Dragoncrest Cliffs [RAID] can you believe anything?

keeping vague on who is accompanying -- rusalka raid party, AW

they left late that afternoon, leaving the pups in the custody of trusted few. caiaphas detailed the plan; announce their presence, sweep the premises, and kill any wolf that matched the description of the insolent woman she had met the day prior. while normally a wolf of stealth, caiaphas believed erzulie's words rang true: it would send a message to the entire realm if they made an example out of this woman. let all of the teekon know rusalka did not bend.

she instructed each wolf to fan out in twos -- should they meet company, they would be better prepared, at least until backup arrived. pulling into the cliffs, caiaphas let loose a baying howl: not a howl of entreaty, but the resounding howl of the hunt.

she had no intention of a bloodless evening, and set forth into the grim halls of dragoncrest at a fierce prowl.

This was Raleska's second excursion into potential battle, and like any soldier, no matter how much you trained, it never amounted to the real thing. Raleska had been on edge all evening, jittery even as Caiaphas announced the company's move into the cliffs above. Her adrenaline kept her heart racing, and her body seemed possessed of a fuzzy, otherworldly tension.

She was right on her mother's heels as they moved, falling in step with the march of their grim company. Once upon Dragoncrest soil, Raleska paused as her mother's hungering cry echoed over the canopy and settled through the cheerless air: it was not a howl she ever wished came upon her.

Determined, Raleska slipped into the woods demarking Dragoncrest's borders, avoiding where she had once been captured by Dragedan sentries (and where Eurycrates had been dispatched, a memory she wished to keep dead rather than alive). If Kiwi was here, Raleska was determined to find her; all she could think of as she scouted the territory for any sign of their new enemy was that if this was what revenge felt like, she loved the taste of it.

she moved quietly along the cliffs, but there was a distinct pleasure in her eyes. to be here. to be a part of this raid — it satisfied erzulie as few other things recently had.
the harlot was silent, moving off as caiaphas directed. drageda’s scent had all but faded; here she searched not for them but for the she-wolf matching the description she had been given.

they split paths, trotting stealthily along well-worn footpaths without a word. there was no scent here of kiwi, not even in the hidden hougeda -- caiaphas emerged from the cavern grim-faced but triumphant. it appeared the girl had more sense than caiaphas had first given her credit for, for not a trace of her scent remained to be evidenced among the fen.

she waited for the rest of her pack to reconvene at their predetermined rendezvous -- her ears ever turned inward towards the cliffs in case any alarm sounded within.

The wolf they sought was not here. Raleska padded stiffly down the worn trail that marked the stony den in the cliff's northern face; not a trace of Kiwi was to be seen. The emptiness of it all stirred a sense of eerie foreboding in Raleska, who walked in a clipped gait with her fur lifted by more than just the breeze.

Concluding there was no soul to be found, she threw back her head in a howl to let her dam know nothing had been found. A thin howl rose into the air in rejoinder, Caiaphas' call for all troops to return to the Grotto. 

They might meet Kiwi again in the future... but not today.