The birds? Sometimes. When they get close enough to say hello to.

[Not that his ability to speak with them was in any way supernatural. He just treated them the same as he had the Outsider's wolfhounds and the maidenfish. He treated them like people.

Unless he was hunting for food. And then it was just a matter of making sure he wasn't taking a mother from her children. He tried to be very careful when he went for meat of any kind and usually chose fish over fowl or other small animals. But he wasn't so picky that he wouldn't take what he could get and many areas he traveled through didn't have easy access to waters with fish in them.]

But they've all been pretty absent. Normally I would think of it as the effects of this winter, but even when I checked trees for owls and birds that nest inside to make sure they weren't frozen, they were gone. Like they had all just abandoned the forest.

[Wan settled back under his tarp and on the bedroll, drawing his blanket up around him as he spoke. It took a lot of energy to keep himself warm, whether he wanted to admit it or not.]

I was worried. But I'm glad to know they're not in danger.