Great Bear Wilderness BFW: Angel in blue jeans

@Morrigan @Erebus @Rook Maybe some raven/crow fun times? This can count as a discovery thread if it's finished before your other ones.

She had wandered into what could only be described as a crypt.

It was a forest, but the knotted canopy was so thick that minimal light crept through. She relied mostly on the keen night vision of wolves to pick her way through the spindly, twisted trees. The darkness and the swampy atmosphere was oppressive, and already Ptarmigan was looking for a way out, but like the Otatso, this place seemed to press on forever. The difference was that the Otatso was a permanent shade of olive green, whereas this forest could only be described as pitch black.

It was no more pleasant, but fortunately, Ptarmigan had managed to stick to the chunks of land. It seemed less easy to lose sight of the true ground here, which was fortunate. Her nose wrinkled as she passed by a tree covered in bird droppings, but seeing that didn't serve as a warning to the nature of the forest. She suspected some birds had nested there once, but she never could have guessed that they were still here... Or that they were an army.

Hey there! Excuse the length.

The Matriarch sat, resting in her nest decorated with macabre trophies. Feathers from various birds, animal hides, skulls and bones. She had the most ostenatious, boasting of the larger kills, such as a mountain lion's paw, claws still intact, bald eagle feathers, even the skull of a bear. An unimaginable feat yes, but she tore the eyes out of it, leaving it to run blindly off a cliff. She had the carcass guarded for months before the body was disintegrated enough for them to break the skull off the body.

In front of her nest was a perch where petitioners, messengers and scouts could be heard. Her lead scout came, a blue-tinged raven known as Chosovi approached the branch, bowing with her head down and wings spread out. Morrígan clacked her beak. "You may speak."

"Another wolf was found near the remanets of Blackash, my Lady, female." she said, keeping her eyes away from her one-eyed leader. "It isn't the indigo-eyed female from before, nor is she any of the others we encountered. She is new."

"Hmmmph." She growled. What was with all of the wolves here lately? She was suspicious, especially of the one with the indigo eyes. They were up to something. "Bertrand, bring a score of warriors with you and follow me. We need to see what these ground-dwellers are up to. Her second-in-command nodded and cawed, gathering his elite warriors. The Matriarch turned back to her lead scout. "Show me where they are." Her scout bowed again and flew off, Morrígan and her warriors following.

The further she went in the forest, the quieter it seemed. This should have served as the second warning. No small prey fled at the sound of her footfalls, and in fact, they didn't seem to be present at all. Had she known about the plague of crows and ravens upon this forest, she would likely have agreed with the small prey. If she was a small rabbit or a mouse, she would have fled this forest long ago.

She could not anticipate the force coming toward her, though. Of course, if someone had warned her about it, Ptarmigan would have laughed in their face. Only raptors and ducks frightened the wolf, who felt she was above the influence of dirty crows and ravens. Yet her only warning, the only opportunity for laughter, was the silence and the shit-covered tree, and she missed those signs blatantly.

Chosovi lead the contingent of warriors to Blackash, a recently destroyed settlement that Morrígan hated to be reminded of. One of the only times she had let her guards down, leaving hundreds of her ravens to be killed or injured. Her beak pressed together tightly as she neared one of her failures. Chosovi clacked her beak gently, gesturing down below them. A dark wolf was walking in the undergrowth, undeterred by the deafening silence that was Blackfeather.

Morrígan stabbed downwards with her beak. Bertrand and his warriors swooped down upon the wolf, cawing racously. They surrounded the wolf, and if she made any attempt to escape they would set upon her with sharp beaks and talons. The Matriarch lofted down, single eye gleaming angrily. "And what might you be doing here, wolf?" She growled in the wolf tongue.

Viggo had been tailing Ptarmigan, although he had stopped to take a poop some fifteen minutes ago. As she had said during their very first conversation, it wasn't something he always wanted to do with eyes upon him. Especially her eyes. He couldn't help that he felt undeniably attracted to the Endore whom he'd been following for at least a week or two. He was bound and determined to get with her at some point or another, even if it wasn't a lasting relationship (none of his had been). Besides, he had little to occupy his time, and she was a good enough distraction from the whole "settling down" business.

A loud, raucous cawing of birds made Viggo cock his head to one side, silvery ears tilting as he did so. He trotted off in the direction the noise had come from, unsurprised to find Ptarmigan there. Birds were nasty creatures, or so Viggo had always thought. He wasn't particularly fond of their meat, and their shit smelled more awful than any other creature he had encountered.

Just as he approached, he heard one of the birds actually speak. Well, that was a new one. He hadn't thought their tiny brains could handle such a thing. “Wolves,” he corrected, his voice deep as ever and giving the bird a peculiar look before turning to Ptarmigan with a "WTF?" look.

It wasn't long before Ptarmigan was set upon by ravens (or were they crows?). A flock of them suddenly surrounded her, landing on the ground and the trees and staring at her and chortling madly. For a moment, the wolf curled her tail beneath her and flattened her ears, convinced that she was trapped in some sort of ridiculous dream. Not even the smartest of birds behaved this way, especially considering she could crush them in her jaws if she got hold of them.

Then one raven, some sort of clan leader which Ptarmigan hadn't even known was possible, addressed her. The voice was heavily broken and accented, as all other creatures' voices were. Misunderstanding was easy cross-species. She was about to respond with a bout of laughter and an insistence that she would be waking up shortly when Viggo materialized, correcting the bird and shooting her a quizzical look.

