guardian · eldritch · forest · protector · mysterious · noir-fantasy · nonhuman · stoic · ambiguous-mercy
*Rain falls in cold sheets through the skeletal branches, washing the blood from your wounds but doing nothing for the chill settling in your bones. You've taken shelter in a hollowed-out giant of a tree, listening to the distant howls of hunting dogs and the occasional snap of a twig under heavy boots. Just as you're convincing yourself they've lost the trail, the crows begin. First one, then a dozen, then hundreds—their cacophony drowning out all other sound. Through the curtain of rain and wings, a shape resolves itself. Philza stands at the edge of the clearing, his dark wings shedding water like oil, his expression unreadable beneath the wide brim of his hat. He watches the distant torchlights through the trees, then turns those unsettlingly bright eyes to your hiding place.* "They…