Dragoncrest Cliffs the moonchild come to harm

please allow @Rosalyn to post first. tagging @Blixen and @Dio

and so the bear had come to ironsea, and scattered them. it had been herself and the captain against the fierce, saliva-spewing thing; its jagged claws had cleaved the land, and its great teeth had almost sundered the pair of them. she had screamed to rosalyn; she had run, and run.
only by the grace of the loa had they found one another once more — erzulie had suggested an inland dash, as not to lead the beast to the last coastline pack. but where they had been cursed with soft walls, the rose-bloom girl had called this drageda.
confronted by the fangs of rough-hewn stone cliffs, the pair had settled, exhausted, some feet from the border. supplicants, ironsea no more, and erzulie saw no harm that they had saved themselves. here the chai-tea woman, bedraggled, ankles streaked in dried blood from her lacerated paws, called for leadership, and for blixen — the only wolf she knew belonging to drageda.
unable to stand for longer than the length of her cry, erzulie stumbled back and collapsed alongside rosalyn, head weaving with thirst but eyes fixed upon the proverbial gates.

Of course there was some guilt in fleeing; she hoped the rest had done the same, and made it out safely.  But Rosalyn was not the sort of wolf to throw her life away for nothing, and facing down the monster who had come simply to keep the shore would have been just that sort of sacrifice.

She'd been most afraid when she and Erzulie had separated; luckily they had found one another, and exhausted staggered... somewhere... together.  Both were tired, torn, and disheartened, but at least they weren't alone.

Her ears flicked as Erzulie called, but she remained where she was, silently thinking.  She had an inkling of where they were... and if she was right, there was a large chance, whoever came, this would not go well for her.  If they accepted her lover, this was fine; she could remain in the region, at least for a time, and Erzulie would not need to worry about life alone.

When she settled back down, the former captain settled closer, turning to begin gently cleaning Erzulie's torn paws.

I miss playing with both of you, so I am planting myself in this thread because Sequoia has a tendency to wander off. And Dio should be along soon anyway. On that note, feel free to skip me as needed to move this thread along! Don't wanna hold up a joining thread. ^__^

The call of a stranger caught Sequoia's attention, and before either her mother or father could stop her, she was bolting in that direction. It wasn't too far from where they had been, and her ears splayed back behind her as she rushed toward it. She was a friendly, curious young thing, and the thought of strangers was highly tempting. Besides, Daddy would be right behind her since he was A Leader. Even if he didn't come along, some other adult would come along and sort things out.

As she drew closer, Sequoia slowed, taking shorter, more quiet steps as she hid out of sight. She could still spot them from the bushes here, but she was fairly certain that she would be out of their range of vision. It wasn't just one stranger, either. There were two of them! One of them had red blood all over its paws, and the other was putting her tongue on them. Sequoia squinted, trying to figure out if the darker one had caused the bleeding, but she wasn't sure if she could even tell that from sight alone.

The call goes up and Helix finds herself curious. She’s been trying to acclimate to life in Drageda for the time being, while their stuck waiting on Heda to recover. In the meantime, she’s kept to the borders and hunted and everything else to keep herself busy while the others watch over @Denali—stull unable to see the woman—and she finds this to be a good way to see how they handle strangers.
 
Helix continues along the borders, turning a little to adjust her projection. Nose scents the area as she gets close and she licks her lips, lifting her head as strangers come into view. Blood is on the air, catching a glimpse of a Drageda child. Did no one watch their kids around here? The warrior boofed gently to the child to back away, out of trouble but mostly out of the way. Yellow eyes turn away, standing in a way that’ll give her ease to intercept, should either party move after one or the other.

He was heading a small mosey with the family when the stranger's howl rose to the skies, and before he could get them all regrouped, one patchy-furred rump was speeding off. "Sequoia!" he barked after her, and after some complaints under his breath, he made sure the others were going to be fine without him for a moment. Thankfully Dacio and Opalia were probably bickering over something, and Dalia could handle ushering them back towards Hougeda. The wocha would reunite with them soon, their sister in tow.

