"Hey!" A voice croaked from above and behind him. Ochre ignored it. "Hey! Bear!"

Ochre pulled up a smallish sapling with not-quite-bear-like hands, shook the dirt off the roots, and placed it in the growing pile. He didn't even look up. He was about to go to the next tree when he felt something warm splat on his muzzle. What the...?

He glanced up, and directly above him, a crow perched, cackling. "Right on target!" It snickered, before shifting further down the branch.

The bear grunted and shook his head, and then wiped his nose on one of the prickly Spruce trees. "What do you want, bird? Aren't you supposed to be flying south right about now?"

"Aren't you supposed to be flying south right about now?" It mimicked, it's voice high-pitched, yet grating. "Aren't you supposed to be fattening up right about now?" The bird asked stabbing one black wing to emphasize its point.

"I'm doing the Birch a favor," Ochre replied, not rising to any of the mockery.

"Oh, doing a favor. How lovely. How quaint." The crow hopped down a few feet, then fluttered onto a lower branch. As it did so, it grew in size, until it became a rather oddly-proportioned half-man, with black, bird-like talons, and a long beak-like nose. He clung to the lower branch with his feet, flapping his semi-feathered arms for balance. "And what are you going to get in return? Birch babies?" He sneered, his beady eyes alight with mischief.

"Bark." Ochre stated matter-of-factly, "if you must know. As I said before, what do you want, Ave?" He had never been entirely fond of the bird-folk... his people and theirs had never exactly been the best of friends.

"Bark? What are you wasting your time with bark for?" The bird-man fluttered his wings again, looking out over the deciduous trees with derision evident in his face. "Dragon hunting, that's what it's all about."

"I beg your pardon?" Ochre paused, pointing his muzzle up at the black creature, his little brown eyes squinting to focus. He couldn't have heard what he thought he heard.

The crow-man let forth another cackle. "You wouldn't believe the look on your face! I said Dragon. Hunting. You deaf, blind, brute."

Ochre grunted again, and shifted to his hind quarters. He made an impressive sight: at six feet tall when all fours, he simply towered when he stood straight. He came up to nearly eye level with his uninvited guest, and snorted at him. The crow man stuck his tongue out, but quickly backed up, in case Ochre was serious. Ochre stared, hard, at the man. "You're drugged, aren't you? I haven't heard such a stupid thing from your kind since I saw one down near an entire barrel of yarrow brew. Come here. Let me see your eyes."

"Hah! Not likely!" The crow blurted, fluffing the feathers that coated his body. "And I'm not drugged. I'm only passing along the good news."

"News?" Ochre enjoyed hearing news... even if it came from the black tongues of these creatures. He appeared to lean forward a bit, and in a second, he'd shifted to his half-man form, as well.

"I knew it! I can smell an ugly dirty Ursael from miles away!" The crow-man chuckled, then inched forward, for all the world looking as though he were about to impart some well-guarded secret. "No one notices a bird, no one can see a crow if they don't want to be seen. But a crow can see all he wants to if he jus looks..." He must be referring to some talent of his. Ochre didn't interrupt. The crow, looking a little upset not to have an inquisitive audience, continued. "And did I see something! Imagine a hundred, no, a hundred hundred Wyld dragons! I saw a great murder of them up and fly earlier this summer! It was amazing! Dangerous, too!"

"Wyld?" Ochre frowned, his now flatter face able to convey his concern. He'd heard stories of the beasts... one or two villages up north that he'd visited had had nothing good to say about them. In the single visit he'd made to Shivran Aerd, they had also reported the creatures as bad news. "But... a flight?" Flights and dragons... usually ended up with children. If he remembered correctly, that was how the creatures got with child...

The crow leaned forward, allowing silence to press in upon them for a moment. "Ah, finally got it, brutus?"

"It's Ochre."

"Guilthan" The crow responded, pressing a wing-hand to his chest by way of introduction. "That's right, a flight," he returned to the topic at hand, "and imagine hundreds of dragons of all kinds--I saw ones I've never seen before, and that's saying a lot for me, flying and falling, and all kinds of trouble."

Ochre brought one hand up to his furred chin, scratching at it idly as he let his thoughts wander. "And this was in the summer, you said?"

"It was."

"So now there's like to be several dozen--"

"Several hundred dozen!"

Ochre flicked a clawed paw... exaggeration, of course, "dragonlings running around, Wyld as their parents?"

"Free as the day they hatched!" Guilthan nodded along, his great nose bobbing with his head. "And now the Aerd is out to do something about it!"

"Dragon hunting." Ochre leaned back on his heels, his thought slowly bubbling forward, like a fountain. "But they wouldn't kill them all, would they?" From what Ochre had seen, the creatures were far more intelligent then the average prey animal, certainly more then many regular predators.

The crow-man floofed his feathers again, and grinned so devilishly that Ochre had to do another take. "I know that they're looking for helpers, they are indeed." He pointed at the Ursael, and then north. "And I know that you ought to be finding a place for the winter, oughtn't you?" he had completely avoided the bear's question.

Ochre was nodding along, but then stopped the motion as a thought struck him. "Wait, what are you gaining from telling me this?" He couldn't think of a single reason for the Ave to even be here, let alone talking of events many months past.

"Because," Guilthan sniffed, "I want someone to bring me one of the little ones," and he gestured with his wing-hands a small size. "And you look able. If you can talk to trees, you can talk to the Wylds."

"Why don't you just go yourself?" Ochre asked, suspicious.

Guilthan laughed, then preened at one wing, effecting great embarrassment. "I, uh... am not exactly allowed back into the Aerd. Heh."

"I'm not even going to ask."

"The point is!" and the crow hopped forward, quickly diverting the topic, "If you head over to Shivran, and manage to get on a hunting team, you stand to find a nice place for the winter! And if you bring me back a flit, I'll make it well worth your while!"

Ochre rubbed his chin again, absently scratching his behind at the same time. "The Aerd is only a week or two walk north from here..." he estimated.

"Only a day or two if you fly!" Guilthan supplied.

"Yes, but I'm not a crow."

"I should certainly hope not, you're much too hairy, and much too fat, and much too ugly and--"

"I could probably make it there before the first snow-fall if I start tomorrow... and I haven't seen a dragon--a tamed one--in years and years." Ochre mused.

Guilthan was grinning, but suddenly ducked low, his eyes turned sky-ward. "Actually, there's one now... hush..." As if a speck of red several hundred feet in the air could see two creatures conversing at the edge of a Birch stand. "Well," he continued, after the speck of a creature had all but disappeared from sight. "It's settled then. You go to Shivran, and get me a flit."

"Who's to say I'll get you one?"

Ochre grinned, amused to be on the coy side of things.

Guilthan squawked and shrunk to his full bird form. "Haven't you ever heard the stories of crow-favors?"

"Yes, and they rarely end up with anything short of shiny coins and metal scraps." Ochre, too, melted back into his bear-form, and grunted at the crow in the tree.

"Well you just haven't heard of any of the good ones, then." The crow harumphed and shook out his wings. "Anyways, you will find me something." he commanded, "but now I'm off!" And he was. He flapped out of the Birch and off into the thicker forest, his hackling call trailing off behind him.

The bear's gaze followed the black form until it disappeared, and then he returned to the work that was at hand.