Black wings fluttered high among the tangled thorn-vines. The branches of the trees scrawled a series of dark and jagged slashes against the moons beyond, where they hung low in the sky; in silence, the crow flew to the highest, looking around with sharp, keen jerks of his head.

Ruby eyes studied the forest.

The pines were north: to the cold-place. He could see the distant wood where it rose on the swell of sweeping hills and cliffs, even see the brief glimmer of the vast lake many miles distant. It was a clear night; and turning west, he could see the clotted cluster of black foliage that thickened toward the heart of the Tangle.

"CAW. CAW. CAW." His voice rang out, a jarring echo in the stillness of the night, steam pluming from his black beak.

Feathers ruffled, and he flew to another branch, and then another still. He'd called for Elerrian all along the western edge of the forest, as loudly as he'd dared, and crows were hardly night-birds; his cries were out of place, difficult to not notice, or ignore. Likely, the Thornbeasts had caught wind of him, but they didn't fly, and so their predations didn't concern Matchsticks overmuch.

Another quiet flutter, and he'd returned to a branch a dozen yards back; on this hung a small, ancient, worn canvas bag and in this, he'd kept his few tiny treasures.

These consisted of a silver, finned cylinder--a space shuttle, of sorts, though Matchsticks didn't know that--on a keychain; a small and battered cardboard matchbox, with a few matches yet remaining; a rolled-up poster featuring a map of the Caldera; and a battered plastic or rhinestone necklace with half its glittering 'gemstones' missing or smeared with grime. The newest addition was a totem: a small thing he'd made himself, after Squirrus' direction. It was a small, black and twisted thing. 'Pray,' Squirrus had said, but Matchsticks didn't know to whom, or to what, he was to pray.

After long consideration, he'd decided that he liked shiny objects, food, and safety--staying hidden; and so he'd woven those concepts into his own, tiny totem. It was black--scraps of stick, of dead black leaves, of dark cloth he'd scrounged up in the city. A few Tangle thorns were jammed haphazardly into the little figure (a clumsy replica of the near-humanoid shape that Squirrus' had taken), and he'd taken two of the glittering rhinestones and stuck them on there, too. To represent food, he'd taken two small mouse-bones, and put those in; the result was a strange little cross of swathes of black, jutting bones and misplaced shinies.

Matchsticks adored it.

Where the hell is Ganymedes? Wasn't Viti coming? And where's Elerrian? I wonder if she got lost. I wonder if thornbeasts got her. Matchsticks took wing, flying a greater distance, this time, cawing as he went; the Tangle was large, and stopping to listen for replies simply wouldn't work. So he crowed, as he went, and when he finally settled near the western edges of the Tangle, he hoped that anyone hearing him might have followed.

"CAW... CAW... CAW..."

In the distance, as he settled in to wait--cawing on occasion, as a noisy beacon of sorts--he studied the western edge of the Tangle.

In the East--though Matchsticks did not know this--the world fell away in a cliff. In the West, however, the land abutted a cliff of its own: a high wall of rock that rose high above the black forest. But against this, at times--and more clearly now, this close--there was something else: a straight black spire, an unnatural shape, that rose towering against the cliff behind. It was this that Matchsticks wanted to investigate--and this for which he was calling his allies.