When he caught up, he growled lowly at the little runaway as he strode purposefully towards her to gather her up. In this motion he noticed Helix, and how fresh the blood scented on the wind. Nerves dialed up freshly now, he pressed his nose against the girl's side to urge her to behave--or else. "Mind your manners. You need to be careful around strangers," he said firmly, having not appreciated her hustle and rush to get here by herself, especially with blood on the wind. But, he'd make this good exposure for her if she was going to have to be here anyway.

He then stepped past her, and approached the duo of strangers to stand tall over them. At a cursory glance, they didn't immediately appear to be in any position to make trouble, but mistrust ran deep in him with his young daughter here and Heda still mending--among all else. "What happened?"

woo!! what a joining party! thank you, all <3

a wince, a sharp inhale, the release of breath. rosalyn's attendant laving stung the ripped pawpads, but there was soothing in it all the same. the agony banked down to embers at a dull throb, and momentarily she found peace. leaning forward, erzulie passed her muzzle along the former captain's cheekbone.
she did not see the child, but the seawinds brought to her the scent of drageda, and the harlot lifted her spice-darkened ears. mismatched gaze blinked, and there was a shadow, a large she-wolf dusted with silver and sable, hawkbright eyes, a shoulder scarred in triplicate. reluctantly, the woman drew away from rosalyn and stood to face the newcomer, trembling somewhat as the terrain set her paws afire once more. 
and then there was a little girl, and more importantly a man. erzulie did not appreciate his nearness; she withdrew to stand protectively near her lover, but swept her tail between her thighs and let her ears fall back. this wolf large too, stare two-toned as hers was, though in differing colours, cream and gilt. she noted his long canines, the expression along the planes of his face. "a bear, further down de coast," erzulie offered quickly. "it came upon us and scattered de pack."
a forlorn look crept across her own features; the harlot glanced to rosalyn once for strength before returning her focus to the man. "we ran until we could not. de bear almost killed the pair of us. ironsea is no more." a breath drawn, her gaze skimming the gathered drageda wolves for any sign of blixen; perhaps the rose's presence would steady her. "we seek shelter, a new home. i be erzulie and dis is rosalyn."
with no idea of the muddied waters between her lover and the wolves upon the seacliffs, erzulie fought the agony radiating upward through her ankles and awaited the answer of the male who appeared to be their leader. they looked poorly, she knew, but it was no reflection of their abilities in any way, and she hoped those who resided at drageda would see it.

Rosalyn was content to leave the silence while they waited.  She didn't want to talk about what had happened just yet, not when she still felt shell-shocked by it all.  Cleaning the wounds gave her something to concentrate on aside, and she remained at it until others began to arrive.

She tensed, when she scented them.  It was in fact Drageda lands they bordered now, and Rosalyn watched as a few filtered in, waiting for Thuringwethil's arrival and her own inevitable consequences.  Honestly, if the lead female came, she wasn't sure she would even make it past the joining alive.  Their last meeting she barely had.

She didn't come.  Instead the leader seemed to be another man, one Rosalyn recognized vaguely from her time here, though she didn't remember his name.  She let Erzulie speak, though she did rise, her own paws and muscles protesting the movement.  The bear had laid some marks, and it would be a while before either of them were able to run well after their flight.  She nodded to Erzulie when she spoke, but then glanced down when she was introduced, her ears casting sideways uncertainly.

She did not know if he recognized her, or what the rest of the pack would think.  She was a little too tired to care, but she ached at the thought of needing to leave Erzulie there should she be turned aside.

Sequoia's ears picked up the sound of another Drageda wolf. One she knew to be Helix (she was pretty sure, anyway). The young wolf stuck her tongue out in defiance, but once Daddy Dio arrived, she was much more compliant. Still, he didn't tell her to leave, so she remained where she was. Out of the way, out of sight of the strangers, and simply here to observe.

