"He eats nothing but doves, love, and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love." Paris to Helen of Troy in Troilus and Cressida

Sabine sighed, smearing the rest of the petroleum jelly over the body of the underdeveloped bird before placing it in the heated gel that would be it's home for the next week or two.

"Will it make it?" asked Kenzou, her youngest son, his 14 year old head looking strangely feminine with his antlers having shed. His large ears raised and lowered in anxiety, his caribou nose flaring as the pungent smell of the medical gel that his mother was using.

"I don't know," Sabine said honestly. Her red wolf tail drooped in disappointment in having to admit it. Her antlers hadn't shed yet, and wouldn't for months. Female caribou kept their antlers for longer than their male counterparts, and being older and almost past child bearing age, she kept hers for several years in a row before they decided to fall out and regrow. "It's very underdeveloped, it wasn't near being hatched."

"That's kinda gross," Dabi, her daughter, said. At ten years old, she was long ostrich neck leaned forward to get a closer look at the grossness she had proclaimed, her sharp chicken beak making her frown even more pronounced.

"That's how you started out," Sabine told her.

"This is the third one Mom has saved," Kenzou told his little sister, "besides you."

"Are we going to keep it?" Dabi asked.

Sabine laughed. "I suppose that depends on a lot of things." She covered the tray that little bird lay in with a light blanket and set the timer on the microwave for two hours. She would have to turn the little thing to another position to keep it forming properly and to distribute its body weight. Its delicate skin, which would be paper thin when it was full grown, and was barely there at the moment as an embryo, would have to stay moisturized and its body warm. She would be getting very little sleep for next few weeks. Already, in her mind, she was amassing a list of items she would need to obtain from the Back Street Market. She hated going there, but it easy to get whatever she wanted, and most of the shopkeepers knew her and helped her get things, even if they didn't have them to start with. She wasn't expecting to make another visit to Gouhin so soon, but it looked like she would be seeing him sooner rather than later. Thank goodness for those with real university degrees and the connections they brought.

"Is it a hybrid, do you think?" asked Kenzou. He looked every bit of the caribou that he was, tall and stocky, the only sign of his wolf grandfather being his teeth within his perfectly formed caribou muzzle.

"Probably not," Sabine said with a sigh. "I think Dabi was a special case." She winked at the little girl, dressed in her frilly pink nightgown. The girl blinked sleepily. "To bed with both you," she said. "You have school in the morning."

In the distance, through the open window, the sound of a wolf's howl carried through the night, as if the full moon herself helped it along. The hair on Sabine's ruff rose by instinct, but her mouth drew back in a smile, showing her the teeth she inherited from her father. Both kids perked up, and Sabine's second son, who had retreated to his bedroom shortly after the lion had dropped the chick off, came running into the living room.

"What's it say, Mom, what's it say?" His voice sounded much younger than his seventeen years. His antlers hadn't shed yet, but Sabine knew they would any day now, giving him a much younger look.

"Is it a male or female?" Dabi asked.

"Where is it coming from?" Kenzou insiststed.

"It's a male," Sabine explained. "And he's just saying 'Here I am.'" She went to the open window and looked out. "I think it's coming from the hill, perhaps from the school up there."

"Answer him," Kenzou said.

Sabine clicked her tongue and gave Kenzou a dubious look.

"Please?" he begged.

Sabine sighed, there was little she could deny her children. They did not ask much, and what was a howl, besides rude? Her neighbors already thought little of her, just by how she looked. What difference would a howl make? She took a deep breath, leaned out the window, and let out a long, high, answering howl.

Jack the labrador laughed out loud at Legosi's surprised face when the distant howled echoed his. "Oh my god!" he giggled, his tail wagging quickly. "Somebody answered you!"

Legosi the gray wolf blushed, but his tail was also wagging. "She's just saying 'I'm here.'," Legosi shrugged.

"I know," Jack jumped, his ears flopping with the movement, then came to the edge of the wall to look out over the city from their high perch at Cherryton School. "But that's so cool that she answered." He looked up at his best friend, smiling for the first time in a long while, and enjoyed the feeling his tail wagging behind him.

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