#te: devlog

"Hawk, could you help me put it on?" You hold one pendant out to them, and after a moment's hesitation, they take it.

Hawk's tail thumps the ground as they sit beside you, impatiently waiting for the moon to set. You flip the veggie burgers that you've been grilling, and Hawk responds to the renewed sizzling with a rumbling growl. If you didn't know them, you might have been alarmed, but since you're familiar with the limited vocabulary of Hawk's wolf form, you know that it merely indicates impatient excitement. You scratch behind Hawk's large pointed ears, and their tail thumping increases in enthusiasm.

One would think that spending time with a werewolf during a full moon wouldn't involve mundane things like barbequing a healthy dinner. But these days, with the vampire threat mostly under control, mundane is what full moons usually look like for you. Indeed, one of the primary difficulties you face is that Hawk's vegetarian diet apparently tastes much less satisfying to a wolf palate than a human one, so "dinner" has been relocated to the early morning hours when the full moon finally sets. But judging by the continued low rumbling and the way Hawk is leaning heavily against you, the wait has, as usual, not been a pleasant one. You run your fingers through their thick fur, and golden eyes look up at you plaintively. If you ever called that expression puppy-dog eyes, they'd deny it—but that's exactly what it is. Keeping that thought to yourself, you remove the finished burgers from the grill as the moon continues to sink below the horizon.

Deep in the woods, another member of Hawk's pack begins to howl, and a chorus of werewolf voices follows until Hawk sits up and throws their head back to join in. No matter how many times you've heard it, Hawk's howl still gives you chills. Even with all the strange and fantastical things you've experienced as a vampire hunter, your mate's howl feels otherworldly.

"Do you have any geckos, Hawk?"

"Geckos?"

"Those little ones that eat magic. We—"

"Glyph geckos. They don't 'eat' magic."

"Well, whatever they do with it, we have some." Quill's pale face is lit by the hot blaze of the lodge's eternal furnace as they cast their darkened, rapidly eroding blade into it. Quill's rust-brown eyes are transfixed as the furnace melts the metal, crackling as it burns away the caustic blood of the otherworldly creature that was its last kill. "Shame. Had that one for twenty winters. Ah well."

Hawk gives them a few moments of silence before reminding them: "The geckos?"

"Oh. Yes. Do you want some?" Forcing themself to turn away from the flame, Quill leads the way back down the hill toward the lodge. Though it should be early summer, the Frostwood's eternal winter leaves a permanent layer of snow on the ground. "Ever since the humans to the east have decided they don't like magic anymore, the geckos have been coming here. The only place there's enough magic to keep them alive, I think. So we—Zephyr and I—we've been letting them into the lodge. Too cold and dangerous for them out in the 'Wood." Quill presses their gloved palm to the featureless wood door of the lodge, and it opens, spilling warmth into the forest. "But they've been eating—absorbing, or whatever it is—our wards, and Ember won't let us keep them anymore. Can you take some?"

"You want them to weaken my wards instead?"

Quill shrugs. "You have the time to renew them."

"Everyone seems to believe I have infinite time to dispense magic on demand."

Quill spins around and crosses their arms over their chest as they look up at Hawk. There's a nearly two-foot difference in height between them, but Quill has always possessed the confidence of a small dog that has no idea its ancestors haven't been wolves for millennia. "I'm asking for your help to save these little creatures. They'll die if we release them. I know you'll say yes, so will you stop giving me a hard time and agree already?"

Hawk sighs. "Let me see them first."