Ravensblood Forest but imma keep it hella 1987

tegan had just had to make a quick circle back for bat, who had opted to take a quick rest in the shade of the forest. truthfully, he couldn't blame her, and honestly he too was ready for a quick break, but he opted to scout out up ahead (just a bit) to see what was up. so far so good, so, again, tegan turned around and headed back to bat, who was sprawled out on the forest floor. tegan snorted.

"you look like you got run over by a bear," he teased her tail waving, "up ahead looks a'ight, forest goes on for a bit though so we'll have plenty of travel time in the shade." good observation, tegan.

Bat didn't stop to think about the personal transformation that was taking place, spurred on by nomi's departure: how much she'd changed in just the space of a week or two. But her old ways—of utter slothfulness—were catching up to her now. Her whole body ached from recent overuse. For once in her life, she wanted to feel energetic, but she hit a point where she had to wave a white flag and beg Tegan to let her take a quick rest.

She was deeply asleep when he returned, snorting and snuffling when he spoke. Still mostly asleep, she mumbled, "Five more minutes, nomi," and flopped over, back to Tegan, to resume snoring.

oh wait, fuck, tegan realized only after he'd finished talking that bat was fast asleep and muttered something to him. wait, hey! "what the fuck did you just call me?" he asked, baffled, "hey, get up." he prodded sharply at her side with a paw, gaze narrowed to her sleeping form. 

"what's nomi? we don't tolerate nonsense in this household, you better be talkin PC or i'll whoop you," tegan warned, mostly playfully. but he'd admit, he really hated this not knowing what the fuck bat was saying thing.

The youth let out an adorable squeak when Tegan poked her awake, blinking up at him blearily. She made no move to sit up. Bat groggily processed all the words he was throwing at her, fighting an urge to scowl. She liked Tegan and didn't want him to rethink his agreement to let her tag along with him.

"Nomi is one of my mothers," Bat explained in a voice thick from sleep. She finally pushed upright, rubbing at one eye. She was too out of it to point out that she'd already used that word around him once or twice. "Nomi is Heda," she added, which was relevant if not particularly pertinent right now.

As all systems finally booted, Bat frowned, although not at Tegan. She just didn't like being reminded of nomi or anything to do with Drageda or her past right now. She would much rather live in the moment and look forward to the future. Metaphorically speaking, she gathered up all her history and chucked in a closet, slamming the door and locking it, then mopping the floor for good measure: a blank slate.

"Where're we headed next? Is there food there?" Bat wanted to know.

oh yeah, now that bat said it tegan did actually vaguely remember hearing that word. but, all the same, he'd only ever called finley mom. good ole mommerz. and tegan chose to not pay attention to detail very often. "right," he said, nodding, "that's calm." and then he shrugged.

"after we skrt outta this forest we'll be back on the coast, and then i don't think it's much further," he explained, and then snorted. he eyed her curiously, what kind of question was that? "if you can catch it then yeah," tegan said, tail waving before he plopped his butt down, "the beach probably has some good c r a b s to crunch on." he wondered if he should try to take more back to niamh... of if it'd be a lost cause.

Some of the words Tegan used were strange, for lack of a better word, but Bat found she liked that about him. It was always easy enough to guess what they meant, based on the context, and she felt it made him seem cool. She had now been dogging his heels for several days and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say she'd already grown quite fond of him, not to mention that she looked up to him. It might even be more accurate to say Bat had begun to idolize Tegan a bit (oh boy).

"Crabs are gucci," she said agreeably, smacking her lips as she thought of cracking open red shells to expose the succulent meat hidden within, seasoned expertly with sea salt by none other than the ocean itself. "Does that mean that the—is it called a plateau?—is it close to the ocean?"

tegan frowned. "that's not how you use that word," he informed her, wondering if bat was just gonna turn out to be like towhee-- he really hoped not. maybe she was just young. "you don't call a thing gucci," he explained to her more fully-- he made up all of these rules, but they were important, "but, yeah, crabs are pretty tasty." 

and then he realized he heard her words backwards, and shook his head. "actually we're not all that close the the plateau-- but we're close to the beach which is close to food. the plateau isn't really near the coast at all. it's way southwest of here," he corrected himself, ears pricking up.

The news disappointed her a little, though Bat didn't linger on it. Instead, she reverted back to the much more important topic at hand: the word "gucci" and its proper application. "If you don't call a thing gucci, what do you call gucci? If it's not a thing, what is it? Nothing? Nothing is gucci?" Well, she'd gone and tied her own brain in knots. She shook her head, huge ears flopping softly against the sides of her face, and decided to drop the subject for now.

