Kintla Flatlands it will come back

—in the vicinity of whitefish river, late afternoon

hunger had made her bold, and she'd left the plateau they'd claimed as a sanctuary, for now. it is hard to imagine that any one place could exist where they could claim totally safety, rather, it seems that the world around them crumbles away a little bit more every day. ash has been settling in the skies all day, and the dying sun glows strangely through the haze, a vivid red glow permeating over the bog she slips through now. 

trees lay toppled, fresh earth and stone from recent landslides creating small islands among the destruction. the water oozes up all around, and when she pauses to drink, recoils quickly—something is very wrong with the water here. the bitterness of it remains with her as she moves on, the total stillness of the territory unnerving.

He had run from Kaistleoki without thinking of his commitment, but that was common for Firefly, and everyone would know that by now. His terror at seeing the caves collapse ebbed in to a numbness he had only experienced once, maybe twice, before. The first time had been directly after the cougar attack which had led him to Willow and Nettle; the second, when he'd been thrown from the seaside cliffs and woken after, barely alive. This time he was still intact, still able to aid the wolves towards which he'd pledged himself — yet here he was, running. Letting them suffocate in their own graves if need be, saving his own hide and nothing beyond that.

The man went north and watched the limit lines of the river, finding that they were near to bursting with an excess flow of water; the quality of the river had begun to dwindle, filled with an inundation of silt and bits of detritus, as if a hurricane had blown through and left behind oddities. There was a distinctively saline quality to the water the further north he went; and then, almost as a trick to his senses, the familiar scents of Rusalka. Except he was miles away from the coast, which made the discovery feel maddeningly out-of-place. He thought for a moment, 'have I finally lost it?'

Firefly did not care for the twisted bodies of the trees which had been unearthed; he glimpsed briefly the ruination of the dirt where they had been uprooted, or where segments of the hillside had collapsed and been left bald. He took care to avoid anything that felt too destabilized, but he still moved with purpose, hunting for that scent until it was all he could think about — and then he saw her. Roaming along the leading edge of where one landslide had concluded, then through a copse of freshly killed trees that were probably not even stable where they lay. A blush of color. So much like Erzulie, he realized.

The wolf drifted closer — but he took care to stay silent, or as near to it as possible. There was no telling what ran through Firefly's mind as he looked upon his wandering daughter; even he did not know how he felt about the distinctive little person that he trailed after. If she was here, then the others must be too, he reasoned; yet he saw no sign of @Rosalyn or any of the other children, and immediately felt his heart constrict, choking on the feeling that maybe this was all that was left of Rusalka.

bloated, unrecognizable, it carries the distinct tinge of carrion-scent. despite it all, she carefully grasps one end of the thing and tugs. it slips out from where it'd been caught beneath a mat of vegetation lapping against the edge of the solid land, and she flings it smoothly onto the dry earth beside her. delicately, she stretches it out,  struggling to determine whether or not it might be edible. it is only when it suddenly, clearly takes on the appearance of a canid's leg that she takes a hasty step back, staring again to make sure. there is a patch of fur, a distinctly dark and certainly not belonging to any prey she knows. her thoughts fly immediately to Scarab, and suddenly ill, she backpedals rapidly. 

spinning, intending to fly back the way she's come, she's instead faced with a stranger, startlingly close. drawing up, caught between a rock and a hard place (or more specifically, someone's leg and a stranger) she stills, blinking. "who are you?" comes her soft and careful question, while some detached part of her mind tells her this must be the owner of the leg, come back to claim it. despite herself, she quickly ensures he's still in possession of all four limbs, regret at her straying already becoming tangible.

She appears to be distracted by something wedged in the earth. The power in her forequarter is unmistakable; even though she is young, sharply contoured with a lean muscle that marks her as a coastal wolf, she manages to uproot her target. He doesn't let his attention drift to the object; he is too busy studying the girl, feeling—well, he isn't sure. He has no connection to her so there isn't a sense of familiarity or familial attachment; he does find her appearance jarring though, partly because she looks so much like Erzulie, but also because she reminds him of Niamh, vague though such memories were to him. She did not look like him, did not move like him.

And then she was scrambling back from her well-fought prize, and Firefly glances to the branch with a raise of his brow, then a frown. It isn't a root or a branch she has unearthed but a limb, and it had far more fur than what he anticipated. He steps closer to investigate and in that moment she wheels around, affixes her eyes upon him, looking gaunt and pale as if he is death come to reap her soul, or something.

Who are you? She says with a hasty look at him, although Firefly doesn't notice that she's counting his legs to make sure they are all attached. He doesn't know what to say, so the first thing that pops in to his mind flees out of his open mouth: Firefly. I'm a friend of Rusalka, and your mothers. But almost immediately he regrets giving his true name; what if Erzulie and Rosalyn, or even Caiaphas, had told their brood of their wayward father? What if they cursed his name, spoiled their minds against him? He realized then, painfully too late, that he'd royally fucked up by leaving them as he had.

But then, if they did loathe him, he could easily make an escape. Nothing tethered him to the coast anymore - not even blood.

his name brings to mind no memories save for the night she saw the dancing lights. "I think they're called fireflies." she does not think that this man has any resemblance to the dancing figments of light; he is dark and scarred and foreign. someone her mothers know, then, and while normally she would not care much for him, the yawning void Rosalyn should occupy in her life prompts her to echo back, "my mothers?" a beat later, "have you seen rosalyn?" it was her fault she was gone in the first place, clementine wrangled with that daily. should it not also be up to her to find her, if she could, bring her back. she wants to turn tail and make haste back to the plateau, but obligation stays her paws and keeps her rooted here. 

she tries very hard to ignore the leg, though feels as repulsed by it as two magnets set tail to tail. that is a latter matter, surely, though it certainly does not contribute to her waning desire to stay here.