The Heartwood roof of the world

@Terance

There was death in the wood. The forest was comprised of nothing more than snow against brown earth that had once been rich timber and lush ferns. Fire had destroyed the territory and taken life with it. The thief picked his way carefully on broomstick limbs and small feet. His frame was light enough that he could stand atop the snow, though it flecked against his dark pelt and cast a beautiful picture of coal, fire, and ice against his flesh.

Tadec was wary. He did not know how easily he could have been overcome in that terrain. While he was swift and lean, the strength of the wolves had often proved too much for him. With sweeping eyes, the coywolf padded lightly atop the snowbanks. The thief shuddered against the cool touch of the winter winds, but he knew that he could seek safety on the other side of the dead wood.

This looked lonely - if Terance still joins, then Wraen can leave. Should it stay back-dated or we can forward date it to present day?

It seemed odd to attach such a lovely name as Heartwood to a place that hardly reflected anything that could relate to the matters of the said organ (either figurative or literal). Maybe it was meant to be as an irony of fate or a more likely answer was that this had once been a more beautiful and better place in general. 

Wraen had not intended to stop here or venture any further, had it not been for a pair of roe deer she had been following and, who for reasons entirely their own, had decided to go through the barren place. She lost them out of sight, when they sensed her presence and the she-wolf was left in the middle of ruins that had once been a lush forest. 

With a resigned sigh she was about to turn and leave, when she caught sight of movement out of the corner of her eye. She froze and focused her gaze on the creature, soon recognizing in it's features something familiar. Either a coyote or something very close to it. Intrigued, but without announcing her presence, she began to move in the creature's direction.

<3 present day is just fine by me!

Ignorant to her presence, the rawboned creature was intently set on slinking his way from one end of the wood to the next. With a cold shudder, his lengthy limbs carried him across the earth and into the trees; the green-eyed shadow followed behind him at a far enough distance that he could not detect her without purposeful searching. Tadec’s eyes swept his front, sniffing at the earth to pull the aroma of other travelers from the ground. The terrain had a strange sort of isolation that did not allow for many of the scents to linger for long. It was something that had left the coywolf feeling perturbed.
 
Pausing in his movement, the creature swung his head around and drew his ears so that they perked atop his crown. The burning embers of his gaze searched for lurking predators in the darkness of the wood but found nothing. With a soft sigh, the moonlighter pressed forward a few yards and stopped to inspect a seemingly abandoned hole for a rodent.

The other wolf had not noticed Wraen and encouraged by the advantage of surprise, difference in sizes and her ability to outrun trouble, if it ever came to it, she quickened her pace and was soon within hearing distance. A moment later she was so close to give a curious glance over the area the stranger was sniffing out and deciding to pretend that she had found just as interesting spot nearby. Though she pretended to be indifferent, her eyes travelled often towards the other wolf, wondering, what his next move would be.

The wind shifted, and her scent was carried to him. The smoky crow turned his head sharply and latched onto her with a wide-eyed and burning stare. She seemed interested in a scent that she had caught, but it did not help him to feel any more at ease with a wolf so near. Tadec forced the reminder on himself; be cunning and full of tricks. Though he remained stiff-limbed and ready to flee, the moonlighter offered a fluttering of his tail and a smile that shriveled on his dark lips. There seemed to be a hint of a welcome in his posture, and he waited to see if the female would approach, or if she would turn from him to seek her own fortunes in the wood.

The coywolf might have not realized the strength of his stare - Wraen happened to look up just at the moment, when she was given that burning glare, and flinched at the intensity of it. For a moment she really felt impudent for pressuring her presence on the other person, but, since no other hostile actions followed, she eased her mind by moving some steps away from the wolf, thus increasing the radius and giving the other the much needed space. 

Either because her move had been a correct one or the stranger had decided to make a contact with her, she caught the hint of wary welcome, looked up and smiled at him: "Hi!"

The woman’s voice startled him, as did the sharp verdant of her stare. He lifted a single paw so that it was ready for him to flee when he saw that she did not intend to cause harm to his slight figure. Drawing the pink of his tongue over dark whiskers, the thief took a tentative step forward and hung his head low, guarding the soft underside of his throat. His lantern gaze roamed her figure with moderate interest before he pulled his attention to her face and responded in belated Hedgerow, “greetings.” The beryl-eyed woman had still not expressed a desire to harm him, so Tadec crept somewhat closer and offered a thin, shriveled smile upon his inky lips.

Outgoing as she was and quick to approach strangers and greet them, Wraen occasionally found it a little difficult to engage them in a conversation. It went like "hi"/"hi", "my name is"/"who are you?" and... unless the other party was talkative or doing something, she would be left standing in an awkward silence, trying to figure out, what to do next. 

