Shota spent the night with the egrets, roosting high and dry in a pine tree, waking before the sun to bid them farewell before they woke up enough for more than perfunctory SQUAWKS. That didn't start in earnest until they'd finished breakfast and the sun was well up. He thanked them for their help and extracted a further promise to tell everyone they met about the sparrow Shota's need to find the Crane-girl. He left them shaking last night's rain off their feathers as a prelude to fishing for breakfast when he flew off.
His knowledge of cranes was limited to what he'd learned from the egrets. He wished he could ask Azuki. She was on her way to knowing as much as Uncle! Like toki or themselves, the egrets said, cranes liked to live near water, though they preferred fresh and brackish to sa
