Since joining Tanglewood, Zora often found herself taking walks. At first, these trips to the outside served as a way to acquaint herself with the residents of the swampy group. And though she realized that she had yet to meet many of its inhabitants, the treks were now more exploratory in nature. The little fox tried her best to explore a new corner of the territory every day, and slowly but surely she was able to navigate much of the area without help or fuss. Not that she’d ever needed help.

The woods were a comfort to her. While the swamp was full of unfavorable muck and dampness, the forest was dry for the most part and carried with it a familiar sort of feeling. She’d spent much of her life before this in woods, after all. And though the centuries of solitude were a painful blight on her existence, it was easy to disregard it in favor of basking in the relative normality of it all.

She started that particular day like she always did: by parting from her small home and taking note of the morning’s weather. The sun was just starting to reappear from its winterly hiding, and Zora welcomed its warmth like one might regard an old friend or a sibling. It was the only thing that had remained the same after all those millennia. Having taken note of the clear skies, she headed out (the fairy didn’t care to be caught out in the rain).

She wandered down a familiar path, then veered off randomly in a direction she’d never been. Though she knew there were dangers, Zora had never felt threatened before. Not much could cause her harm if she didn’t want it to, due to her fiery exterior. And it was not danger that caught her attention on this particular morning.

Being as low to the ground as she was, not much on the floor could escape her alert gaze. Certainly not a smooth, white egg laying at the base of a tree. She trotted over to it, giving the thing a cursory sniff and look over. Turning it over with a paw, she could find no cracks or faults in its exterior. Looking up, she could find no evidence of a nest at first glance. This would not do at all.

Examining the way she came, the fennec fox saw nothing that posed an immediate threat to the unborn creature, and so began rolling it back towards her home.

Aurum didn't know very much about Zora, except for the fact that she was in some way involved with Isaac. He wanted to say romantically, given the way that they had greeted and embraced each other back when she had first arrived, but the proxy wasn't fond of making assumptions. She'd seemed fairly nice, at least from first impressions, so he had made an effort to be nice in turn, offering her little smiles and 'hellos' whenever he happened to see her around. Which hadn't been much as of late, considering he had only now begun to emerge from his home again after taking care of his newborn children. He was glad to be out and about once again, however, and couldn't help the smile upon his face as he wove through trees, wings tucked in close against his body in order to prevent brightly colored feathers from being torn off. He had meant for the walk to be a simple outing, perhaps to get some food and check the borders for any children again – be they Pittian or Typbooner – but he was distracted by the scent of Zora and Alaric.

Pausing in his quick trot, the angel turned and headed over to stand beside Alaric, flicking his tail lightly at the other in a wordless greeting. After this, he turned his attention to Zora, his eyes flitting over the other Tangler quickly before landing on the egg she appeared to be rolling along. Fascinated, he tilted his head to one side, a thoughtful hum leaving him before he spoke, "Hello, Zora. It's good to see you again... I'm assuming that egg has a child inside?" She seemed to be taking some amount of care with it, and if she was just craving eggs to eat, it wasn't as if she couldn't just go to the tavern or the barn. So, as it stood, surely the egg had to be some kind of offspring, right? It sort of warmed Aurum's heart, seeing Zora gingerly rolling an egg along, presumably with the intent to raise it – or at the very least find somebody else to raise it. It made it just a touch easier to be nice to her, which had already been pretty damn easy, considering how polite she seemed to be.

[div style="text-align: right; text-transform: uppercase; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px #1B1B2F; font-size: 24px;"][color=#44437F]— AURUM

Almost as soon as Zora began the tedious task of egg rolling, she was interrupted. The glowing vixen looked up as she was spoken to, dark eyes glittering with excitement upon the discovery that she had never met the feline before. The introduction to new people was always exciting. Her little head dipped to the side as she tried to remember what she had been asked, having been too caught up in delight to really soak in the words. “Oh... this? I found it. I looked around for a nest, but I couldn’t find one. Who might you be?”

Another was quick to approach the scene, this one familiar. He’d been there when she joined. She paused to recall his name, quickly racking her memories and coming up with it. “Hello, Aurum. I think it does, or else this will have been a waste of ti- oh, hello! Who are you?” Her train of thought was suddenly interrupted as she noticed a wolf standing there. Silently. Watching. That seemed a bit strange, but all company was good company, so she quickly disregarded this thought as she greeted him politely.

