time with Birch was drifting through his mind, they were interrupted by a strange sound from outside. It was long and vowel-heavy, like a wail or a howl, and Jacopo could only just make out the words: cooooome oooooooon! It sounded remarkably like Cypress hollering up the stairs to Alder when he was dragging his feet.

A few minutes later, answering wails rent open then sky.

Coooooomiiiiiiiiiing.

Uuuuuuuuuugh.

Jacopo sat up, pulling the flap of the tent open a little to try and hear better. Neither he nor Birch had closed the door in their haste, and there was no one around anyway – or so they’d thought. Jacopo frowned, listening to more voices pitch in, their words muddling together. The only word he could make out above the din was huuuuuuuuuunt!

Having been incarcerated twice before, there was little that scared Jacopo anymore – but a disembodied voice howling huuuuuunt into the night was ominous by anyone’s standards.

“Who is that?” He asked as he quickly pulled on some clothes, not really expecting an answer. Birch might be better in the great outdoors than he was, but this didn’t seem like a normal outdoorsy phenomenon. He pushed himself through the flap and straightened up outside, looking past the smouldering remains of their fire to the treeline. “Who the hell is out hunting at this hour? And so loudly?”