Redhawk Caldera We're the guys that stop the monsters.

-Go find Phox,- Towhee signed to X before repeating the command out loud. He gave her a sharp look, then obeyed. The she-wolf watched as he spread his wings and swooped into the air, quickly gaining altitude and circling several times before banking hard to the left and soaring in the direction of the rendezvous site.

When he was out of sight, the mercenary turned and squinted in the direction of the Drageda camp. Towhee began padding along the borders, casually patrolling even as she made her way toward their guests. Our allies, she mentally corrected. The closer she came, the more her tread slowed, so that she veritably crept toward the makeshift settlement. Her orange eyes scanned for the color red, though she wasn't searching for her sister, Wildfire, but for her niece, @Blixen.

last time they'd been at the caldera, blixen had been restless over her mother, sick with worry, refusing to move from her self imposed vigil but for that time she patroled with towhee. this time she's on a vigil of a different sort, and happy to be making up lost time with her mother - but she's restless for a different reason and it's bothersome, to say the least. furi can take care of herself, blix tells herself about forty times a day, like a manta. you wanted her to come, she reminds herself, between mouthfuls of meat and before she closes her eyes to sleep. 

and it's true: furi can take care of herself, obviously, considering she'd been living on her own before eske scooped her up. and blix isn't competitive enough to think too hard about who was better at being a gona (the answer, though, was obviously blixen, who'd never brought home a bunch of strays because they looked sad -- but this is irrelevant to fighting, which is what war is about). but there's a lot of variables still and all of blix's attention has to be on mother. she has a job. 

she frets anyway and hates it.

honestly she's not expecting to see her -- cousin? aunt? let's go with aunt this time -- as much as she enjoyed their last patrol, she remembers that towhee didn't seem particularly fond of them being around. but then again, it's different this time now they've got a common enemy. either way it's a welcome surprise and she gets up from her spot (where is she definitely not watching the general direction furi is in, not at all) and trots over, expression bright. "hey, towhee!" she chirps, remembering to speak up, "who're you looking for?"

Although she wouldn't claim to see as well as her raptor companion, Towhee's sharp eyes made up in part for her inability to hear. She quite quickly located Blixen's slim red form, noting that she looked a little less youthful than the last time they'd met. Her orange eyes followed Blixen's every movement as she caught sight of Towhee and made her way over, clearly happy to see the deaf yearling despite Towhee's general lack of warmth.

She managed the most fleeting of smiles for her sister's daughter and readily answered, "You. I want to make sure I'm—we're all—ready for what's about to happen. Spar with me." It was a mixture between a demand and an invitation. Towhee's expression hardened as she awaited a reaction, not because she disliked Blixen or expected her to turn her nose up at the suggestion—quite the opposite, actually—but because there was nothing quite as sobering as preparing for war.

Cameo for now :3

Furi gets why she hasn’t spent much time with Blixen since they left Drageda but it doesn’t mean she likes it. If she was reunited with her mother, she’d probably do the same thing, and so most of the time she feels defeated over the very thing she should be happy about. She may never get to see her mother again and every day she fades more and more, as well as the others. It’s been so long since she’s seen them and when it pops up, she clings to it as much as she can.

Her thoughts as disrupted at the flash of red moving and her ears cup forward, picking herself up to all fours, but before she gets a chance to move any closer, Blixen already has a set destination. Furi frowns as she watches her, and glances to the other wolf, but stands in the background until she awkwardly pretends like she hasn’t been staring, and looks away for something else.

distantly she notes furi moving but does not track her, distracted first by towhee smiling (it looks weird) and second by towhee basically demanding a spar out of nowhere. well, not entirely out of nowhere, given the circumstances, but surprising enough that it takes her a beat, and then a grin splits her muzzle. "yeah," she says, and then tries to adopt towhee's serious expression (it looks weird) and repeats, "yes," with a nod of her head.  blix hasn't sparred with anyone other than nomi - but she always wants to, and she remembers that towhee'd been on the edge of earning a mastery and that's impressive. "now?" she adds, and she hopes the answer is yeah, duh. 

She quirked an eyebrow at what she considered to be a silly question. "Yes," Towhee replied in her usual clunky, wooden intonation, "no—" Before the word "now" could fully emerge from her mouth, a shadow passed overhead, causing her to cut off as she jerked her head upward. Her already stony expression pinched as she watched X circling.

"Go find Phox!" she called again, expression impatient and voice harsh. When the raptor only continued to circle, she dropped her eyes to Blixen and said, "That's X. He usually listens to me. I don't—" Her voice abruptly cut off again as the bird swooped down and landed rather roughly in the space between the two she-wolves.

The hawk's head jerked side to side, each golden eye boring into her plaintively as if begging her to understand. The two of them still didn't communicate effectively, other than X's obedience of simple commands. But as Towhee watched his quick, urgent movements, an idea struck her.

"Did you look for Phox?" she questioned. X opened his beak and gave a cry. She didn't hear it, though she thought she understood. "You couldn't find him?" To Towhee's amazement, he shook his head rapidly in the universal gesture for "no." "He's probably outside the territory hunting. If anyone can locate him, it's you, X." She reached out a paw to gently bump it against the bird's proud breast.

