Home.

Where was home?

It had been Loess. And perhaps it would have stayed that way, but he had convinced her otherwise. He had convinced her that her life was meant to be more than that, though not in so many words. He had suggested her greatness, her potential, and it has struck a chord within her, and has not been able to get the thought out of her mind. Her gift, her ability, puts her above the others - it makes her extraordinary, and she should be proud of the fox she has been given. 

The black mare with fire in her eyes and in her mane was already keeping herself from others before her gift had been given to her. The solitary lifestyle of the fox suited the mare beautifully, and she is glad that her instincts (both equine and canine) keep her from a herd or pack, though her choice has left her without much to lean on. He is gone with the wind, taken up within the darkness and no longer the mentor or guide (or friend) that she craved, and her daughter has been gone for nearly a year - or perhaps, she is the one who had been gone? She cannot recall and she cannot help that her mind doesn’t linger there for very long - she is wayward, and being bound to Loess or to anyone else would sooner or later cause her to seek out a place anew, beneath the shadows of a forest or cave.

Because of Crevan, she had found Sylva. 

Because of him, she lingers within the darkness-drowned forest, familiarizing herself with the trees and the boulders. The stillness of Sylva is moreso than when he was here, and though Merida figures that most have deserted the ever-autumnal wood, she remains.

As bright and bold as the red woods around her, the fox flits beneath the dampened pine-needle encrusted floor, black paws carrying her swiftly beneath the moonlight. She leaps upwards onto a pile of precariously perched rocks, leaping from one to another until she has crawled to the very top, where the boulder is large enough to hold many more besides just her own small frame. She steps out onto the ledge, her claws clicking gently against the cool stone. With a huff, the little fox stares up at the stars that filter through the night sky, her perch just high enough to see out into the sky above her without the forest’s large trees blocking her view. The wolf had shown her this spot, and she returns her most regularly as if one day hoping that she will find him basking beneath the moonlight, a wry smile on his lips with a sharp yip to greet her. 

But she is alone, as always.

She sits onto her haunches, her tail wrapping around her paws as she lifts her snout into the air, inhaling the scents of Sylva that have become all too familiar, yet his scent remains stale and stagnant - nearly gone.

In another time, Merida would have questioned the reasoning as to why she could understand what another breed of mammal had been saying. The sound of a bird landing on a thin branch rouses her, an ear tipping backwards towards the sound before she turns her head over her orange neck, the white of her chin tipping upwards towards the tree behind her. But now, with her knowledge of shifters increasing, the fox only boredly flits her ember-like gaze towards the rather large black bird, meeting its glassy blue eyes with her gaze beneath a hooded brow. “Aren’t we all?” she replies coldly, the soft thump of her tail echoing against the slick stone beneath her as she turns herself forward again, staring into the expanse of the forest before her. A few moments pass and she slides onto the white of her belly, relishing the coolness that meets her skin. Her slender brown legs stretch and her pointed snout tips upwards towards the raven’s perch, her jaw opening in a yawn to reveal tiny and sharp teeth as her tongue curls. 

“Some would consider a raven a bad omen, you know,” she muses thoughtfully as her yawn finishes, a single back leg reaching forward to scratch at one of her broad, brown-tipped ears. She sprawls out on her side now, happy to be in the presence of a shifter that, for once, left her as the top predator. Wolves, tigers, bears - it’s almost refreshing to see something different and less beastly. “Are you my bad omen?” Her voice is lazy, unassuming. The bright orange of her eyelids fold half-way over the fiery red of her eyes, a sleepy look befalling the fox as it rests on the boulder. 

Autumn has hit Sylva in full force, and with it came the familiar chill that ruffles the thick fur of the fox’s neck. It is crisp and clear - all that death and decay and rot from before is slowly drifting away, as well as the scent of Crevan. A tiny whine escapes her throat. 

Moments have passed and though her eyes are still closed she is intently listening to the world around her and actively thinking. And now, she decides to think out loud. “Are the haunts gone?” As if the crow would know that she meant the dwellers that had fallen silent - those who had no names in Merida’s mind but were known far and wide in Beqanna - Thana, Gryffen, the others.