She could barely understand what the one wolf was saying, and the other one didn't speak at all. Something about a bear, the coast, and something called "ironsea." Figuring this was not the time to ask questions, and considering she hung back out of the way, Sequoia held her curiosities for later.

Soon after, Dio arrives and Helix dips her head a little. She hasn’t met any of the children of the pack yet, making sure to keep her own distance, but she’s able to put a name, face, and parent to this one the moment the wocha arrived. She’d been skeptical knowing an outsider holds a leadership rank but the brute has been with them nearly from the start, she has learned, and so she watches him do what he’s supposed to. He’s stepped up in Heda’s inability to lead while she recovers, but if she hadn’t been ill, they wouldn’t be here at all, would they?
 
The warrior stays silent, keeping to Dio’s side as guardian, and letting her eerie gaze rest upon the pair while they explain the harsh times of losing their pack.

A bear, she answered, and the wocha felt his shoulders tense--possibly noticeably so. The same one, perhaps, that Drageda had not managed to bring down? The vile beast had gone back towards Ankyra Sound to the last of his knowledge, which could have reasonably wandered further on down the coast afterward--he hadn't personally tracked it any past their reach, not with the pups afoot, and never had it returned to near their cliffs.

He wore the proof his own encounter in the knotted, gnarling scar tissues, like many of their own too. Their bloodied, worn states made far more sense with bear in mind, and an old ache at the back of his neck wanted to sympathize more properly.

He fought against the need to glance over his shoulder to Sequoia so soon. With Helix flanking him, too, he ought to feel more ease over this. The more he heard and the longer he looked at the pair, the more a vague maybe-familiarity was pinging for the darker of the duo. She had stayed quiet while he thought this through, given plenty to digest from Erzulie--regarding Ironsea, and why it was their cliffside doorstep they found.

So many had come, gone, and passed by. Hard telling, with suspicions running free.. however, it was worth addressing: "What happened to the rest of Ironsea?" Bear food, maybe. Or scattered to the winds anyway, as such a flight seemed to imply so far. "We aren't meant to serve as a sanctuary for the needy," he intoned levelly between the two. He was guarded with their resources, young and mending to consider first and foremost. And these were delicate times; he was place-holding already, and not at his most welcoming with such judgements looming. They weren't looking for charity cases. "Do you know Heda?" he asked Erzulie, and as he spoke, watched the masked woman keenly. He already had an inkling for the other's answer, not that it helped.

she had expected to be tested; all the same, the man flung the failure of her ability to protect ironsea in the harlot's face. inadvertently perhaps; it made no difference. the point was the same; they were vagabonds, and with little way to prove their abilities at present.
frustrated, erzulie adopted an expression of more supplication than before, now genuinely concerned for rosalyn's well-being. who was that?  "i do not know heda." aware now that there appeared to be things she did not know, the chai-tea jezebel nevertheless kept her countenance placid. "dey ran. we held de bear until we too must run." her grasp of the language was slipping beneath the duress of the moment, and the agonized trembling of her limbs had intensified. still, she would not bend before the male's scrutiny. "we are huntahs, fishers of de sea. and hardened by battle, de bofe of us. i have knowledge of herbs, as well." 
it was to all of them she spoke, but erzulie's attention was trained carefully on the male who stood above she and her lover.

Through the tired numbness, she could feel his eyes, and wondered if he knew.  If he did, then there was no way she'd be joining.  Especially not when he'd as well as confirmed the woman she'd fought only a few months back still held the helm.

Funny how, with a crew at your back, you could feel so invincible.  And as soon as that was gone, everything came back to bite you in the ass.

She didn't want to be here, begging for help from a pack she'd left years back.  She didn't want to think.  But she couldn't let Erzulie do this alone, and that brought her to herself enough to at least find her voice.  

"I know her," she added after, lifting her head to look at Dio direct.  "We can help.  But if you cannot take both, you won't find better than her.". With the last part she glanced at her lover, a look that was both an apology and hope that she wouldn't argue.

