Blackfoot Forest toil and trouble

For anyone that wants some fortune-telling, or scattered advice about child-birth. You can assume your character already knows about her, if you want!

It was overcast, and Blackfoot Forest was dark and quiet as the grave. Nary a shadow stirred beneath the thick canopy of ancient trees that made up the core of the wood, where Ramona skulked among the stooped and twisted bodies of ancient trees.

Tinnitus screeched like a malfunctioning hearing aid in her ears, but the sound was intermittent. There were brief moments of complete, blissful silence that stopped the weathered little fox in her tracks - in those few seconds, her mind was clear. She saw everything. Thoughts roiled like storm clouds in her blank, cataracts-afflicted eyes, sparking off each other. Then nothing. The high-pitched whine returned, and Ramona's rat-like face became an ugly grimace.

"Tensions climbing, on the rise", she sang in her raw and shaky voice, swaying softly, "She's in for a cruel surprise." She stooped low, and the rhyme became an unintelligible mutter. Scraggly whiskers brushed against the forest floor as she motored on, searching for the next moment of clarity.

In the warm night, Fox traveled to Blackfoot Forest. She often came here to think in the darkest hours, knowing few others liked to be bothered by the constant buzz of fox noises that permeated the air. Fox, on the other hand, adored the small, cat-like things. Perhaps it was only due to her name and likened appearance, but she could not help herself. They were adorable in their own right, and Fox had always felt rather fond of them.

A raspy voice caught her attention, and Fox tilted her head as she listened. It sounded like nonsense, and yet she was intrigued. What she saw through the darkness was a blind old hag. Fox wondered if she would get to be that old someday, and figured she might as well pester the old thing while she was in the vicinity. “What did you say?” she asked, having missed the majority of what the blind old woman had spoken.

Ten heads with ten golden eyes materialized from the shadows around the grumbling matriarch, blinking suspiciously at Fox. The old woman herself whipped round as fast as her withered body would allow, squinting blindly in the direction of the voice.

”Archibald!” she barked hoarsley. ”Put the tea on - the guests are arriving. I must prepare my whiskers.”

No-one by that name had existed for years (nor would there be tea served that evening), but a number of smaller, younger foxes scurried out of their hiding places at once. Nanna wasn’t one to be left waiting. Aided by a small male whose aggressive bout of mange made him look older than his two years, Ramona stalked stiffly in the direction of the cave that served as the troop’s hub.

”That boy will disappoint you, sweet-moon!” she shouted back at Fox, and snapped something at a small, bright red girl that hovered nervously at the elder’s shoulder. Damara - that was her name - scurried back to where Fox stood, beckoning her forward with urgent gestures.

Fox watched with skepticism as a flurry of foxes skittered this way and that, but it was clear that the old blind one had some leverage on the rest. She ordered this and that, and while they did not exactly heed her requests, they were clearly attentive to her. A smaller, younger fox beckoned Fox forward, and the yearling did as she was told, although she could not really explain why. But the old lady had said something else before this... something about a disappointment.

“Who’s ‘that boy’?” she asked, interested to hear more information. Her brow furrowed as she tried to think of who the boy could be that the old woman spoke of. Perhaps it was Haunter, but Fox already expected him to disappoint her, so that was not exactly news. Njal had already done so, along with Ferdie. Perhaps the only 'boy' who had not done so was Jace, but Fox still did not feel like she knew much about him, anyway, so she did not have much in the way of expectations. And without expectations, there could be no disappointment.

I am making shit up left right and center here.

Their base was a sheltered clearing not ten feet from where Fox was standing. Trees huddled protectively over it, forming a tangled ceiling of dark, spindly limbs over what looked like a stagnant pool of water. Someone had ringed it with big stones, and small green and brown continents floated on the murky surface like continents in an ocean. Everywhere there was foxes, clustered in groups of two and three around this strange, unpleasant-smelling centerpiece.

Ramona stood at the very center, bending over the water with a look of deep concentration on her ragged face. Every now and then she would blow on the floating slime and mutter unintelligably to herself. Eventually, she looked up, snout pointing somewhere far off to the left of where Fox stood. Diligent Damara scurried forward, nudging her matriarch's cheek to correct this - for that she received a fierce nip and absolutely no thanks.

"That angry boy," Ramona finally replied, sounding impatient. "You keep him busy and you keep him watched, little baby alpha wolf, little dear-heart, lest he explode all over your pretty things - yes," she wheezed, "That angry, angry boy.."

“Angry boy?” Fox muttered to herself. She could think of no angry boy that she knew, and so she assumed this little creature (no matter how old and sweet) knew nothing at all. “I think you’re full of shit,” she replied. She said this with no harshness in her voice, phrasing it as more of an obvious statement than an accusation. Fox was not a particularly superstitious wolf to begin with, and some old fox prattling on about something that made no sense made her all the more skeptical of things.

“Do you just go on about things all day, then?” she asked, taking an apprehensive step closer to the old hag. Fox did not think that the skulk would be able to hurt her, nor did she think that they would. They seemed attentive to the old woman, and she did not want them to think that her step forward was a threatening move.

"I think you're full of shit."

Ramona chortled gaily at that, but it stumbled into a dry, hacking cough. A number of sleek little bodies crept towards her, concerned that their ramshackle matriarch might just collapse into a bag of bones and blood. She shooed them away with a short hiss, beckoning Fox toward the stagnant pool with a thin, shriveled twig of a leg.

"All day, pretty-thing! All day, all night! You are a young one, aren't you." Either someone had told her, or the old with was guessing. "Come - come! Look into the tea, and tell me whose face you see."

Ramona is starting to remind me of Rafiki! @Bazi Did you want to wrap this up? Or shall I fade it?

Fox scowled at the remark about her being young. Sure, she wasn't as seasoned as some of the other wolves around, but she had lived through plenty. Nevertheless, she couldn't help but be intrigued by the strange, old creature who seemed adamant about telling her something or another. The old hag just needed to learn to be a bit more direct about whatever it was she was trying to say.

The old fox directed her toward a dirty little pool of water, and Fox gave the small creature an incredulous look. What was she supposed to do, drink it? According to the blind old bat, she was just supposed to look at it. “It’s a gross pool of water, lady. There’s nothing to see.”

After a few more back-and-forth with the crazy old bat, Fox got fed up and wandered back to the creek.