Alright, so maybe they lived here, but how often did she really take time to explore? And look around? And stuff like that? Makara kept telling herself this as she dragged her paws on patrol. She'd been trying to force herself to be excited about things that she didn't like, but it was way harder said than done. Patrols were boring because it was the same thing over and over and over and... but maybe if she forced herself wide awake, kept her eyes completely and totally peeled, something interesting would happen. Summer was creeping up on into the north and while the snow wasn't completely melted, there were now ugly muddy patches of grass showing through the drifts. Mak stopped to tighten the laces on her booties and stare glumly at the spindly trees, wishing desperately for something COOL and INTERESTING to happen.

It was almost time for him to head back home and the feeling was bittersweet. On one wing, he hated the cold. This place sucked. The trees blocked out the sky, their gnarled branches making it impossible for him to weave between the woods like he could in Austral forests. The mountain was chilly as all hell, and sleeping underground was wildly different than it was in his castle where he nested on the tallest tower. Zephyr had no idea why anyone would want to live so far north, and the only thing keeping him from not harassing his family to leave sooner were the wolves he'd met and was yet to meet. Extended family, more wolves to add into his fold.

He had been climbing the gnarled branches, hopping between them and oftentimes catching his wing as he tried to maneuver through the trees at a decent speed. Catching sight of the wolf below, Zephyr abandoned his climbing. Moving to a branch much lower down upon the tree, he spread his wings as far as they'd go without hitting the rest of the gnarled bark, and threw himself down in a glide toward the bright white girl "Hello!" He called as he swooped over her head to land on the other side. His favorite past time was pretending to dive bomb wolves.

"Zephyr"

ZYOOOOOOM! A great big whoosh came overhead. Makara yelped and ducked her head down so fast and with such force that her goggles flipped up and over her ears. They popped off of her head and landed with a plop in one of the muddy, grassy patches. "NOOOOOO - " she wailed just as the bird called hello! so it all jumbled together into HELLNOOOOO. She whipped her head back and forth to identify the culprit that surprised her, eyes slit against the sudden onslaught of cold air. At least down here on the forest floor the sun couldn't cut through to burn her eyes. There he was! Right in front of her! Makara planted both paws firmly and puffed up her chest in what she imagined was a very intimidating manner, but she was quickly struck by the sheer size of the bird in front of her. How did he even get down here?

Mak peered up at the dense canopy. The trees were pressed close enough here that even she felt like it was claustrophobic - there was no telling how narrow the gaps up towards the tops of the trees got. The light down here was dim and watery at best. "You're very big, you know," she said bluntly. "The biggest thing I've ever seen, in fact! Oh, I'm Makara, and this is Armada territory, I'll have you know! So technically you're trespassing and I can attack on sight!" Without a moment's delay she dropped into a hunting crouch with a toothy, snide little grin.

The wolf did not react in the typical and expected exasperated-but-not-afraid way he was used to, and Zephyr realized that someone must have dropped the ball in telling people he was here. He was a visitor damnit, not an intruder! Spreading his wings wide and holding them up as if to show he came in peace, he took a few frantic steps back from the crouched huntress. The feathers on his wingtips bashed into the trees beside him, curling and bending and making him awfully uncomfortable. Once more he wondered why anyone would ever want to live here. Could wolves even climb trees? The only good things these trees could ever be good for was climbing, the raptor decided.

"Absolutely no, you cannot!" He argued against her insistence that she could attack on sight. "I am a guest! The son of Briar and Artorias and my dad will eat you if you attack me, swear." Being called big was something he was used to, but being threatened? Zephyr did not ever want to get used to that. He was a nice bird - when he wasn't intentionally scaring canines by swooping down over their heads.