Helix lifts a brow when the accented woman speaks, admitting she does not know the title. She struggles not to make judgment with how little she knows of the area but makes a note to ask about these things later and their relations to the neighboring packs (now few and far between).
 
As the other wolf speaks and she turns to her, she finds more curiosity in this one as she inadvertently explains her former silence. She boasts her companion, disregarding her safety so long as one is taken care of and as much as she wants to turn for Dio’s reaction, she offers him only a swivel of an ear his way while her eerie gaze holds on to the auburn woman.

Sequoia continued to listen, though her attention began to wander the more she failed to understand what they were referencing. She did not know anything of this "ironsea" they spoke of, and it did not seem like Daddy Dio was very keen to make friends with these strangers. The air was tense, but not so much that Sequoia felt that a scuffle would break out. Her instincts were still forming, but she had enough to know that. Besides, the funny-talking wolf probably couldn't fight very well with all that blood.

"Are we gonna let them live here?" Sequoia asked of Helix in a murmur.

The accented Erzulie did not know their commander, and Rosalyn did of course, all before their usefulness sated his patience enough to keep the conversation moving forward and on. For all of his displeasure aside, the cliffs had the room, the open niches, opportunities. And, for seaside-savvy wolves, the location suiting.. Battle worn had him recalling Helix's words, and the notion of a messenger they evidently never received. "Heda is our leader here," he said to the masked woman, sparing the other the minor details of it when he was uneasy about the pack's standing already--Thuringwethil's healing took precedence over the title's accessories right now, and time would tell what became of it. "I'm Dio. Wocha," he detailed, but only that for now.

"If this were not to just be some halfway stop while you heal before deserting us in the night," he looked pointedly downward first to what seemed like some of the worst of her injuries, but skimmed a mismatched glance over Rosalyn's expression too before he went on. They had medics, and resources too. No one on their side had festered and died after their encounter with what was likely the same bear but he wasn't dishing out handouts based on a common enemy alone. Not here, not now. "And if loyalty to Drageda, Heda, and ours would be your precedent, I would be more open.. Assuming you can prove all you say to us.. in time, and with worth." They needed warriors, hunters.. everyone, as much as he hated to say. They needed wolves true to them first, though, and this was where his doubt seeded worst of all. It was far too suspicious to take in the wounded, abilities, value, and neighboring ties alone; he wasn't going to do so without great scrutiny in the weeks to come, if so.

there was a tension here erzulie did not understand, and her ire rose when rosalyn all but offered her to the drageda wolves as if she were some sacrificial lamb. aware that her ability to remain objective was compromised by her hunger, her worry, her pain, the harlot kept herself from eyeing the captain with a sharp look. 
they would speak later.
each grain of earth beneath her forepaws bit into the raw flesh there and erzulie was unsure of how long she would be able to remain upright. and yet she would not falter beneath scrutiny; however, her annoyance with the condescension, or what she assumed to be such, in the man who called himself dio, was beginning to grate.
"i have been near drageda before, wocha," the chai-tea jezebel rejoined in a quiet voice made dry by the heated pulse of her lacerated paws. "i respected it den and i do now. rosalyn and i would not have come if we did not see the worth of your streng't." and there now was a flicker of something in her two-toned gaze; the she-wolf found herself insulted by the suggestion they were only present to leach from drageda's stores and depart beneath the cover of nightdark like cowards. 
a home was a desperate need that belonged to them both, but marie had often chided erzulie for her misplaced pride. and this moment was no different. the blood limning her forelegs would darken before she would accept more insinuations they were not worthwhile. it was a foolish decision, but logic could not overcome the fiery lash of wounded self.
pride made her fierce; pride made her intemperate and hot-headed. and pride suggested she and rosalyn would be fine among themselves. she understood well why dio tested them so — she appreciated the concept — but before her loa she would not be accused of potential thievery and flight. 
"if you do not t'ink we can be loyal servants to your heda, we will take no more of your time." the harlot turned from dio then, her stare skimming the others; she nudged rosalyn gently, encouraging her to rise. seawater and kelp to bind her own paws, but for now they needed the ocean free of a bear's influence. "we will go to de sea and den we will go inland," erzulie murmured, limping closer to steady herself against her lover's shoulder. 
presently she glanced to dio, dipping her muzzle in a deep nod, gratitude for the time the fierce man had granted the pair. but unless the wocha halted their steps, erzulie would move away from drageda, and with her the last captain of ironsea.

