As though announcing the Shogun's arrival in the west, the skies overhead became overcast and dark, a spring shower following suit as Hattori took shelter beneath the Whistling Willows. He did not mind the rain and knew it would pass soon enough, but he couldn't help feel a tinge of bitterness as he tipped his head up to look at the slithers of grey cutting through the willows branches. Supposedly a pack had once called this place home and yet as the Shogun gave this place a cursory once over he saw little to suggest as much. As though their impact on the land was limited, a truth once long forgotten as the land fell into disuse. Would such a fate befall Ashen in time? The pale of his brows furrowed as a displeasure flickered across his usually blank features. He would not let that happen, ever.

Coming to a stop, Hattori looked at the rain churned mud beneath his talons. Perhaps it would be worth his time to hunt in these parts, with plenty of tracks to follow.

"Speech"

Aster shook the water from her feathers as she hunkered on a branch, quietly smoldering in her annoyance. The blue jay didn’t care about the water, but rainstorms caused the air to wonkify. Thunderstorms, especially, were the worst—but even light showers like this caused enough of a change in the air for her to distrust her wings.

What a shame, since worms and bugs surfaced during rainstorms. Aster had the patience to wait it out, though—she didn’t want to be caught on the ground when a hawk or land-dwelling predator stalked around.

As she sulked, the blue jay caught the sight of a massive wolf squelching the mud with his toes. A loner? Or one of those social ones living in packs? He certainly looked clean and healthy, so he probably had a home territory at the least. Aster considered holding her beak closed and letting him pass without a word, but she was bored with nothing to do in the rain, and this stranger peaked her curiosity.

“Hello, how’s the weather down there!” Aster chirped. She spread her wings and loudly beat them—freeing her feathers of water, but more so to politely announce where on the willow she was. Not that she feared an immediate attack; she could fly, she just didn’t want to, and the wolf would have to jump up to reach her branch.

“Who are you? Just passing through? Or looking for something—rarely have I met a wolf not looking for something, even if it’s just a windpipe to squeeze and flesh to eat. Way too much work, if you ask me, when grubs are more easily available.” The way the blue jay said that, it was obvious she didn’t intend it as an insult; from her perspective, wolves spent so much time hunting. “My name’s Aster! Oh! Your horns look very pointy.”

Hattori was well aware of the fact that wolves were not the only sentient species that called Boreas-and thus by extension, Auster- their home, but he'd never fallen into the habit of speaking with other animals. One might argue he was narrow minded and haughty, but in his mind it was best to adopt an us vs them approach. It kept things simple, and ensured he didn't have to deal with any moral dilemmas every time he went out to hunt, or defend Ashen from whatever creature wandered too close. So when a bird in the canopy above sought out his attention, the Shogun simply gave it a disinterested glance in passing, only to double down when it kept. on. talking.

Pausing in his steps, Hattori shot the bird a look, stern with silver eyes narrowed into slits. One that said: you talk too much. He wasn't social at the best of times and it wasn't as though he'd come out here seeking company, far from it. But then again he supposed Aster's flittish, excitable way of speaking suited a bird like her. All fluttering wings and a tiny heart racing in her chest. She clearly was not a bird native to his home land of Nihon, but the Shogun felt as though he'd seen birds like her before, streaks of blue flitting between tree branches, accented by dark lines, both horizontal and vertical.

For all her movements, Hattori remained notably still, blinking only when his eyes began to sting. They couldn't have been any different, as though such a meeting was preordained. As if Hattori believed in such a thing.

"Hattori." He told her, still to this day unable-or unwilling- to shake his accent.  

“Hattori. I’m assuming that’s your name?” Aster jumped off her branch and flew to another, lower hanging, and leaned forward to inspect the red and black wolf. “At! Tor! Eyeee! Am I pronouncing that right? You’re not the chatty sort, so if the only word you said is your name, then I’d be a poor listener and conversationalist if I didn’t bother to learn how to pronounce your name! Is it the only word you can speak? Oh, maybe you’re like a reverse bird, like when a bird is fluent in their native bird language but can only repeat one or two words of a non-bird language. Maybe that’s you?”

If Hattori had hands, his fingers would have been pinching the bridge of his nose, tight enough that his skin would have turned red. But unfortunately, as he was only a -very unemotive- wolf, all he managed was an exceptionally deadpan stare. He didn't even bother to tip his ears forward in a show of politeness, to really show he was listening, and instead they remained rightly where they were. Flat and disinterested, couldn't care any less.

"That is not me." He told her, his voice dipping in timber, offended. "You assume too much."

Perhaps that was simply how birds went about their lives, assuming this and that in an attempt to cut corners and make the most of what little time they had.

“Oh, I’m so sorry I got your name wrong!” Aster hid her face behind one wing, embarrassed as can be, and then chirped in further embarrassment when she realized the wolf probably didn’t mean her pronunciation but what she’d guessed about him.

“AHHHH I’M SO SORRY!” Aster chirped. She nosily fluttered her wings and jumped up—as if her actions could distract from her plight—and the feathers on her head stood up in abject mortification. “Um, I tend to run my beak when I get excited? Or curious? So, uh, I’m sorry if I offended you somehow, Hattori. But I guess you’re not terribly offended since you haven’t tried to attack or eat me or whatever weird claiming thingies the wolvies do whenever they’re, like, pissed at someone? AHH HERE I GO AGAIN, making assumptions about someone based on what little information I know about their species because blue jays and wolves don’t really talk, like, ever, right?”

Aster abruptly stopped talking. Her lungs ran out of air. She took the deepest breath she could to steady her nerves, then breathed out, and inhaled again. “OK! I WILL LEAVE YOU ALONE IF YOU HATE ME, THAT’S FINE, I HATE MYSELF SOMETIMES.”

Hattori quirked a pale brow as the bird fussed and ruffled up her feathers. In the grand scheme of things it wasn't that big of a deal, but from the way the tiny creature was reacting Hattori got the sense that even small things rocked her world. Maybe it was due to a difference in perspective, different species on polar opposite sides of the spectrum. Aster rattled on and on, her chirpy voice as continuous as the rain and yet somehow not nearly as grating as he might have thought.

The rain continued to fall, blurring the scenery around them in hues of blueish grey. He supposed they stood out amongst the toned down colours, bright and alive in an otherwise abandoned forest.

"It is fine. Calm down." He told her, not exactly kind but not quite cruel either. He had an aptitude for straddling that line, made it seem so effortless and easy. Like he was listening well enough to be polite, but didn't really care at the end of the day. "I am not from here, Boreas. If that is what you are asking? Where I come from, we do not usually speak to birds, it is true."