This meeting was going, according to a very similar scenario and Wraen shuffled from one foot to the other, until the bright idea of asking for directions came to her mind. "Do you by any chance know, where the Hot springs are located? I have heard that they are in the vicinity, but I have got a little lost, while looking for them."

The stranger returned his greeting with a question. While he was not entirely proficient in the common Hedgerow tongue, Tadec could still make out what it was she was searching for. The fire in his gaze darted north, where he had scented the sulfurous aromas that radiated from the warm springs. With a slight sweeping of his tail, the spindly moonlighter nodded his head. “Not far,” he told her, stretching the smile on his dark lips. Then, as if the idea had suddenly struck him, the crow flagged his tail and motioned with a sweeping gesture of his narrow muzzle in the direction she should go. “Tadec can show,” he offered; the halfling’s tone was genuine enough that it did not seem out of place for him to offer a stranger an escort to the desired location. With the breath of winter still clinging to the air, the thief imagined it would have been nice to bask in the heat of the hot springs and warm his tired limbs. He had trekked far, but he imagined that the woman had also ventured a good ways from her home. In this, he imagined they shared some common ground, and he was willing to assist as much as he could.

That simple, ingenious idea cracked the closely shut door open - the man opened up a little and spoke to her. She got an impression that he was not very used to speaking with others - either because he had been a solitary creature for a very long time - or - perhaps - he was accustomed to another tongue. Or - it was very likely that he was a person, who did not waste words, and used only those that served the purpose. 

"Why, thank you," she replied, feeling more grateful for him communicating with her rather than getting the actual directions and reaching the place. "Do you live in the vicinity?" now, having seen the light shining through the crack of the door, she wanted to shift her foot there as well.

The female thanked him, and he swung his narrow muzzle toward her with a smile that revealed the tips of pointed fangs from beneath his dark lip. To him, the gratitude was not needed; he had no real set path in mind for his day, so she was a welcome distraction. Turning to lead her in the direction of the hot springs, the crow moved in light steps with a swishing tail.
 
Do you live in the vicinity? The question caused him to cast a glance over his shoulder and peer at her. It took him a moment to piece together the verbiage and to assume that she was asking where he might live. The spindly creature had never heard of a vicinity, and while that particular term perplexed him, he focused instead on the words he could decipher. “This one does not live in vicinity. Tadec lives in bear valley with Indra,” he told her pleasantly. Of course, the remark on his red-furred companion was not something that had needed to be shared.
 
“Does stranger live in vicinity?”

"Indra? I know someone called like that," Wraen remembered meeting the russet furred she-wolf, who was her relative, though their connection was very complex and hard to explain. It could be the same wolf - because the name was rather unusual, but you never knew.

"No - I come from the mountains," she replied and this would have been the end of their conversation, had not the sound of breaking branches and rustling leaves caught her attention and made her stop. She listened intently searching for the source of the sound - it repeated, now nearer and she caught the scent that was particular to birds. Individual species had their own variations of odours, but the base was the same.

Forgetting her initial aim - to reach the springs - she know cast a questioning side-glance to Tadec - and then proceeded to walk in the direction of the bird, who was invisible at the moment. She reached a little clearing and there in the moonlight she caught a sight of...

Your choice of what bird they find.

Tadec had only ever met one Indra, so his eyes sparkled with radiant joy when his companion mentioned knowing someone of the same moniker. It was a small world, after all. Small enough that the rickety-legged crow might have met a new creature who had happened upon the woman of Frith that he felt so devoted to. The smile that was offered to the slate-cloaked female did not vanish from his features, and he would have followed up with more questions had the green-eyed woman not stopped dead in her tracks and pointed her muzzle toward the sound of rustling in the brush.
 
Tadec was a fine hunter; his long broomstick limbs had allowed him to chase with vigor and catch creatures that were quick of foot and sharp of mind. The moonlighter paused with his mouth parted, ready for a question about her home on the mountain, and the embers of his gaze caught the fluttering and feathered form of a pheasant in their path. He crouched low and waited for her mark.

A pheasant. For a bird that nature had colored so lavishly, it was small and hardly worth a hunter's attention. In Wraen's limited experience, though these guys weren't the smartest, occasionally they showed more guts than one would expect from them. Hence the small dot-like marks criscrossing the bridge of her nose from a long gone time, when she had been little and tried to hunt a very bold and angry specimen. 

She looked over to Tadec, wondering, what he was planning to do. She thought she read a glint of excitement for a hunt in his features, and smiled, warming up to the idea as well. So as not to scare the bird, she drew closer carefully and quietly. It caught sight of her and in his "bubbling"-like voice said something, at the same time putting some distance between him and her, but at the same time drawing closer to Wraen's companion. 

She gave a quick glance over to the wolf, then took a seat and fixed her gaze on the bird, watching it's every move.

Eventually they caught it, shared it and their paths parted.