"Zephyr"

Her fearsome foe flopped back a few times, banging his wings into the trees. Makara giggled a little bit at the sight of it, forgetting for a moment that she was supposed to be Very Serious and On Patrol. Quickly she schooled her face into a mask of neutrality, then ducked to grab her goggles off of the ground. Mak fumbled with them for a moment and by the time she got them on again, the lenses were dirty and she could hardly see anything anyway. Mak tried angling her head a few different ways, then sighed and gave up. Carefully she shifted them up on her forehead in a way that would stay in place. "OH! OH, that's right, you are a guest," she tittered. "I'm sorry, I was kind of expecting a visitor to, like, not be a very huge bird? But I should have been prepared for anything!" Mak sighed dramatically. "Okay, fair, I promise I won't attack you because you are very much not a trespasser! My name is Makara, and welcoooome!" she said, finishing the sentence in a sing-song voice. "Except I'm actually supposed to be patrolling right now... but it would be rude not to stop for a chat. What's your name? Did you travel far to get here?"

Zephyrus bobbed his vulture-like neck up and down vigorously in agreement. "Yes, yes, guest." He emphasised. "If you are patrolling, that means it's actually your job to protect me I think, I'm not very good at that." While he was massive and outweighed most wolves of the world, Zephyr was mostly certain that he'd not be able to defend himself in any situation. It was a good thing he had a lot of capable family members. Glancing around the heavily wooded expanse of trees, he peered through the gnarled branches and up into the canopy to ensure they were alone. The raptor had promised not to tell his mother Artorias' secret, and as far as he knew she could be climbing just overhead with how weird the elevations of these trees were. Satisfied, he lowered his voice and whispered. "Dad's teaching me to sword-fight though, but I'm not very good yet."

She gave to him her name and Zephyr lifted his talon and bowed a greeting to her, his wing coming over infront of his chest. "My name is Zephyrus." He had been raised to be polite, after all. "I come from the Hallows, it's soooo far away it's not even on this continent. It was a very, very long walk and I rode most of the way in the cart. There was some wine in there too, but i kicked some of it out to make myself more room."



"Zephyr"

"Yes! Absolutely, of course, I am immediately affording you the UTMOST protection," she vowed, although she found it kind of difficult to believe that a creature of his size needed much assistance at all. If anything, he might need a guide out of this forest. When he grinned and told her that he was being taught sword fighting, Makara let out a strangled noise of surprise. The idea of a creature that huge having a weapon in his mouth made her feel a bit nervous, but he seemed nice enough - and if Artorias and Briar were his parents, he probably had a sweet enough disposition. Right? "That seems really difficult," she conceded at least, "I couldn't imagine trying to hold on to something with my mouth when I'm trying to fight - I'd knock my own teeth out, for sure! Or cut my leg off, or trip over the whole thing."

"Oh! Yes, yes, the other continent," she said. Makara did find geography fascinating, even if she'd never quite been very far from home. Well, not very far at all - not yet! Mak vowed that one day she'd see Auster with her own eyes. "My official patrol duty will now be escorting you, Zephyrus!" Mak decided, "and you'll have to tell me all about the journey here. Rode in a cart? Did you not fly? What route did you chose - do you recall any landmarks? Fun bodies of water?" She began a running stream of questions, peering up at him as she stepped closer.

Zephyr considered Makara's words carefully. It did sound really difficult, didn't it? Why didn't it hurt the mouths of the wolves who he saw wielding the weapons? More questions to pose to his father, he supposed. "I don't use my mouth." He commented brightly on his own unique situation. "I have better paws then you - sorry - they bend and can hold stuff real good, and then I don't need to walk on 'em while I do it because I have wings." He should demonstrate, shouldn't he? Turning his head briskly to both sides, Zephyr's gaze roamed the trees until he saw a low-hanging twig that looked thin enough to snap. With his beak he tore it from the tree, and then deftly passed it to a talon. Wrapping his toes around it, he swung it a few times toward her in a sword-like fashion. "See? Easy!"

Apparently he'd gained a new escort, and placing his sword-stick back upon the ground he prepared to follow. He'd never helped do a real patrol before! She had questions first it seemed, and Zephyr moved past them as quickly as he could to hurry the adventure along. "I flew a little bit but when it's cold, I don't like to fly. So I rode in the cart! I don't know what route we took really, I spent a lot of it sleeping in the blankets. We went past desert at some point though, I remember that because I didn't ride for that part, and I was looking at the sand when I was flying. It looks really cool from up above, flat but not flat."

"Zephyr"