Twisted Slough Livin' at my mommas house, we'd argue every month.

@Redshank can drop in if desired. Also open!

They hadn't talked much since reuniting, not about this, but Screech had set his mind on an idea as soon as the Sunspire was at his flank. He knew things — not much, mind you, but things nonetheless — and tantamount among those things, was the immutable fact that he was homeless. That he could not return to the Caldera, or the valley that housed it. He had no family in the Sunspire no matter what Liffey had said to him. That he would come back one day and throw Hydra off of her godforsaken mountain — but that left him with an excessive level of uncertainty. He wasn't alone because he had Redshank, but together the two of them had nothing to their name.

Their names were meaningless. 

They were meaningless.

In the weeks since departing the Sunspire, Screech had entertained the thought of going with the dark-furred dancer from the beach; he thought about the Cortens often, of the friendship and love that they shared during the night of the moon, and of all the things that Screech missed about his own family. Maybe if he reunited with Seelie then he could live with her? Or introduce her to Redshank, and they could live together as a trio? But that brought thoughts of @Sorina to his mind, too. And then @Cassiopeia, as his memory blossomed with all the faces of the wolves he once knew. They were all gone now. Screech had no idea what had happened to Cassiopeia (and it was absolutely lost on him that she had been there, on the Sunspire, during his 24-hour love-it-or-lose-it blitz). 

He had nothing.

But that meant he could start over from scratch. He was at the bottom of the proverbial totem pole — his name was dirt, he was scum, everyone either wanted him dead or just wanted him gone, so gone he would go. It took a while for Screech to reach this conclusion because he'd often be reduced to a useless husk of self-doubt and depression, and plus traveling through the wilderness on a one-eyed mystery tour only sounded like a good idea — in practice it was lonely and it was dangerous. To make matters worse, he didn't know where the hell he was right now, but the air was rank with sulfur and the soil had become a slick-but-chunky mess beneath his feet, and he was coated up to his midline in the stuff.

The only upside to this situation — aside from the fact winter had finally ceased to be — was that his home was so far behind him, he may as well be on another continent. There was no way that the wolves of Moonspear would ever find him here, and Screech held this in his mind as he went along, fueled almost entirely by a self righteous level of spite, and spite alone.

ONE TIME ONLY SPECIAL, since you asked for it! :D

He stayed beside Towhee through that emotional night, keeping vigil as she stared silently at the mountains yonder. When the morning sun began to rise behind the caldera at their backs and she finally turned to him and spoke, giving him instructions, X looked up at her sharply and nodded, "Yes." He took to the air, winging swiftly toward those distant crags, up and over them.

The sight of a glittering river immediately captured the bird's attention and he banked and cruised toward it, head twisting slowly side to side as he shrewdly scanned the landscape below. Towhee's pack lived on a caldera, which was essentially a mountain with a lake tucked inside it. He kept his sharp eyes peeled for something similar.

He struck gold as he found himself soaring over a nearly identical landmark: Alpine Lake. He circled over it, mapping its width and breadth. When X felt he had made a good mental map, curiosity drove him further west, following a smaller river threading between two stretches of trees. Another body of water caught his eye up ahead, though before the hawk could explore it, something else caught his attention and he gave a deadly cry.

Moments later, he clutched a dead grouse in his talons and swooped to land in a tree at the northern side of a thicket overlooking a swamp. Hungry from all the flying, he quickly tore into his kill.

There wasn't much here except for muck, which in retrospect was perfect for the slumlord wannabe. He didn't know what to do with himself aside from keep moving so that's what Screech did; he hadn't eaten or slept in a few days now, but if he was going to find any solace at all, he had to keep on moving. His mind was a blur of manic depression — having never been very emotional or introspective before, this new version of himself was difficult to adjust to. Just as Screech thought he'd gotten a handle on his abysmal thoughts, something new would creep in among the garbage, and he'd be off on a new mental spin. At some point his brain would stop chattering away at him. He'd stop filling the blankness of his travel and the void of his lonliness with mental discussion, but so far it hadn't really clicked yet.

As he sloshed his way through the muddy fringes of the slough (and then the murky brown water at the bottom that was just enough to force him to swim ever few steps) a fresh chill descended upon him — and so too did a shadow, soaring across him from overhead until he heard a shuddering noise in the trees, and a hawk's screech. The boy lifted himself on to the opposite bank. With some scrambling, he got a firm grip on terra firma and was free in time to catch a glimpse of the tree-tops swaying beneath an abrupt gale. Screech shook off and watched the sky, curious to note the silence in the air after that call — before there had been starlings, chickadees, towhees, blackbirds — but now there was only silence as the hawk fed.

The wind picked up abruptly, rocking the bough upon which X balanced with his meal. He clenched his talons around the grouse's body, waiting for the wind to die down again so he could continue feeding. Meanwhile, his golden eyes scanned his surroundings, almost immediately honing in on a gray wolf below, his body slathered with mud from the swamp.

