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+--- Thread: Blackfeather Woods and she was a war zone of a woman (/showthread.php?tid=66570)
and she was a war zone of a woman - Tzar - November 23, 2025
with his mother's arrival at the caldera, tzar has started to take liberties. towhee jr had never been one to stifle his need to wander when he'd came to an age he could do so relatively safely. when she stopped fearing some beastie would snatch him from her. tzar struggles to understand it, because he is a teenager. not a father, having not experienced the loss of children. still, he tries his best to be empathetic ... until he isn't.
he hadn't asked to venture outside of the caldera.
instead, he'd risen in the quick of night and slipped from the hobbit hole with ghost perched upon his shoulder — ever towhee jr's trustful envoy — and pushed north.
north. his destination, if he could find his way, bearclaw valley. the obsession, to see for himself what he and his mother had fled from has plagued him since they'd taken refuge in frosthawks.
when they approach the shadowed woods of blackfeather, ghost lets out a low thrill, the soft whistling noise causing tzar's ear to twitch as his steps pause.
yeah, doesn't look inviting, does it?tzar asks the falcon, letting out a low hum. but youthful arrogance — and the comforting prick of pain as ghost settles at his favored spot at the junction of tzar's shoulders — pushes tzar forward, into the shadows that greedily wrap the crownore princeling and avian in it's embrace.
RE: and she was a war zone of a woman - Smokeshow - November 24, 2025
smoke eased out of the dark like a shadow with teeth. thin frame, broad lichenbone shoulders, eyes cut sharp as broken glass. he clocked the kid the second he crossed that treeline— too green, too sure of himself, walkin’ straight into a place that’d chew him up without even bothering to spit out the bones.
he didn’t speak at first. just slid one step forward, body angled in that quiet, territorial way. not hostile. protective. the kind of stance a man took when he’d buried too many and didn’t aim to add a pup to the count. the falcon’s soft thrill made his ear flick; he gave it a look, then fixed the boy with a harder one.
woods out here don’t forgive much,smoke muttered, voice all gravel, worn but solid. he let the weight of it hang. took another slow step, boots-that-weren’t-boots in the dirt.
you keep marchin’ blind, you’re liable to vanish quicker’n a spit in august.
a beat. a stare.
you runnin’ toward somethin’?his head tipped, just enough.
or you runnin’ to get found?
RE: and she was a war zone of a woman - Tzar - November 25, 2025
the man that emerges from the shadows looks to tzar like he had been made from them in his entirety. a sentry of this place to be given wolven form and flesh. ghost nips at his right ear and tzar rolls his eyes at his feathered companion.
i see him, i'm not blind ghost.the teenager grumbles, wondering if at the rate the falcon was going would end up nipping the tip of his ear off completely. how his mother dealt with it was beyond tzar.
the voice that comes from the stranger is as grizzled as he is, using a strange analogy that earns a small tilt of tzar's head. focusing on that instead of the warning: that there was danger lurking in the dark woods. but that seemed ridiculous to tzar: there was danger everywhere.
sounds like something the wicked witch of the woods might say,drawls the crownore princeling, all snark with nothing to back it up. well, nothing beyond a falcon that lets out a low trill of a warning at him. tzar didn't speak falcon but he was pretty sure his trusty knight in feathers was telling him to shut his mouth.
i'm not running from anything,tzar corrects; haughty. sharply.
i'm looking for —saying it out loud might make it more real.
for a place called bearclaw valley. apparently, my father and siblings died there.he'd been so young, his memory was unreliable and his mother, though he trusted her to tell him the truth, he hopes she'd been in such a frightened state of fight or flight when she grabbed him that she hadn't been right on what she thought she saw.
RE: and she was a war zone of a woman - Smokeshow - November 25, 2025
smoke took in the kid with one long, measuring look the falcon, the snark, the thin thread of grief beneath it all. bearclaw valley. he knew its dirt. been there through passing.
hell,he muttered under his breath, more to the wind than the pup.
he stepped past the kid, broad lichenbone shoulders brushing the dark, then jerked his chin north.
i know the way,smoke said, gravel-low.
you comin'?
no drama. no softness. just a man carved by bad country making a decision.
he walked forward, expecting the boy to fall in step.
keep close,he added.
