It's Spring....

[Dhugal]

..and through out the Myrken Wood a dreaded sound is heard...

TCCCCCCHK! TCCCCCHK!!

Small, or perhaps large, furry feet scamper through the melting
snow and wet underbrush in search of their nuts..

TCCCCHK! TCCCCCCHK!

It's Springtime for Myrken...

and the cry of the Were-Squirrel is heard throughout the land...

[Alix]

TCCCCCCHK! TCCCCCHK!!

Alix emerged from a gully of ferns and stopped.

The silver birches and oaks seemed bent over in a webbed canopy, dappling the forest floor in speckled light; shadows sat like spectres in the regions of deepest green.

TCCCCCCHK! TCCCCCHK!!

Gooseflesh ran like cold water on her spine, and she cast her cool eyes to the hidden sky, where a falcon soared. They've returned,she thought, and then a sudden realization came to her.

Dressed in skins and furs, the ranger dashed easily up the hill, where her small hut leaned with old timber and stone perched like an eyrie overlooking part of the river and forest. The door was a large flap of dry cloth, and she paused once before bursting into her sparse, brown quarters.

"I knew it," her face was clouded and grim as she looked upon the disaster of open cabinet and overturned sacks, berries and nuts spilled across the floor - though not in excess. They'd taken most of it.

She knew with a certainty beyond the new flowers and the traces of warmth on the wind that it was Springtime now.

The Were-Squirrels were back.