The hawk wondered if the wolf lived nearby. When Towhee had given him this task, she had mentioned keeping an eye out for other wolves. Obviously, they wouldn't want to relocate somewhere already claimed, or even too close to an inhabited territory. The wolf below looked a little slim, plus he appeared to be missing an eye. X's head cocked as he studied the canine's features from a distance.

He couldn't speak to wolves directly—his tongue simply couldn't shape to their language—but he had grown quite adept at communicating in other ways. After quickly bolting down the rest of the grouse, the hawk gave a shrill cry to draw the wolf's attention.

For anyone with keen eyesight, it was somewhat difficult to pick out a single bird among the swaying branches of a tree; with only the one eye, Screech's efforts were futile. He didn't find the culprit of the sounds until the next volley of calls, and with a pivot to his ears he managed to get some idea of where the hawk was stationed. The boy moseyed his way among the trees until he came to a series of endlessly reaching pines. The bird was in one of these — but watching from down below made things more difficult too. He had no reason to pursue the bird (and no inclination to eat it) except to fill the void of nothingness he had found himself within. 

Screech hoisted himself up and balanced on his hind feet while his forelimbs propped him against a tree trunk, and he looked around as casually as he could; it was not a comfortable position. After the third or fourth attempt at this he thought he spotted the hawk's silhouette or, at the very least, a hawk shaped branch. It did not occur to him yet to try and speak to the bird.

The wolf reacted to the sound, though he didn't seem to see X where he was perched. Even as the stranger walked in this direction and reared up against a nearby tree, the hawk shifted his weight on the branch and spread his wings, beating them slowly to call attention to himself.

His head tilted and he leaned forward. "Do you mean me harm?" Towhee would've understood him effortlessly, Orca and a few of the other Redhawks too. But X couldn't guess whether he and this wolf would be able to establish a line of communication. "I'm coming down there..." he tried to broadcast by outstretching his right wing so that the longest of his remiges pointed out a low-hanging branch on the very tree the wolf leaned against.

After a moment's deliberation, he swooped and spread his claws to grab onto the limb. He was now about eight feet above the wolf, at a slight angle. Using his rectrices to maintain balance, he bent forward again to peer down at the muddy wolf, beak parting slightly to unleash a quiet caw.

The dip of the bird's wing was an odd thing to witness. Even Screech, being a bit dim when it came to wits and cleverness, had the distinct feeling like the bird was trying to communicate; he didn't do much aside from plant his four paws firmly on the earth. Then, as the hawk swept down to the very branch it had indicated, he had to assume the thing had intelligence.

Could it understand him? Eager to figure it out, he sank back on his rear end and tried to assume a posture which might indicate his passive mood. Then he opened his mouth - but he wasn't sure what to say, so he murmured, Do you understand me? Which was straight to the point. Where did you come from? Came after, sort of by accident as he thought out loud.

When the wolf posed a question, X bobbed his head in an unmistakable nod. This was the easiest way to communicate: if a wolf asked leading ("yes" or "no") questions. Naturally, the stranger's second question would be much more difficult to answer directly. The hawk clacked his beak thoughtfully before turning his head toward the southeast. It was vague, yet might give the wolf a sense of the answer he was looking for.

His bright eyes scanned the wolf's passive body language. He also noted the markings on the canine's hide, which reminded him of Towhee's. But if X had ever seen this wolf at the caldera, he had no particular memory of it. To him, the wolf was a nameless stranger and, despite his posture, X decided he couldn't trust him enough to go to ground to make this (attempt at) conversation easier.

There were some answers, and some vague almost-answers that Screech couldn't parse together. It was neat to have found a bird capable of communication with wolves, but that also made him kind of... Suspicious. Who taught this random ass bird to understand a wolf? Having not been around when his sister had found him, he didn't know anything about Towhee's extracurricular activities - nor would he ever suspect that she had tamed their family's namesake for personal use. It was a neat trick though.

The bird looked off in to the distance but the boy wasn't really getting it; he understood the general direction was where the bird had been, but didn't link the gesture to the Caldera. They looked at one another for a little longer before Screech lost some of his interest, because he just didn't know what to say. He backed off for the time being - giving the bird space, relaxing his own position so that he could quit leaning on the tree like a hunting hound - and began investigating his surroundings.

After a few moments he turned his good eye back to the bird in the tree (but it took a second to locate him over again), then called out, You must see a lot from up there. Can you help me find something to eat?

The stranger seemed to grow bored with the conversation (or lack thereof), so X began planning his departure. He had much more surveying to do before he returned to the caldera with a report for Towhee. The lake he'd spotted was certainly promising, yet he knew he still needed to explore that glimmer of water off to the west now that he'd fed.

A voice called out and he dipped his head to peer at the wolf still seated against the tree. He wanted some help with hunting. X shifted on the branch, spreading out a wing to stretch it in preparation for flight. He nodded. Although he wouldn't go as far as participating in the hunt, he didn't have a problem being the wolf's eagle eye. He could scout out a good hunting opportunity, then be on his way.

With a small cry ("Follow me!"), X leaped off the branch and beat his wings, climbing quickly toward cruising altitude.