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It was probably bound to happen eventually... Gather a large group of Sentinels together in one place and there's bound to be some conflict. It has only been one night and two of the beauties are already fighting with each other. Strangedye was very eager to hand over the delicate problem to someone else. And since Bracken already is in the business of conflict resolution, so to speak, he's the one stuck trying to negotiate a truce between the two divas.

((OOC notes: There is a risk of injury in this scenario, so remember that actions have consequences, and please keep things reasonable. Talk to each other to determine if you're willing to have your Sentinel harmed in any way, and discuss with the Herald if you think there might be scaring and/or bloodshed. Please don't kill each other or the RP staff.))

If there was something Snowpeak had never been called it was “sensitive”. The word reached his eartufts as the worst kind of insult and as impossible as it might’ve seem at the time, the male Mist inflated considerably to the point where he very much resembled a huge ball of white fluff.

“I. Am. Not. Sensitive.” He snapped meeting the female’s eyes with the same fierce intensity she was displaying as he tried to remember exactly what words had triggered the argument. “And I couldn’t care less what questions you or anybody raises.”

But if there was a part of him that was rather annoyed at the feisty female and her obnoxious words, another side of Snowpeak was welcoming the exhilarating feeling she had provoked. He absorbed the signals she was sending unconsciously and without realizing, Snowpeak took one step forward, dropping to a closer branch and quickly hopped to the side almost as if looking for the weakness of a particular large prey. His eyes measured the female as his beak slowly parted in an excited sneer, wings raising and flexing in a mix of defensive and hostile aggression. It was… odd. He hadn’t started it this time, had he…? It was almost as if he was getting a taste of his own medicine and the role of bully was being taken away from him. No, not taken… it was something he could definitely share. There was no way he could refuse an opportunity that promised so much fun. A weak little voice – one that sounded very much like his old Minder – did try to calm him down, remind him of what he had learned but it was much too late now. The strongest thought in his mind and the one that seemed to be becoming more and more relevant as he moved closer to the mist female was that he had to protect his eyes.

“A little diva like you should just sit still and try to look pretty. Are you trying to start a fight?” he asked with obviously fake interest, pupils dilating so quickly that it was as if his fiery gaze was being replaced by belligerent pit of darkness. There was no disapproval in his voice. In fact, Snowpeak’s last words sounded rather closely to an invitation.

The low hiss that left the male mist’s beak was the only reply to Minke’s initial reaction. Snowpeak was barely aware of his own movements and the fact she wasn’t backing down in spite of his visible aggression served as much as an incentive as a deterrent. The two small lines of missing feathers above his left eye were hardly noticeable but the skin underneath twitched as if trying to remind the male of the old injury.

Snowpeak’s eyes narrowed a little at the female’s words and he seemed to be focusing very hard to make out the meaning of what she was saying.

“Oh, I’m definitely not looking for... a mate… but only an idiot would expect to find a decent one here.” Snowpeak replied viciously, implying he put Minke at the same level as any other of the participants. “And you better have the skills to back up that beak of yours. I might walk away from it… but you’ll definitely go limping.”

As Minke wasn’t a brooding female (at least as far as Snowpeak could tell) and they were about the same size and age, the male mist felt perfectly comfortable with the possible fight that seemed to be so close to eruption between the two pale sentinels.

From a little ways away and above them, Bracken snapped his beak in irritation. He'd been trying to take a brief nap in the junction of a tree branch, an ideal place he'd snagged after realizing how out of the way it was. He'd settled down, preened a bit, dug his talons into the wood, got comfy with his perch...
And then two loud, obnoxious Sentinels had to start arguing with each other.

He grumbled, glaring keenly from his branch at the two. Of course they were Mists, daft in the head Mists. All brawn and no brain, as far as he was concerned.
Were they mates? No... wait. He searched the back of his sleepy mind, stretching out his primaries. They looked suspiciously like contestants for the unfortunate contest he'd been blackmailed to judge for. After a few beats he decided that yes, they looked familiar, and yes, they were fighting.

When he spotted Minke lurching forward, he frowned, clacking his beak again. Noisy, argumentative, and brash.
If Bracken had a nose, he'd be wrinkling it.