RE: and she was a war zone of a woman - Tzar - November 27, 2025
the offer to take him to bearclaw valley feels like it was handed to him too easily. towhee jr had flat out refused and made him promise when he'd left frosthawks he'd seek his grandmother in the caldera and wouldn't go looking for their graves. that he wouldn't go to bearclaw valley. and while ghost had kept him on track then, tzar never had the intention to listen.
he expected to find some kind of closure there.
why would you show me the way?tzar asks abruptly, though he hurries after the stranger, driven by the fear of being left behind. he's wary but willing to take the chance if it means he can finally see for himself that what his mother had told him was true.
RE: and she was a war zone of a woman - Smokeshow - November 27, 2025
the boy scampered along. good. at least he didn't have to argue with him—
he spoke too soon, apparently. smoke kept himself as a leisurely pace, the slowest he's walked in days, and uses this as an opportunity to get the rest his body needed.
somethin'd kill you.
and without a word to add, it was implied i wasn't going to let it happen. children's blood upon pawed cleaves wasn't ideal, nor was the association. he'd assumed there was a mother out there for him, worried sick, and maybe she was at the valley as well.
it was a better bet than none.
i'm headed tha'way anyhow.
RE: and she was a war zone of a woman - Tzar - November 27, 2025
something would kill you. words spoken so casually, that tzar is a bit blindsided. he hadn't really worried about anything killing him since he was a wee lad — but with youth brought blind arrogance and a false rooted belief of immortality, as if his young age alone would spare him a cruel, untimely death.
hadn't his siblings been proof enough of that ... if his mother was correct and they had, in fact, been killed?
also sounds like something a witch of the woods might say.he replies with a small twitch of his lips, amused snort leaving him. at least he found himself funny, if nothing else.
fortunate, that. for me, i mean.tzar offers, prattling on now.
you got a name?he asks, having spent too long in his own silence broken only occasionally by the noises made by ghost who remains ever the content sentry upon his shoulders.
RE: and she was a war zone of a woman - Smokeshow - November 27, 2025
he tsked unexpectedly at the boys quick quip. he shook his head as heavy paws hit the ground, creating much larger pawprints than the young son behind him.
m'more of a wizard...he uttered, more to himself than anything, but still within earshot to the small boy. he didn't give the satisfaction of a true laugh to him, but no one had ever earned such a thing.
fortunate? he wanted to mock; taking him to the supposed death site of where his family laid to rest, freshly rotted from tragedy? it didn't seem anything short of a fortune to him.
smoke,he replied to him, occasionally checking behind to make sure he was still following.
you?
RE: and she was a war zone of a woman - Tzar - November 29, 2025
i like witch better.clocks tzar, if because it was his nature to be needling. how his mother didn't box him in the ears was anyone's guess — though he suspects perhaps his snark does not come across as effortlessly in ptero as it does when speaking it aloud.
tzar lets out a small hum as he assesses the stranger leading the way through the thick, dark woods. a chilling cry causes the hair along tzar's nape to rise, steps quickening as ghost takes to the sky in stead.
sure, leave me to be eaten... thinks tzar sourly, sparing the falcon a glimpse as he swoops above the wolves.
tzar.offers the teenager simply.
RE: and she was a war zone of a woman - Smokeshow - November 30, 2025
smoke didn’t break stride when the kid tossed out his little barb. didn’t bother correcting him either. just gave a low grunt that might’ve been amusement, might’ve been warning, hard to tell under all that gravel.
the woods groaned around them. something cried out far off, cold enough to raise the fur on any wolf with sense. smoke’s ears tipped, but he didn’t speed up— only shifted a half-step so the boy fell more into the shelter of his broad, lichenbone frame.
smoke dipped his head once, a rough nod.
nice t’meet ya,he rumbled, accent thick as dust and mesquite.
nothing more. just a steady shape in the dark, leading him on like he’d already decided the boy wasn’t dying on his watch.