"Does Aunt Raven have kids?" she wondered, seemingly out of nowhere. It would be cool to have other pups around—she already missed her siblings, even if she refused to think about it—although that reminded Bat of something. "Hey, you know how we talked about telling her that my mom gave me permission? Well, I was thinking... what if I told her I was a little older? Then we wouldn't even need permission. But I'll still say I got her blessing," the youth added quickly.

"like if i said, aye what's gucci? then you could be like nun'much, bro," was tegan's first explanation, "or if i ran into you and apologized you could be like it's gucci dude, but crabs are not gucci." most certainly not. pretty snippy, though. 

"yeah, four of 'em. i guess they'd be your cousins," he added, kinda thoughtfully. he'd never really put that much thought into the whole red hawk family and their relationships... there were like 5000 of them and they were all somewhat related. or something. blackthorns weren't much different, he supposed. yikes, imagine that family merge. 

and then tegan stared at bat, his gaze turning squinty as he judged her accordingly. "how old are you?" he asked her, suspicious of her wild, unthought-out plans. that was his job.

The term "cousin" immediately made her think of @Dacio. She hadn't realized how much she missed him too, nearly as much as her own brothers and sister. She felt an unpleasant twinge in her chest, then forced herself to think about these new cousins she would meet in just a few days.

Tegan's question made Bat smirk playfully. "How old do you think?" she threw back at him, then wondered, "What're their names? My cousins'?"

tegan glared at her, but his mouth curved into a smirk. "not that old," he countered. nah nah, none of this game playing, tegan was king of games. no way no how was she gonna bamboozle her way into seeming older (or younger) than she really was. tegan knew the trick.

"kite, owen-- uh-- Phoebe... and... fuck what's the other one," tegan stared dead-faced forward for a moment as he thought. fuck he should really spend more time near those kiddos. "yeah i don't remember the fourth one-- but there's a fourth one fo sho." he hoped, omg, what if there were only three?

She repeated each of the names in her head so she would remember them later, when she could put faces to them. She wondered if they were boys or girls, not that it mattered. Bat just hoped they were at least halfway as cool as Tegan.

"How old do you have to be to be in the adult ranks in the Redhawks?" Bat wondered next. Then, in the very next breath, she said, "I guess we should get moving." She couldn't quite hide the reluctance in her voice. She was eager to follow Tegan anywhere he wanted to lead her, she was just so tired.

a small smirk fell upon tegan's face. this lil wreck was really about to weasel an age out of him so she could pretend to be older. "nine months," he told her anyway, not feeling like playing this game because he absolutely knew it was a game. and it was kinda funny, and he kinda wanted to support her doin something she wasn't supposed to be doin. 

"aight, you're the boss, get a move on kiddo," he said, tossing in the nickname to poke fun at their current conversation.

Bat didn't mind the affectionate nickname, though she raised her brows when he called her "the boss." She smiled at him and stood, groaning as her body ached in protest. She had really put it through the wringer by running away from Drageda and then roaming all over creation ever since. Bat was looking forward to getting some rest at the end of the line, although even more so for the day when she was more conditioned for trips like this.

"What is this place called, do you know?" Bat wondered as she began to walk slowly through the wood. She fought back a yawn even as she wished she could come up with something more interesting to say. Her brain just wasn't firing on all cylinders right now.

"hmm," tegan hummed aloud, like he was thinking-- but he wasn't, tegan didn't have a single idea, he was just listening to the sound of his own voice-- "nope, not a clue. but that's the cool thing about scouting-- if you find something you like, you can name it." he eyed her, curious what she'd think of that.

"you can name it after yourself, too. cause you discovered it. like, this can be bat forest."

Bat Forest, she mused as they padded through the trees, many of which were the same species of sequoia that comprised the forests of Drageda. But when she looked closer, there was a decided difference: there was sap oozing down many of the trunks here. It looked a lot like blood, which might've spooked some. But Bat wasn't the sort to frighten easily (it was a waste of energy). One of her over-sized ears twitched in response to the call of a raven from somewhere overhead, though that similarly failed to spook her.

"It'd be Rory Forest now," she reminded him at length, attention drifting back to Tegan. She was falling behind again. Hastening to catch up and walk beside him, Bat shook her head slowly. "I don't think I want to name this place after me. It's kinda..." Her eyes passed over another gob of glistering crimson sap running in a rivulet down the uneven bark of a redwood, hardened by the late summer air. "Are these trees bleeding?" she wanted to know, stopping to have a sniff.

Tegan said something to the tune of, "Fuck if I know," and then kept moving. Bat peeped the sticky red syrup a moment longer, then scurried after him.

I wanted to clean up some older threads, hope it's cool that I wrapped this for us, @Tegan! :)