Heron Lake Plateau i can see a heart-sized hole inside the ocean where i'm pondering a midnight swim

AW - tags for reference tho you guys are welcome in too

she was a grisly sight following her rash encounter with the cougar; her sharp face on one side had been contorted by inflammation, and a bright red ribbon of a wound rose up around her cheek and settled in a deep gash behind her skull. an imparting remark, if you will -- or a long-lasting reminder of her perilous encounter with a cat that was in every measure her superior. if caiaphas was a daunting image before, she was probably downright harrowing to behold now -- not that she had ever been a pleasant sight to begin with.

she had taken care to keep the wound site clean, though her constant thumbing of the split groove on her lip with a tongue had aggravated the mark anew. frustrated and pained by her cuts' slow progress, caiaphas had only eaten gingerly since.

with @Svalinn and @Raleska playing within eyesight, the sylph settled down on her tired limbs and watched. their youthful exuberance was a long-forgotten art to the siren, who marveled their boundless energy and bright-eyed interest in the world. it was not like her to let her guard down, but with @Blondine likely near by caiaphas felt heavy-lidded and quite tired all of the sudden.

Boredom set in once again and so Tywyll decided that he would do something he hadn't tried yet: go hunt out the puppies he had heard of. Unfortunately he didn't know their scent and therefore couldn't sniff them out but if there was one thing Tywyll had it was determination! So he wandered aimlessly until by luck he happened to hear the sound of puppies playing. 

He approached warily, unsure if he would be welcomed around quite yet but when he saw them playing he approached in a more enthusiastic manner his tail wagging and head tilted in a curious and hopeful way. That is, until he saw the woman guarding the pups. He stared at her with wide eyes not moving closer. His expression wasn't fear at all but more wonder, awe, confusion, and most of all concern. "Hello ma'am. Are you okay? You...you're hurt real bad" he asked in a hushed tone, too young to really know how to handle when someone looked as bad as Caiaphas did.

mild PP of the puppies - plz hope that is ok

her children continued to cavort; their antics heard but not seen as caiaphas' sharp yellow gaze was eclipsed by two tired, heavy lids. for a second she nearly slept -- yet she heard, or thought she did, the quiet tread of something light yet not intending to conceal herself.

her ears turned curiously, but her eyes remained close; the tread was distinctly wolven, or at the very least, canine -- and the scent the wind carried suggested it was a wolf of their fold. her initial alarm subsided, but it was not until she heard the patter of feet cross their threshold, and the owner of said feet spoke, that she opened her fierce yellow eyes and studied the inquisitive face of a young black pup.

she had not met him before, and wondered immediately whose he was. he seemed a few months older than both of her charges, and she studied his juvenile features with sharp interest. "i am." she conceded, flickering her gaze to the tumbling youths that had yet to notice tywyll's appearance. "who are you?"

Her eyes were closed which he hadn't noticed beforehand and briefly he wondered if he had interupted her sleeping. He knew better than anyone that waking up a sleeping wolf could be bad, Cinder absolutely hated being woken up from a nap. Just as he was about to slowly back out she opened her eyes, which were the brightest yellow he had ever seen in his whole entire life. They were amazing, they were fierce and predatory and for Tywyll it drew his focus entirely away from what he was sure was a wound that needed Raven (he didn't know it was permanent). "Tywyll Blackthorn Ma'am. My momma is Finley and my papa is Elwood. I have a brother named Cinder" he gave the full introduction and a small waggle of his tail, smiling in a shy sort of way which was entirely not like him. "You um...you have really awesome eyes" he said softly, looking down shyly. His first ever adorable sort of flirtation. How sweet.

a name was given - an introduction the sylph would store away carefully. she regarded the near-black babe carefully; his lineage was important, for caiaphas recognized he had come from the very family that had founded redhawk's dynasty. beyond that, she knew very little -- perhaps at some point, tywyll would enlight her if he saw fit to shed light on his ancestry.

beyond them the babes continued their tumbling; she flashed them only an appraising gaze, before she turned back to the charcoal-hued cub. if there was any warmth in her gaze for his compliment, it seemed fleeting. "it is the color of my family." she rejoined -- for no eyjolfur was truly an eyjolfur, without the arresting yellow shade in their eyes. all of her children had them; and likely, all of their children would have them -- for the matrilineage that stirred in their clan was fierce and often uncontested.

while raleska and svalinn carried on their valiant play, caiaphas fell silent -- yet she did not torment tywyll with quiet for long. "i am caiaphas eyjolfur, my mother was laika and my father cormac. names that mean little here, i am afraid. where is your brother, cinder?"