By the time they'd finished the pizza and only the drinks were left, the ice in the cooler hadn't yet melted, but the night had fallen so dark that the fire just barely lit the campground and the three vehicles now parked around it. The skinny tanuki was on his feet by the fire, doing impressions that had Abi in stitches--at the moment he'd made himself huge and muscular, although his sweatshirt hadn't really changed at all and was now rather small on him.

"Nah, nah," the werewolf was saying, and the tanuki glanced over questioningly. "Too big. Smaller, dude."

With a puff of white smoke, the tanuki was suddenly smaller, but still deep chested and more muscular than normal.

"No, no," the werewolf said, "He's real small, Joe. Real petite-like." Joe frowned and in another puff of smoke made himself slender and shapely. "Exactly."

With one last cloud of smoke and a scoff, Joe was back to normal. "Pfft, you ain't never seen him either," he said disparagingly. "No way is Cynn Numair that dainty."

"Joke's on you, bro," the werewolf answered sardonically. "I saw 'im in the paper when he was last here, in like, 1989. Y'all babies're prolly too young to remember." This last part was partly addressed at Teige and Hawk; Teige was seated on the ground, Hawk on the bench next to him, both listening to this conversation with some interest.

"Mardi said he's huge as shit!" Joe argued.

"Mardi thinks trick birds are real," the werewolf retorted. "Anyway, how Mardi know? Them Escalans don't even see their own Cynn much. He's always locked up in the palace, in't he."

Someone tapped Hawk gently on the shoulder then, pulling him away from the argument. Aram had sidled up behind him; he signed, "Pass me another beer?"

"Oh, yeah," Hawk said, smiling a bit, and turned to reach into the cooler. Movement got his attention. Minnie was sitting in the driver's seat of the camper, and Parker was standing next to it. Hawk couldn't hear what they were saying, but they were clearly arguing--as he watched, Parker turned away angrily, and Minnie rolled her eyes, sinking into the seat.

"I'm real glad you're into learning sign language," Aram said presently.