There was no food to be had upon the ridge from his estimation, so Anselm dove onwards - heading south at first, but inevitably trundling along towards the coast. The trees gave way to more trees, different ones, and the stench of pine rose up around him. A brief rain dampened his spine, but for the most part the wandering cloud was sheltered. The trees, numerous and clustered as they were, grew dense enough to keep the forest floor dry while permitting him access. By this point Anselm was quite tired. His fat reserves were starting to decline and thus, he had taken on a more roguish appearance than what was considered normal; his bulk having been depleted during his great journey. For now, he rested among the cedars, and nosed about the roots of a few errant pines.

High spirits carried the imp aloft back from the Glacier, her gait keen with glee. Her iniquity at Duskfire's gates meant only one thing -- they were no longer amicable neighbors, and Caiaphas lusted most heartily for conflict.

With these miscreancies in mind she practically pranced through Ravensblood -- that was, until, she bespotted a stormcloud crawling through the snowfall. She paused, her hackles lifted -- and with a darting pink tongue clearing the bloodied grime from her muzzle, she approached the male with intentions unknown.

There must have been some kind of hollow nearby - some place where smaller creatures roosted, bloated from the many days leading up to winter's chill, but no matter where Anselm searched he could not find it. The scent of otherness was vague in some places, intense in others, and varied even as he searched. There one moment, a ghost the next.

He gave pause to his scouring and breathed a gruff sigh, in time to lift his head and see an approaching shadow. Or something like a shadow; for only the tip was dark, and the rest a silver waif. At first he thought it was a trick of the light, of the unfamiliar terrain, and next... Maybe a true specter, having lost it's head.

But he was no fool. Anselm was not swayed by superstition to the extent of his forebears, and thus he was unafraid, even as the specter took true form. The closer it got, the easier it was to discern. She was no ghost - but decidedly thin, sharp, and most importantly feral in her mannerisms. The strange woman paused and began to clean a spot of gore from her face, and this lent Anselm enough time to glean some knowledge from her.

Not as much as he may have liked, granted, but enough.

"Your blood, or a friend's?" He rumbled as pleasantly as his gruff voice could, although the sound fell stale within the wildwood.

Overhead the flutter of feathers upon the piercing wind met her ears, and she eyed the skies for the shadow she had come to familiarize herself with. It was not hard to spot the bird, which perched precariously on a bobbing limb.

Yet presently, the wolf on the ground commanded her attention. She eyed him with a sidelong glance, noting he did not carry the scent of any tell-tale denomination on his stormy pelt. She sat back and wiped her gore-ridden muzzle with a flatboned wrist, her expression somewhat wry. "Neither." She spat into the sparse snow a bloody phlegm, which welled and melted into the frozen tundra.

Her response was as mundane as his question. And as the wad of phlegm hit the snow, Anselm glanced side-eyed at it, but was bored by the time it vanished among the snow. As he turned, ready to depart from this brief meeting, he heard a crackling in the boughs and his interest was brought skyward - or at least to the level of the low branches, where he watched a small figure perch itself.

Anselm's face drifted briefly in to a worried expression (or at least became slightly confounded); but the arrival of the bird did not dissuade him from leaving. If anything, the pest's subtle lurking made him less inclined to stick around. So he turned and headed through the forest once more - idly listening to the slender woman, in case she chose to follow (or in case she meant him ill, but, he doubted the spindly creature could do him any real harm).

The pewter-cloaked male regarded her blandly, and was just as quick to leave. Excellent the gaunt coywolf thought inwardly, her yellow gaze trained on his receding form.

In any other circumstance, she would have hounded the wolf -- especially with her resident heckler behind her -- but this was no normal circumstance, and Caiaphas was in a hurry. She was not stupid -- she knew soon the wolves of the Glacier would be baying for her blood.. but she had laid her trap carefully, expertly even..

For she had told Malachi she was aligned with Shearwater Bay -- and had implied to Manuaia the same. She had devised her cunning plan carefully, even if it was only low cunning.

With one last scornful smile in the wolf's direction, Caiaphas turned away -- and strode directly towards Shearwater Bay. The wolves of the Duskfire's fold may find her tracks, though they would be misleading -- for no sooner had she met Shearwater's borders she devised to swim along the shore until she was upon Ankyra's strand.

Perceiving himself free of scrutiny from the erstwhile scavenger, Anselm continued on his way. He sojourned through the brambles with as much ease as a bear - or rather, a cub, one who was not quite at ease upon its feet. The terrain was irregular, pock-marked by saplings or the cavities produced by loose stone and debris; when he wasn't stumbling over an object, he was stumbling in to it - and this is when the onlooking bird chose to make his re-appearance.

It's voice chimed sourly from nearby, and Anselm tossed a besieged glance at it. The snap of the pest's roosting branch reminded the boy of the bird's brittle little spine, and how melodious it would sound to crumble it to pieces. For the most part Anselm was unimpressed (which wasn't surprising). He wasn't too bothered either (yet), and continued to mosey on his way.

The bird was a peculiar creature. And, briefly, Anselm wondered if it was alone in its eccentricities. Perhaps all birds (of some measurable degree) were as mindless - no, childish - as this one. Anselm was a patient youth. He was not dissuaded from his route nor caught in the inescapable urge to maim the vile thing which coasted so pleasantly beyond his reach; however, a thought did occur to him.

He paused and watched the creature coast, lifting his head slightly so that his eyes could follow the stygian figure. The question that rose to his lips was unaffiliated with anything the bird had said thus far - he wasn't berating it, nor coaxing it for further irritation. Rather, he queried for information. Raven. You are a friend to that feral creature — does it have a name?

Perhaps it was rude to refer to another living, breathing wolf as an it, but after their brief encounter, Anselm was honestly at a loss; he could not tell in that short span, with those few words shared, who or even what the beast had been.

Either it did not know the name of the creature it followed, or it was appeased by its evasion; either way, Anselm did not get the information he sought. He was not so bright a mind as to trick the trickster, so he accepted this with a dull oh of course rise of his brows and subtle nod of his sooty head.

Doubting he would get any truth from this avian menace, the boy was unrelenting regardless, and accepted the bird's inclination towards further questioning. At the very least he would make his wandering more entertaining.

Where did you find your dog, then? Forest? Mountain? Sea? As he muttered the words to indicate each location, his head began to bob - bird-like, sort of - and at the end, Anselm's head centered itself and his ears tilted towards the soon-to-be liar.

The vague response was somewhat expected, so it didn't irk Anselm as much as it might have bothered another wolf. He gave a soft snort as the information registered in his mind, and then promptly fell silent. There was nothing else he would try to pry from the raven's tied tongue. Whether the bird lingered much longer or not, the storm cloud continued to billow through the thicket and towards the unknown.