Blackfeather Woods There is definitely something rotten in the state of Camazotz

Hoping for @Cassiopeia but I'm also open to drop-ins. :)

It was tempting to band together with the new captive. Misery loved company, after all. But Wildfire kept herself sequestered at first, trusting the young black she-wolf no more than she trusted any of the other wolves in this bleak forest. From a distance, she observed the youth, slowly coming to realize that she must be the same age as Wildfire's own children.

This afternoon, she lingered in the cave mouth but she did not look out into the woods. Instead, she peered inward speculatively. There was a yearning growing in her breast. It was for her children—Artaax, Blixen and Bobby—and she knew she was projecting. But Wildfire couldn't and didn't even want to help her motherly instincts anymore.

"Are you there...?"

haven't had a thread between these two in like 2 years jeez

She had thought about starving herself, ensuring that her children would die from malnutrition. She thought about fatiguing herself, or trying the herbs once more. But her body's own selfish desire to stay alive was what kept her moving and relatively healthy. She didn't know what she had done wrong, why it did not work. Perhaps Mephala intended her to have these abominations. But for what? They were mixed blood of the worst kind: brother and sister after generations and generations of brothers fucking sisters. She did not have high hopes for any of them. She did not feel the same joy she once did as her stomach moved with their paws, as she felt them jolt. She only felt revulsion.

In the tunnels she heard a voice near Wolfskull. She had known about the captive, but she was the last thing she was thinking about nowadays, or even ever. So she squeezed through as best she could, secretly hoping that the children in her would be crushed as she tried to move, entering the Cave. I am here, She isn't the voice that the woman wants to hear back. Perhaps that was a blessing; reality instead of fantasy.

@Cassiopeia, feel free to answer too!

She'd overheard enough to register that something was amiss; her voice didn't sound quite right. A moment later, a white she-wolf materialized. This wasn't the new captive. It must be one of their captors. Wildfire's lips pressed together in a grim line, her eyes narrowing and dropping. She was growing extremely weary of engaging with these bewilderingly crazy wolves.

But there was something vaguely familiar about this she-wolf. Wildfire spared a second glance. Her gaze was drawn to the stranger's face. A dim memory stirred, though it remained hidden in the murk of her memories. She did note a slightly positive connotation in the back of her mind, which caused her to frown thoughtfully in her silence.

For a brief moment, she thinks the call is for her. She is silent, wary, but her heart leaps for a moment at the softness of the words, the kindness she imagines that they carry. She is resilient, but even the most resilient would succumb to the darkness eventually, should they be surrounded by it always. Her mind seems to play tricks on her, now, words where there aren't any, faces in the dark, paw steps on stone. This just might scare her more than the wolves of this wood; the inability to trust just exactly what she heard and saw eroding her confidence. 

The words are not for her, and thus she sinks back down into the shadows, making the slightest of sounds as her gaze fastens on the pale woman. The captive has a friend here, perhaps? They must know each other, if the red woman called for the other, but there does not seem to be anything threatening about her. She stays where she is, waiting to be noticed or not, not sure which she would prefer.

She looked at the woman intently. A spark of recognition had flown to her as she gazed on her, but it was small. Even if she known the woman well, she would be hard pressed to recognize her in this state.

My name is Potema Melonii, She greeted. It was a cold greeting, normal and without much emotion. It was merely her name, after all. She is silent for a moment. And it is in that silence that she hears movement amidst the ambience of the Cave. Her expression sours to confusion; she had not heard about another prisoner. Is there someone else here?

The name didn't ring any bells, despite the brief flash of familiarity. She introduced herself in a bland voice, then questioned Wildfire. Whatever instincts had compelled her to speak up in the first place fled in the presence of yet another cold, unfeeling sociopath standing over her. She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head as if to say, I don't know. She didn't have the energy to spare for her cruel captors, so she sank back against a wall and remained silent and still.

Sorry, she thought weakly to her fellow prisoner, who was only a child.

