they say you can get lost for days

Heading north had been harder than he had thought. It was easier for Lup to travel by stars, but the ones here were all over the place and so different than the ones he was used to. Instead, he had tried to find his way north based on temperature. It...had not worked very well, but he felt like he was going in the right direction. If anything, he tried to listen to his gizzard.

With how weird this new world was to him, he hoped that the mountains meant north. He had a feeling like his original home must have had cold areas towards the north. As the sun started to lift into the sky, Lup lowered himself on a tree in a small wooded section. Although snowy owls were active during the day, he had been raised to avoid the daytime because of crows.

Lup sat in the tree, watching the sky change colors. Part of him wanted to keep going - he hadn’t really had run-ins with any kind of bird - but he felt his wings were tired enough to sleep. This was a new place, he decided, and he would wait a bit to see what else woke up with the sun before flying onwards north.

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A snowy owl. Atlas had only ever seen a few in his long lifetime, for they rarely irrupted into the steppe except on particularly harsh winters or if their arctic food supply failed, and they had never occurred at all in the Himalayas proper. He had always been somewhat fascinated by the tundra, though it was a place he could never dwell for long. The beaming white creature glowed from its strange perch — a tree in the woods was a surprising place to see one, though perhaps it was the safest place to land in a wooded area. Atlas imagined that the beast was simply moving through.

Atlas's descent took a fair bit of effort, as it was too early in the morning for the ground to have been heated by sunlight, so there were no thermals to direct his flight, and very little breeze. His landing was inelegant, and he was not so ambitious as to attempt a tree landing — he settled instead on the much more familiar ground.

“Pretending to be an eagle owl, are we,” he mused, though in truth he too was somewhat outside his typical habitat. There were a bit too many trees here for his liking, and the canopy a bit too closed. He preferred open skies and barren slopes, and the forest felt claustrophobic. But it was worth it in pursuit of knowledge, and Atlas did not know the next time he would have the chance to exchange words with a snowy owl.
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It hadn’t actually crossed Lup’s mind how much he must stand out against the dark trees and rocks. Growing up in a cold, snowy climate, he had hidden perfectly, and it always escaped his mind that he was pretty much a beacon when there was no snow. As he looked onto the sky, his sharp eyesight still had to come back around to see the bird coming towards him.

As they landed, Lup tried not to get aggressive. Not everyone was out for a fight, surely. When there was no obvious feeling of a threat, the snowy owl calmed down, and gave a sheepish smile to the vulture. “I suppose so.” He gave a small chuff of soft laughter. He was definitely out of his element, anyone could see.

“I’m actually heading north, trying to find a tundra.” Lup admitted, hoping that he was going in the right direction. Within this new world, he had been guessing everything. Plus, for some reason he felt that if he got to the cold lands, somehow he could find his home, his memories. “I’m Lupus, by the way. Everyone calls me Lup.” Named after a constellation he hadn’t been able to find.

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As he had suspected, the white owl had made no home in the southern mountains, and was seeking a more barren landscape.

“There is such a tundra,” Atlas confirmed, “Though a formidable mountain range borders it to the south.” A lesser bird may have found the passage impossible, but a snowy owl was a strong enough flier, and could probably make the journey without much hardship. Truthfully, Atlas had never really investigated if there was a more hospitable gateway to the north. All he knew was that he could see the sprawling frozen lowlands from his lofty mountain home, and not since his youth had he ever had any real desire to visit them himself. He had been there once, to see an ice bear, and since then the tundra had only existed in memory.

Lupus was an interesting name for a bird, and Atlas pondered its meaning, if it even had one. He was no scholar of Latin and only had a basic understanding of constellations, so the connection was mostly lost on him. “A pleasure, Lupus. My name is Atlas.” The origins of his own name were unclear. He certainly had not been named after the titan, but he did fancy himself somewhat of a historian and keeper of knowledge. Literally speaking, it also happened to be the name of the first vertebra that supported the skull, which was an elegant enough name for a pragmatic creature that consumed bones.

“I can't imagine a great owl of the snow would willingly end up here, but stranger things have happened.” Eagles falling out of the sky and wolves appearing out of the ether, for instance. “It seems this place is plagued with odd occurrences.”
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Lup was glad that there was a tundra not too far off - although he also had a sinking feeling that when he arrived there, he would not find his family or friends that he was looking for. He tried to shift his unwelcomed feelings onto the mountains; he could fly them, no problem, but it wasn’t always exactly fun to fly through mountains. Sometimes there were odd drafts because of the cliffs and caves, making the owl have to be wary and careful.