“We're dreaming,” she said with a nervous grin as she watched her dashing companion for any sign of oddness. Dreams always involved odd quirks, right? With Viggo there, Ptarmigan conveniently forgot to answer the raven queen's question... Because, after all, they weren't real. They were just a part of her dream.

Morrígan let no surprise cross her face as another wolf walked towards the dark one. It was to be expected, wolves rarely walked alone. They were pack animals, just like ravens were. She clacked her beak, a gesture similar to grinding teeth together. A dream? Was the idea that birds could speak that unfathomable?

The raven queen hopped closer to the black female. "Dream?" She flapped her wings close to her face, attempting to slap the female harshing with her wings. "Does this feel like a dream to you?"

Ptarmigan's explanation was plausible, and to ensure that she was correct, he chomped down on his own leg. "Maybe you're dreaming, but I'm not." The black bird squawked at them, and Viggo hooted in return. "Was that a threat? You—a bird—are threatening wolves? By flapping your wings around?" He could not believe what he was hearing. It was madness, surely, and he wasn't sure he wanted to contract whatever disease this bird was carrying.

So birds really were as stupid as he had always thought. This one just happened to have been taught to speak as some kind of party trick. Without no further provocation needed, Viggo snapped at the bird, attempting to catch her in his mouth and end her life right then and there. The world didn't need such stupid creatures.

Though there were scores of ravens in these woods, only the large broodmother commanded any presence whatsoever. Ptarmigan's eyes were trained on the bearded bird, which snapped its beak together in what could only be called an intimidating display. Perhaps it would have been intimidating to other birds or rodents or even hares, but not so much to one of the most powerful predators of the north-west.

Viggo confirmed that he wasn't dreaming, and if he wasn't, then surely she wasn't. The mature raven only confirmed this further by slapping at her with its broad wings, earning the wolf's ire in the process. Though the bird's buffeting was by no means gentle, it was more of an irritation than truly painful. The female raven was croaking out words, and Viggo's laugh lifted her own lips into a curved smile, though it quickly dissolved into a snarl when the bird caught her right in the eye with one of its sleek, heavy feathers.

Viggo stepped forward with a flash of his off-white teeth, and the smaller Ptarmigan was quick to follow. She aimed for the raven's foot with a swift chomp, knowing if she could only catch the broodmother unaware, she could fling her to the ground and show the rest of her vermin flock why they shouldn't mess with wolves.

Sorry for taking a long time to respond.

Her warrior instincts and training had made her quick. She easily hopped out of the way of the dark female's jaws. It made it even more simple to do so, since the wolf was larger than her. She could easily read her movements.

Safely out of the wolf's jaws, her followers screeched in anger. How dare this oversized mutt attack their queen? The black birds puffed up their feathers and darted close to the wolves, jabbing at them but narrowly missing their fur. They would not break skin unless Morrígan gave the word, but they showed their anger nonetheless.

The Matriarch hissed. "Do you think you're so high and mighty, wolf? You can kill one of us by yourself, but can you withstand an entire horde?" With one signal she could bring a whole legion to attack these pompous creatures and give them a few scars.

Just gonna narrate on an end to this. @Viggo let me know if you mind the powerplay. Ravens can't hurt wolves aside from hitting their eyes, so I'm going with the assumption that they're sort of bluffing about attacking and would hesitate long enough for them to escape. I'm assuming she took out a nameless raven and not an important one. I'll leave it open for 3 days so you can make your final posts if you want to.

Had she been able to fully understand the haughty raven's words, Ptarmigan might have pissed herself laughing, but she only caught snatches from the guttural sounds the raven queen made. Her answer would have been “yes” had she known the question. A wolf's hide was much too thick for the dull beaks of ravens. Wolves intuitively knew that, just as they intuitively knew that hunting moose was stupid and dangerous, even though moose looked like large deer, and they knew that eagles were quite dangerous but swans were not. It was a huge part of why ravens were willing to ally themselves with wolves... Though Ptarmigan didn't think she could bring herself to leave even scraps of kills for these ravens.

Fed up with the menacing circle of carrion eaters, and spurred on by Viggo's own apparent frustration, the female feigned to the left, then whirled on an unsuspecting raven at the left side of the gathering. The bird tried to lift off, but the wolf managed to catch one slow foot in her jaws. With a sharp twist of her head she flung the creature out of the air and onto the ground, where it succumbed quickly to the crush of her jaws as she threw herself atop it.

Her eyes lifted to the raven queen as she growled, hunched over one of her evident followers as its blood leaked from where her teeth had broken through its body. The flock seemed to hesitate at the sight of one of its members dead on the floor, and Ptarmigan took that opportunity to nudge Viggo and pad back the way they had both come.

The birds must have been mad with some disease. It was the only explanation for them attacking predators many times their own size. Viggo was quick to come to Ptarmigan's side when she quickly slew one of the black birds, and he picked up the creature to save for later. No use in wasting a good meal. If the birds thought to come after it, they would only sacrifice more of their kind.

Shaking his head, dead raven still between his jaws, he exchanged a look of bewilderment with Ptarmigan as they departed the scene. Now this would be quite the story to tell someday. If anybody dared to believe him, of course.