Pondering what she might say next, the vixen glanced up at the sky just in time to see Isaac alight on the ground next to her. She leans into his pleasant touch, enjoying the gentle tug of feathers on fur before it settled over her. Zora looked up at him, affectionately touching her muzzle to the underside of his wing and indulging in his delightful floral scent. “Good afternoon, Isaac. There isn’t a nest to put it back to. I checked. It was all alone, isn’t that sad?” she asked rhetorically, letting her words linger for a moment before tacking on nonchalantly: “I’ve decided to take it in for us.”

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[div style="width: 300px; max-height: 100px; height: overflow; overflow: scroll; padding-bottom: 5px; margin-top: -5px; font-family: georgia; font-size: 8pt; color: #152232; letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: justify;"]He kept fancying that Ivan was absorbed in something — something inward and important — that he was striving toward some goal, perhaps very hard to attain.

Sometimes the eagle Ivan inadvertently adopted would leave gifts in his bed. It wasn't always nice to settle down to the night, only to be pricked by a nail or sharp rock. He'd glare at the creature and he used to deliberately throw the objects away, but the double-headed eagle usually came right back with them, so now he only disposed of them secretly. He only felt a little bad that she hadn't had a name. He felt bad that she might never be an actual eagle, since her imprint had been on Ivan. As she grew — she was five weeks old now — and began to look more like an actual bird, he perhaps was starting to warm up to her.

But then she'd drop twenty pebbles over his head while he was sleeping that both heads purposefully and masterfully hid in their beaks so he wouldn't make her go outside and spit them out before nighttime. A joy. But Ivan kept up with her mainly because he knew Selby would have done the same. There wasn't anyone else Ivan would rather be, but he found himself slipping all too often, trying to climb to a height that he had no faith in reaching. His grip just wasn't strong enough.

She was hurrying now to the little congregation that was happening. She enjoyed company, and Ivan himself would beg to differ on his part. He had to catch her before she caused something. He was embarrassed as he drew closer, that he did not recognize many of these faces. Catching the double-headed eaglet with a paw, he calmed her down and then realized what was happening: the fennec fox had an egg that was beginning to break. Memories of the eaglet's hatching stormed in his brain and he immediately took a step back, his jet black fur puffed up like he was being electrocuted. He could hardly stand the irony of Caustic narrating the thing.

"Be careful!" Was all he said, to nobody in particular. Ivan purposefully turned his gaze away from the hatching, backed out of sight of the crack, and tossed a leaf toward the side to distract the eaglet following him. He wasn't going to ruin another bird's life.

It seemed as though Zora had taken in the unhatched child in order to raise it. It was hardly the most wild idea in the world, and honestly it was an action that Aurum probably would've taken himself, had he been the one to find it. It only served to warm Zora more in the proxy's eyes, a soft smile coming to his muzzle even as she grew distracted while speaking to him. It was a bit odd, hearing her so confidently say that she had taken the egg for she and Isaac. Did that confirm his theory that they were together, or were they just really close friends? It seemed a bit odd for a lover to simply ignore her partner's plea for her to not keep a child, even if that partner was Isaac. Sure, the egg had no nest to be returned to, but surely it could be given to someone else if necessary? Either way, Aurum resolved not to get in the middle of that conversation, not keen on seeing Isaac getting his feathers ruffled over such a thing.

He was about to ask the vixen more about how she had found it, when Caustic's voice interrupted the silence. Gaze flicking back to the egg, Aurum felt his heart leap in his chest when he saw what would surely be the first of many cracks. He felt excitement bubbling up, while the arrival of Ivan brought with it a wave of anxiety. The proxy knew that Ivan had personally had a bit of a bad experience with hatchlings, but the fear in his warning was a bit unfounded – at least in Aurum's opinion. Despite this, the lion did as he was told, stepping back from the egg a little as he mused softly, "It looks as though the little one is ready to come out. Or almost ready, anyways. Ready for motherhood, Zora?" He said his last quip with a tone of teasing in Zora's direction, not actually wanting to cause the fox any stress. After all, no matter what, if the hatchling from the egg was healthy, it would be taken care of by someone within Tanglewood. They seemed to have a habit of acquiring children and integrating them into the family at this point, it seemed.

[div style="text-align: right; text-transform: uppercase; text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px #1B1B2F; font-size: 24px;"][color=#44437F]— AURUM