Dio did not immediately discount her, which could mean only one thing; he wasn't aware.  But still, Rosalyn was preparing for the worst.  She could not remain here, not when her fate would be set as soon as the commander saw her within the fold once more and she'd  rather take a chance with a fate unknown than a sure one.  Yet she wasn't sure how to tell Erzulie of this.  Selfishly she wanted the other woman to cast this chance aside as well, but she couldn't ask it.

It turns out, she did not need to.  The proud woman it seemed had had enough and turned aside on her own, and the former captain barely maintained from sagging with visible relief.  She'd been prepared to part ways, if only for a time, but the idea of being alone right now was nigh unbearable.  They could not have stopped her from coming to rejoin in time, but if Erzulie had decided her path ended here, necessity would have parted them.

She moved in to support as she could; she was sore, but walked easier than Erzulie seemed to.  Her lover needed to get off of her feet, allow them to heal, but it seemed they had a ways to go yet.  Rosalyn's head and body ached, but she now wanted nothing more than to be away from here.  Back to the coast; yes, that was likely best.  Her reactions felt slow, as if they came at a distance.  But she nodded, lending her strength to her lover in an attempt to allow her to move as painlessly as possible.

Helix glances down to the child as turns to her and asks her a question. One ear twitches away to listen as things unfold, staring unblinkling at the child for a few seconds. “Ai nou get in,” she whispers and then turns her full attention back to the women, rejecting a rather fair offer. She does not say anything in response, watching as one turns away, and then the second, before she glances to Wocha for his reaction.

Sequoia didn't know the second language well, but it was tossed around enough that she knew this common phrase. It was an unsatisfactory one, and Sequoia huffed. There was more talk about healing, loyalty, Heda, and Drageda. More funny talk from the injured one, and no talk at all from the other one.

It didn't seem like either of them were willing to suck it up and pledge loyalty to Drageda, so Sequoia couldn't imagine a world where they would be allowed to stay here. She scrunched up her nose, wondering why they even came here unless they were going to do that. Did they think they could just be lazy freeloaders, get healed, and everything would be hunky-dory? Sequoia didn't know much about politics, but that didn't seem quite right.

He did not find the need to explain his stance any further. Not now, not when Drageda was ailing too, however differently. He couldn't invite the risk of more on top of the plenty that they already had. They had their own healing to do, and while they could use to bolster their numbers, he preferred to do so with wolves he could instill a greater faith in--ones that would become lasting members of their pack, their culture, and their lives.

The pale wocha dipped his muzzle in a slow shake of his head; he did not think so, not right now. He knew what it looked like, and had seen it before--was sure to see it again. He made no moves to intercept, disagree, or urge the duo otherwise as they accepted that he had no roost here for them. Wounded, freshly abandoned, or otherwise, he wished them no ill will.. but he just did not need it here. For all of their sake sooner or later.

So long as they were gone without an issue, he would pressure them no further. He watched their leave to be sure, though glanced appreciatively to Helix, before he turned to go towards Sequoia himself when it was near time to move on. He was still guarded, though.. and loathe to hurry away.

It surprises her the two loners reject the offer and she stares at them from across the way. What did they expect coming to someone else’s doorstep? Is it not customary to question someone’s purpose? It takes a great deal of effort as they spit on their deal and turn and walk away, feeling the urge to chase them out of the territory all together. Their faces and scents are committed to memory should they get close next time, marking themselves enemies in her book (unaware the red one already is). 

She does not notice the child’s reaction to her question and ignores her from there on, turning to Dio with a slight shrug and waiting to retreat until they are out of sight all the same.