The raven decides to ignore the vehement that she bitterly spewed to him upon greeting, and his lack of offense as well as his ability to stay with her creates a curiosity within her all her own - who is this stranger shifter that has found her within the silence of the forest this night? The fox opens an eye, fixating the burning red of her iris on the talking raven, thumping her tail on the cool stone in thought.

“It’s not like I wouldn’t deserve it - a bad omen, I mean,” she admits with a lilt in her voice, opening her other eye and raising her head, situating herself so that she rests on her elbows, dark and slender paws stretched before her like a regal sphinx of the deserts, blinking up at the black-feathered bird with the curious blue eyes. Her sins far outweigh many of the others here in Beqanna, and a bad omen coming to her in the form of a speaking raven - well, that would just make sense. It is odd that she is finding such solace within the little beast, and though perhaps in one precise leap she could tackle the thing from the brittle branches that it perches on, she decides that his company is rather pleasant for the time-being, and she wonders if he knows how lucky he is to have found her in such a solemn, quiet mood.

The cold breeze brushes across her back and stirs the branches on which he sits, and with glistening black wings the raven situates himself, his icy gaze never leaving hers - curious, and perhaps cautious. His answer is what she is looking for, though the word pack causes her hackles to raise (as well as his assumption that she was meant to join them), nose twisting with displeasure as her ears flick backwards; the word is foreign to her - she is a solitary creature and the necessity of a pack is weakness, she has found. She will always be thankful that she had been gifted a fox, not a wolf.

Her fur smoothes and the unpleasant look on her face fades away. “Foxes do not run in packs, despite our shared ancestry with our wolf cousins - a common misconception, my dear raven - I remain because I never pledged allegiance to their cause.” She’s on her haunches now, a soft snort leaving her snout.

“Foxes are known for being tricksters,” she says suddenly, her head tilting and her eyes narrowing slightly as her brow furrows. She pauses, a  grin spreading on the darkness of her thin lips as they pull back to reveal her shining teeth. “Maybe I am only here to trick you, little bird; just like you may be here only to be a bad omen.”

Her eyes are staring off into blackness, fixated on something unseen in the distance as she reminisces. Her daughter - Kuma - where was she? Merida hadn’t cared to try and find  her, for her loyalty now lies with that of the shifters she had met, consumed by the raw power it gave her to be with a powerful family, the one that Crevan told her she belonged to. She is a failed mother - quite deserving of a bad omen. She even remembers the icy pond, crashing through the surface and being rescued by two purple and ebony children, twisted in their own sick way - but their rescue was not without a price, and Merida had offered her tracking skills to find them someone else to play with besides herself. To this day she does not even remember the name of the child she had found them to torture, and she did not stay long enough to find out of the child survived the experience. She brought an innocent creature to slaughter - deserving of not only a bad omen, but even death.

After a long while, the fox finally glances back at the raven, ears casually tipped backwards. “We’ve all done things,” she murmurs quietly, and quickly her eyes fall away from him. She did not want to linger on the topic any longer. Instead she rises from her sitting position, shaking herself from snout to tail, and smoothing her orange fur with all the gracefulness of a feline.

“You say very strange things, little bird.” She tilts her head when she says this, her red gaze now curious as he mentions Sylva and an army, as if he is in charge of those who belong to it. Her brow furrows and she stands, padding up to him on slender paws to stand just beneath his perch. “But you offer a good deal - tonight I am not to trick you and tonight you will not allow me to be visited by death.” She smiles to allow the fear of death to hide behind it.

“Who are you that gives you such insight to Sylva, let alone an army?”

She pauses, all of her still save for the tiny flick of her white-tipped tail. She cannot decide if she is army material - she has never battled in her life - but the idea of a trickster, a cunning foe within the darkness with stealth and silence...well, that is a different story. She has been doing that for most of her life. He is but a raven - what army would rally behind that? A thought strikes her, that had not crossed her mind until this moment, and she almost feels silly for not having asked it sooner.

“Who are you, behind the lithe bone and feathered wings?”

Quickly, after surveying him for a moment with a steady burning gaze, she leaps away and jumps from rock to rock, hitting the forest floor with a soft thud. She turns and looks up at the tree, for she knows it will only be a matter of moments before he asks her the same question.