X crouched, then exploded into the air again, quickly winging out of sight. Turning her attention back to her would-be opponent, Towhee blinked casually and asked, "Ready?"

first: blixen is not an idiot. she'll take a distraction when it's offered her, but she doesn't get distracted by every little thing going on. it would make for a bad guardian, after all. 

but,

second: what the fuck.

there's some bird overhead and instinctively blixen pulls back, still sore at all bird-kind thanks to the one that stole a bit of her fur. towhee starts to explain - the bird has a name, and that name is X, apparently, but none of that really matters because the bird is swooping down between them and towhee is talking to it. she's asking about someone named phox, and the bird, is, she guesses, listening? and responding. and giving it... a pep talk?

in any other situation this might be a little heart warming. blixen is mostly confused. she looks around a little awkwardly, noticing furi nearby-ish, and makes a face like you saw this, right? right? before towhee calls her attention again and asks if blix is ready to spar as if nothing out of the ordinary just happened.

about four different questions catch in her mouth at once, coming out: "you -- bird?" ugh, no, towhee's gonna think she's an idiot. shaking her head, she tries again: "you.. have a bird?" is "have" the right word? is there a right word for this situation? what did towhee want to do with her again? oh, right, spar. right. "sure," she says belatedly, though her eyes are scanning the air where the bird flew off, clearly distracted, for better or worse.

*flings NPCs and PPCs all over the place*

She fought back a small smirk at Blixen's obvious bewilderment. "Yeah," she said, "you don't?" Towhee glanced in the direction X had gone, then dropped her gaze and explained, "He broke his wing. It's healed now, but while he was on the mend, I took care of him. We... bonded, I guess you could say." She shrugged one white-streaked shoulder.

Towhee then promptly began assuming a fighter's position. But before she could even ask Blixen to take the defensive role in their first round, someone ran up to them. Grumbling at this second interruption, the Gamma snapped, "What?" It turned out to be a breathless @Orca, who looked a little confused and hurt by Towhee's scowl.

-Sorry, we're just,- Towhee said, gesturing emphatically at Blixen, -trying to get in some training.- She consciously smoothed out her face. -What's up?- she prompted, mustering up patience.

"I know you're the last person on earth to ask," Orca began, "but have you seen Tit around here anywhere? Raven was looking for him; she has some sort of treatment..."

Jaw clenching, Towhee shook her head. "No."

Orca sighed. "I didn't think so." She paused, then asked, "What about Gannet? I haven't seen him in a few days either."

Towhee tried to think of the last time she'd seen Gannet. She couldn't even remember. -No, sorry. They probably both ran off, like they do,- she added scornfully. Towhee was only half-serious, though she couldn't help but wonder: what if they had taken off, rather than fight in the upcoming war?

"Okay, well, sorry to interrupt. See you later," Orca said, turning and loping out of view.

"Okay, let's do this," Towhee said perfunctorily, leaping at Blixen with a snap of her jaws before anyone else could interject.

"no," blixen replies, looking moderately horrified. "last bird i ran in to stole a chunk of my fur," she adds in a grumble. towhee's story is sweet but she still doesn't trust birds.

she watches towhee get into position but before she has a chance to mirror her they're interrupted again, by a girl blixen doesn't know, asking about someone named tit and gannet, and if blix was more observant she would pick up on the bird-name-theme. but she's not; she's instead watching with her head tilted, wondering if they need to go look for these tit and gannet people - maybe they're in trouble like mother was. 

still distracted, she does not have time to process towhee's abrupt shift back into spar mode until the girl is bearing down on her with snapping jaws. startled, she tumbles backwards without a hint of grace and a yelped "hey!" but she's quick to spring up, ignoring the sting where towhee's teeth glanced her, and (finally) fall into a defensive position, firmly keeping her eyes on towhee even as she asks, "shouldn't we help look for your tit and gannet?"

"No," Towhee answered dismissively before pointing out, "and you shouldn't let yourself be caught unaware like that. Your enemies are going to wait for moments like that, where your guard is down. Don't give them that opening." And without another word, she sprang again.

Blixen had quickly moved into a defensive position, leaving her significantly less open to attack. Hoping that a repeat of her immediately previous move would be the last thing her opponent expected, Towhee snapped her jaws at the exact same place she had just struck: Blixen's right shoulder.

FYI i fully expect towhee to kick blix's ass in this so lmao

she's already opened her mouth to argue when towhee springs forward again; her teeth clink together as she snaps her mouth shut, jumping out of the way in time to feel the snap of towhee's teeth against her fur. "it seemed important," blix stresses, because of course, she does not know how to keep her mouth shut, and also how to stay out of other people's business. sparring is cool and fun but if someone needs help -- well, blixen's brash with a heart of gold, most of the time. at least when it comes to family, and redhawks are family. she maintains her defensive posture -- since towhee seems intent on rushing her regardless -- but backs up a little, hoping her aunt will listen to her good sense and go look for those missing... whoevers.

Someone has attitude problems! *whispers: it's Towhee*

Patience wasn't exactly one of Towhee's virtues. It had already been tested much in the last ten minutes, between the various interruptions. And now Blixen was insisting that she give up on the spar and go look for her wayward relatives. The Gamma hit her breaking point and backed away with an angry snarl.

"Fucking fine then! If you don't want to spar, we won't." Without another word, she pivoted and stomped away. She had no intention of looking for anyone (except perhaps for Phox), except for a more willing sparring partner. What a goddamn waste, she fumed silently as she departed, refusing to look back.

towhee's outburst takes blix by surprise. frankly she's never met someone who matches her in outbursts, though towhee wins the irritability aspect by a long shot. the firey girl's own temper flares as her aunt spins on her heel and she steps after her, snapping, "family's more important - we're in a war!" 

of course she has no way of knowing if towhee will even hear her since they aren't facing each other. face flushed, flustered, the gona watches her stomp off and looks to where furi was, shrugging a little helplessly despite the frustration on her face, as if to say can you believe that?