"What's going on here?" he snapped out, and fluttered off the branch to a closer perch. It felt like he suddenly had to play Seeker for this job, too.

Snowpeak's flailing wings and inward delight delved Minke into a pleasant apparition of her chickhood, the curious feeling of both being pinned down by the gigantic, scaly talons of an older cousin, and blown away by the roar of a hurricane of wingbeats, and the sensation of being that bullying cousin in the years and years after her brief time as a small, defenseless Sentinel. Her eyes glazed and slitted as she leaped toward Snowpeak with an open, snapping beak, and was eliminating the last centimeters of feathery air between them when Bracken's officious little hoot backpedaled her into civilization. Mirroring Snowpeak's retreat, she backstepped and hopped a sullen few feet away from her adversary, huffily settling her plumage and turning her face to blast the diminutive Deep Woods with a squinting stink-eye. Her murderous heart was still thumping officiously in her breast, and so she unleashed a little verbal aggression on this proud-looking newcomer.

"I dunno, officer, what do you think's going on here? This owl-mothered dunce is all hot in the biscuit to defend the honor of Spectres and Abberants, and what's going on is I'm getting interrupted trying to teach him a venting lesson."

Officer? Did she know the deep woods? Was he supposed to know him, too?

Snowpeak would've eventually spoken to the Seeker. With a little coaxing and a bit of time, he was bound to say something (even if it the first thing to leave his beak would probably have been some rude remark directed at Bracken). Minke’s words, however, hardly left any room for the deep woods. Snowpeak’s mind was trapped in a storm of disbelief and outrage. He had to admit she was a pretty good liar though which was something Snowpeak was hardly equipped to deal with – the mist did enough damage in his fledginghood without anyone having to make up things about him…

“How in the bloody Noctua did the Spectres join the conversation?! Were you the fat little runt of the Enclave who needed to make up lies about others to get the attention on your ugly hog face?” When the mist finally gathers his thoughts, he turns to the female with the same aggressive posture as before but even if his tone starts as furious righteousness, it quickly evolves to amusement and by the end he is cackling without ever taking his piercing gaze from the female. “Did your brooder drop your egg or something, you foolish bird?”

Bracken had said something, Snowpeak was aware of it. But he didn’t like the male’s reaction and, quite frankly, he wasn’t the least bit interested in the deep woods. So apart from a quick “what is it to you?”-glance directed at Bracken, his eyes never left the mist female.

Bracken's ear tufts immediately flattened. Little dude?

"Enough!" he screeched, "I'm not little." Even though he was.

"I'm just not fluff like the two of you Inbreds!"
Though this remained to be seen.

Nevertheless, Bracken was pissed off and he was tired of all this pointless beak snapping. They were both stupid Mists, which figured- and snippy as they were, at least they were Sentinels. It wasn't like he was back to dealing with that other inbred Mist and her pathetic mate, fighting off Aberrants for the good of the Clan.
Or-- wait a moment...

"And you!" he snapped, rounding on Snowpeak, suddenly remembering the reason for all the trouble. He was angry, and the male was a convenient way to vent that anger.
"Spectres! Abberants! Abominations," he hissed, puffing himself up, "Defending such things makes you no better. Stop, or I'm going to knock some sense into that tiny brain of yours."

His yellow eyes were sharp, and they narrowed with the threat. "Can you understand that, scar-face?"

Minke's conflict-sensors were beeping insistently at the challenge Snowpeak was throwing down, but ever since their Deep Woods intercessor last began speaking, she had found herself fixated on his angry little head. Through the steady notifiers of a guaranteed fight with Snowpeak, her brain was slowly piecing together an equation: small and physically inferior sentinel...insulting her Type, heritage and intelligence...and a big, burly Mist waxing insecure about his own Type. Her pupils dilated as everyone's words assailed her. Why have a fight when you can have a brawl?

Her feathers puffed out in a show of bravado. "Baby, you only wish it was my bloodline that made me better than you." She turned to Bracken with an aggressive jut of her beak, "Ain't that right, Deep Woods? Don'cha think these white-a** feathers make me better?"