The vulture was named Atlas, and Lup gave a small dip of his head as a welcome. He knew the meaning immediately, and his mind filled with the pages of books, maps of territories known to owls, and then vague, sloppy maps of unknown regions that they tried to draw from word. Oh, he hoped that he could at least find a good library soon; reading always helped him calm down.

“I’m not exactly sure how I got here, but I...woke up? While I was flying. It was odd. But no, I feel I was so far south because of a war.” Although none of these lands looked like they had been ravaged by war. Usually, there were large areas that had been burned or obvious evidence of fighting. No, there was none of that here. He figured if anything, at least ending up in the new world brought peace.

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The owl's story was vaguely familiar, and Atlas would have been utterly confused by it if he had not seen an eagle fall out of the sky a few weeks earlier. Strange things had been happening to everyone, it seemed. What did surprise him was the mention of a war. Atlas had heard of great wars between human armies, and small scale skirmishes between villages, but certainly nothing on the scale that Lup's anecdote seemed to indicate. He had never even heard of owls being involved with something like that — the ones he had met had largely been solitary creatures that shunned the company of their own outside of their immediate families.

“A war, you say,” he said with interest. “I should think you would not have to worry about that here. The humans used to fight amongst themselves, but with primitive means. But in any case they all seem to have disappeared.” Atlas rolled his shoulders in a resigned shrug. “I would not think your kind the warring type.”
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The war had taken so much from so many owls. In Lup’s mind, he was weighing his options: live without memory and family in a warless world, or live with his family but among a brutal war. Part of him wondered if being taken away to this new land was some kind of gift. It would take all his life to decide if it was.

The assurance that there was no war among owls was shocking. While in his homeland owls were mostly solitary, they still had societies. The societies didn’t always get along, and with that Lup had been dragged in. But at least for his traveling now, he wouldn’t have to fear an ambush from the enemy. When he heard the word humans, he was confused; he didn’t realize that the Others and humans were the same thing, but brushed the thought aside.

“I like to think we tend to be peaceful.” Of offered. “Just - you know, some bad apples and then others get dragged in.” Surely not everyone had wanted to live in the war. Some of the owls just hadn’t known better. Lup knew he didn’t want the war, he just wanted peace.

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That there were warmongers among owls perhaps should not have come as a surprise to Atlas, but it still felt odd to a creature that had devoted his life to peace. Whether it was simply in their nature or for other unknown reasons, it was the carnivores that seemed to be most prone to violent conflict. He may have been a bird of prey, but he was only an honorary one at best. Atlas supposed that there might be the odd bonebreaker out there who would assist in a battle, if it benefit them, but he could see little incentive in such an alliance. To the opposing side, a massive raptor with a formidable bill that dropped heavy objects would provide an advantage in combat, but what draw was there for the vulture? Nothing they sought was of much value to anything else, and nor was it in short supply.

“I suppose so,” he replied, “and perhaps I am simply complacent after decades of peace.” When had he even last left the Himalayas, before the world had been turned upside down? Surely it had been years. “I hope you find it in the tundra, and perhaps some meaning in your arrival here.” Because in his experience so far... life before the other time seemed to be permanently out of reach, so it was best getting use to the new normal.
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Eventually, it had felt like the war had lost its meaning. Lup suspected that even if he remembered everything in his life, the war would still be meaningless to him. It was simply something that had been happening and continued to happen to the point where both sides were almost the same and it was just a grab at power. Lup felt good to be getting away from it all; he, truthfully, was not much for battle.

“It’s hard to know another’s mind.” He knew that some had enjoyed the rush of battle, even when they were noble. It was what helped them wake up in the night, and what made their talons sharp. But that was not the life for Lup. “Oh, thank you. I truly hope so too.” Part of him knew he wouldn’t find his family nor friends in the tundra, but maybe he would stumble across his purpose; why he had been teleported to this world.

“It’s been a pleasure, Atlas, thank you.” He wasn’t sure what he was thanking the vulture for - maybe the information, maybe just the company. “I think I better be off. I hope you do well, friend.” Continue to keep his peaceful life, if that’s what he wanted. If Atlas had nothing to say to stop him, Lup would gently lift off the branch, heading north once again.

we can call it done if you don't want to post again

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“And to you, Lup,” he replied in kind as the white owl left his perch and lifted out of sight, presumably en route to the tundra and perhaps more of his own species. After a few moments, Atlas too then departed the conifer woods, with images of his own favoured, barren slopes — and now, owls at war — vivid in his mind.
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