Ankyra Sound They told me that my life is headed for the devil

So she stayed.

She still didn't feel like herself, and hadn't for weeks.  The physical damage from starvation and her wounds had run through her, and delayed treatment had caused a light fever to settle into them.  She felt at times like clawing her own muzzle off, but the pain (and the image of the damage already done) were enough to prevent it.

She lay instead with her back to the cliffs and her eyes on the water.  She'd dreamed last night that she'd been in Drageda still, and had swam out and around, testing the cliff's edge.  She'd been pulled under, though, and woke gasping for air.  It had put her off sleeping for the night.  She'd had dreams last time her wounds had taken a turn, she recalled, though at least this time there had been no wandering.

There were a million thoughts on her mind, but she hardly had the energy for any of them.  So she let them ebb like the tide, lapping at the shore of her mind, as she looked absently at the water.  Later, maybe.

Ah, there she was! Ever since stumbling upon the altercation between the leader, the healer, and this unknown third party, Lucca had been trying to piece things together. He was much too scared to ask what exactly had transpired — and he felt like the less he knew, the better — but the tensions between some packmates set him on edge. There had been some sort of major scuffle, half the pack returned battle torn (apparently some guy died?), and now this lady?

Man, his family had nothing on this pack's drama.

With splayed ears and a head dipped in appeasement, Lucca quietly approached the woman, making sure to stay on her good side (her physical one, the one with the eye, not the metaphorical side but, I mean, he wanted to stay on the good side of that too). "Uh, hello, ma'am," he greeted, wide orange eyes trailing the mess of injuries that marked her face and leg. She looked, well...terrible. She also seemed to be lost deep in thought, and Lucca battled with himself for a moment, wondering whether he should leave her be.

She figured that Caiaphas would have continued recruiting while she was gone, but she hadn't imagined so many would come so fast.  She didn't recognize him, nor many of the wolves here.  With her track record that was likely a good thing, she thought with some dark humor.

She appreciated that he kept to her good side.  Rosalyn still hadn't gotten used to half her vision being gone, and turned to keep him in full view when he greeted her.  Hello. Her gaze traveled back out, but she didn't necessarily want him to leave.  Things needed knowing.  You are? Friendly, if a little amused by his halting greeting.

She turned to him, and Lucca couldn't help but look away momentarily in horror as his stomach did a spectacular somersault. That she looked terrible was putting it lightly. Half her face was practically ripped and torn, one eye glassed over, and the ear above it in tatters. Even his mother after her porcupine incident didn't look nearly as bad! Was this what happened in battle?

She turned away from him again to stare back out over the ocean, and Lucca's own eyes followed, unable to stare at her injuries for too long without feeling nauseous. "L-Lucca, ma'am," he said, voice somewhat stifled as he stared dead straight ahead. "Lucca Blackthorn."

She had to grit her teeth at the look that crossed his face when he had seen her, and she felt that damnable shame flare up.  The part of her that had spent 6 bloody years on this earth tried to squash it down with the knowledge that she had no call to feel self conscious, but it would likely take a while for it to grow strong enough to get rid of the sensation completely.

It made her feel less charitable towards him, young as he might be.  Lucca Blackthorn. She stared at him brazenly with her good eye.  Met a woman with that name once, in a pack that apparently doesn't much like me or the leader of this here crew.  How'd one of your kind end up all the way out here?  Finley had been her name.  Now that she thought of that, she could possibly see the resemblance.

That he had offended her was lost on the boy, who was simply so shocked at the damage he had forgotten his manners. In time, perhaps, he would maybe come to appreciate the scars others had, disfiguring as some were, instead of turning away. Behind each one was a story of heroism and bravery, or hardship and struggle (or mere foolishness in some cases). For now, however, the sheltered Blackthorn felt only queasiness and horror.

He continued looking coastwards, though couldn't help but glance briefly at the woman as she repeated his name in an odd way. He turned fully when she then mentioned a woman (keeping his gaze focused on her one good eye, even though it felt like she was boring into his soul), as his features suddenly lit up and he nearly leapt out of his skin in excitement.

"W-wait! Who? When? Did she same her name? Where'd you meet her? W-what pack was it?" he stumbled over his words as he suddenly bombarded the poor woman with a flurry of questions, tail waving frantically at his rear as he padded from foot to foot. "Was it the Redhawks? I'm from there!" Her question was almost lost in his elation. "I...I mean I was, I got lost looking for my sister b-but..." There was a sudden glimmer of hope. "Was her name Fiadh?"

Finley, with the Redhawks.  She waited for that, and presumably would see that this wasn't what he was hoping to hear.  I had a relationship with that pack, of sorts, though it apparently didn't stop one of them trying to kill me last time we met.  If they were looking for someone, seemed like their problem, and he wouldn't find any help her way unless it became a pack issue.  His presence here did give her a bit more insight to Caiaphas' thoughts though - seemed this was to be akin to Saltwinter again.  Lucca didn't seem the permanent type if he'd been waylaid on a search and was only here because he was lost.  Oddly, this put Rosalyn a little more at ease about staying.

"That's my mum!" he cried out when she gave him a name, momentarily disappointed it was not his sister but happy all the same. For all his vigour and excitement, the lady remained mostly impassive (though that was expected, given her current state), but Lucca just could not withhold himself. He faltered slightly as he processed her words, before wrongly putting two and two together. "Wait, she tried to kill you?" he asked with a concerned frown. That didn't sound like Finley.

Hah! So she hadn't been lying, all those years ago, though this one looked too young to have been the one she referred to.  Rosalyn snorted at the misunderstanding, and at imagining Finley coming at her.  She actually didn't mind his mother, for all that they all may have flipped on her, though that was kind of where her opinion stopped.  Not her.  Some golden bitch, Niamh.  She didn't know nor care if he had any affection for the girl as she carelessly threw this out.  

Do you get lost often, then? She asked, innocently enough for now.  Turning the conversation back to subjects that weren't the host of wolves that apparently wanted her dead in these wilds was probably not a bad idea.

She needled the poor kid only a bit longer before going their separate ways, but it amused her that she was now presumably packmates with one of the children Finley had once used to get her to save her life.