[Birdland]

Magda paused, her trunk in mid-air. She shuffled her feet and fanned her ears upright in uncertainty.

"There are no true wolves anymore. Not for tens of generations."

"Fedwie crept back towards the left side of Magda's head. "What is a Warg?" he asked timidly.

Corvu turned and looked at him through one black eye. "What is a WARG?" she asked with astonishment. "Did your mother give you no education, chit?"

My mother taught us everything she knew!" Fedwie bristled. "If there was danger, we knew how to recognize it and how to escape it. Jackels, foxes, cats, hawks,...er...crows. But I've never seen a Warg, or a 'true wolf', before" he lowered his head and crept nearer. "Please tell me."

"A wolf would not concern himself with prey like you, Fedwie", Magda chuckled. They would seek larger game. Or would, if they were free to choose where and what to hunt.

But long ago the wolf kind bound themselves, body and soul, to the two-legs known as the Goblins. They were not tamed, like the dog-folk, or chained into slavery...as you see me now," Magda sighed. This was something different, and even darker. For the wolf-folk aligned themselves with the goblin kind, though they still roamed free through the forests of the North, their lives were totally controlled by their two-legged masters. They do not hunt, nor mate, nor roam, except by the bidding of the Goblins, though there is neither chain, nor whip, nor lure of food to bind them. Certainly there is no love. They are mindless, and souless beings. No animal in all our history has been controlled in such a way. How this control was achieved, none of us know. I doubt that even the wolves know."

"And so the wolf-kind became the Wargs. And Wargs they have remained throughout the generations."

"But not these two!" Corvu exclaimed, flapping her wings in excitement. "I saw! I know! And the female denied it herself! Not wargs! Wolves! True Wolves!"

Fedwie looked around in the dying light, and shuddered. "But will Goblins come looking for them? Will they try to control them? Will they try to control us, too?"

Magda and Corvu threw back their heads and laughed. "No, Fedwie, as far as I know, the Goblin-kind have never required the services of Warg mice." Magda smiled grimly, and glanced at the black and grey bird on her back. "Now the Crebain, that is another story."

Corvu's laughter turned off like it was controlled by a switch. Her beak snapped shut, the sound echoing across the compound like a broken branch. She dug her claws into the hide of the Oliphaunt, and looked off into the distance. "We will not speak of those kind, here", she said in an uncomfortable tone.

"Besides", she added in irritation. "You know very well, Magda, that we carrion crows are solitary scavengers."

At that moment, a scrambling sound was heard coming along the mud wall of the compound. The three animals looked up to see a small monkey walking along the top of the wall, looking nervously over his shoulder at the encroaching darkness. He crept up to the head of the Oliphaunt, made a respectful gesture and said, "I come seeking Magda the Oliphaunt, and Corvu, the carrion crow. I have messages for both of you from my master, Malificent. Am I addressing the animals I seek?"