Cassiopeia is completely still a moment, silence greeting the woman's question. But hiding is foolish; it would merely require the woman to step further into the cave to discover her now. She rises silently, trepidation and unease rapidly morphing into fear as she approaches. Quite suddenly she stands before the woman, tail lashing nervously and gaze wary, guarded, her usual defiant anger but a spark in her gaze. She works to keep her forelimb from trembling with agitation and instead regards the woman in tense silence, the bleached hue of her pelt juxtaposed by the darkness all around.

There is nothing in response, and Potema isn't surprised. She sighs, the noise like a deflating balloon as her shoulders relax. She turns to the sound, more in the general direction than simply fixing on the unknown woman's body. I know you're here, She calls out into the darkness, though her voice betrays more of her exhaustion. She knows it can't be one of her children; they wouldn't hide from her, not even when they were younger. I'm not here to hurt anyone. I'm the pack's healer. She turns back to the warm-toned wolf. But I do not expect you to believe me, She mutters, mostly apathetic, settling her heavy weight on her haunches rather than letting it pull on her spine.

Despite her closed-off demeanor, Wildfire remained alert. Her ears twitched faintly and her heart skipped a beat when Potema spoke again, though she quickly realized the purported healer was addressing the youngster hidden in another part of the cavern. She licked her lips, chestnut eyes sliding sideways to see if the youth would show herself or speak. I'm sorry, she thought again.

Potema said something directly to her again. Wildfire didn't react beyond a single blink. She didn't trust any of these wolves—not even her fellow captive, really—and took everything they said with a giant grain of salt. She didn't say so, keeping her watchful silence.

She forgets, sometimes, the sheer darkness of her fur, how well it hides her as she stares at the woman, a mere few meters away. Haltingly, she moves ever closer, stopping when she reaches the faint glow that spills in from the edge of the cave. Her gaze flickering to the woman and then away, to the warm-hued one and then the ground, and back to the pale woman, dull fury in her gaze. She shared the fiery woman's distrust of these wolves, and remained silent, tail still lashing.

The girl steals forward. Neither of them trust her much, and she does not blame them. The flame-furred wolf had been here for moons, hurt by her pack, her family. The girl is new, unannounced. Like with many of the goings on here, she only suspects one wolf. One son her hers. Has a young wolf been in here? She looks at them both. Silvery fur, blue eyes, sandy stomach and toes?

Potema's choice of words made Wildfire suddenly think of someone entirely unrelated to this entire predicament: Floki. She hadn't thought about her former mate in ages, despite the indirect connection to her first encounter with Cicero. Thinking of him now brought back a flood of other memories: Goober forcing himself on her, Floki dumping her, Charon chasing her out of the pack... she had moved on from all of that only to arrive at this current horror show.

With a sinking stomach, Wildfire came back to the present. "I don't—" she muttered, then suddenly remembered a wolf fitting that description having come in here with savagery and violence. She swallowed at the muddled memory; she had been very out of it at the time. "I think so," Wildfire corrected before retreating further back into the cave, out of sight, with a last apologetic look to the youthful new captive.

Final post from me!

The girl watches the woman, her question catching her off guard. Does she not know what her packmates do? Or is kidnapping a free-for-all event that wolves of this pack partake in on occasion? Her own presence in this cave is not important enough for this woman to know about, and Cass replies only with a dip of her muzzle. Vaati has been here, and others beside him, though none have directly harmed her. But as she looks to the woman slipping back into the shadows, she realizes that that none have harmed her just yet. "What is this place?" she asks, voice softer than she expected it to be, not expecting an answer but hoping for one, some name to attach to this place beside 'cave'.

Her suspicions increase, but there is nothing to confirm it. She merely takes the answers given — barely answers, really — and nods. I'll be on my way. Thank you, She supposes those were the kindest words these women have heard in a long time. She raises herself up, readying to leave. Before she can squeeze out through the hole, one of the girls, the dark one that was hiding, asks her a question. It stings her, an arrow to her heart. Once this place was home to her, sanctuary. Even after her scars, the passing of her Mother, and the betrayal of her step-Father, she considered this forest the once place she could feel safe and at home. But now, with her stomach rounded by her brother's seed, she can only find one word to describe the place. She looks at the girl sadly, shaking her head. This is Hell, of course, She leaves then unable to speak much of it any longer.