Blacktail Deer Plateau this divine right to genocide

with smoke rising, erzulie had grown increasingly on edge. the coastline could be no home for them now
scarab!
and she dared not travel too far inland, for fear of rousing a stronger pack than rusalka's remnants. hunting had grown sparse, and she spare, bringing what little she was able to find back to her children. while she appreciated raleska and the others that had accompanied she and her brood, the harlot knew upon herself she must solely rely.
and so she haunted the plateau again, a spiced shadow amid a light veil of blowing snow.

It seemed with the tossing and turning of sea and earth, winter had followed him.

Though streaked still in it's autumnal hues, the snow was a welcome sight in light of all that was presently going on. Smoke still plumed heavily to their east, the coast remained a proper mess, and the earth still remained discontent at their feet. It had become the usual for Valtari; he was no stranger to quaking stones or frothing seas, but there was certainly more unrest here than what met the eyes.

He too had noticed the scarcity of prey. It was a troubling note for a pack that was in the stages of an upheaval that did not rest and with the snow, he wondered if it would get worse. He wondered just what Aningan would do, if anything at all.

For now, he worked to satisfy his own hunger—what good would he be, if he could not care for himself—and rooted through the undergrowth for anything that would clue him in on where to go next and what exactly to find. His ear turned at the footfalls of another nearby, but his head did not raise. He doubted they came for him.

feel free to ignore him

not for him, but for the squeaking of mice below the earth; she pressed her lips to the trembling loamy breast and searched for the vibrations of their tiny feet in ground-tunnels. exasperated, worried for the children she might still lose to the changing world, erzulie glanced at the male who roamed not far from her, the pale-draped male who had alerted rusalka to the rising smoke.
"anyt'ing wor't hunting?" she asked idly, turning her gaze to the roiling sea which had swallowed the shores, and perhaps her son.
scarab — agony played heavily upon her soul, and the woman's eyes tightened before she turned away to continue her own search for food.

He too felt and heard nothing of the burrowing sort; he saw nothing of the fleet-footed hare, quail, pheasant—whatever else may have lurked and sought refuge in the undergrowth swaddling the plateau's features. He had yet to sweep every corner of the territory where terrain permitted or its outlying neighbors; perhaps the plains would turn up something, or the river that cut a jagged path.

But how he wished he would have better news when the matron's voice called out to him.

"No," he answered with the lift of his muzzle. She had turned away then, sussing on just before he laid eyes on her. It was the only affirmation he needed to continue his own, though he turned towards her. Perhaps two sets of senses would do better than just the one... and perhaps all the small, tasty creatures were wise to continue fleeing where their brazen hunters did not.

the answer was negative, but the man valtari joined her all the same. in some ways, she was thankful for this, though she did not lean in to brush him as she might have before. small talk, too, lost upon the waves that had destroyed their home. in many ways, erzulie was as she had been in her youth, right before marie had discovered the young girl and introduced her to a trade.
a trade, it seemed, was worthless now — there was nothing for which she might barter her body.
in silence she hunted the rumbling earth alongside the pale wolf.

There seemed little need for small talk when all their thoughts aligned on the same thing—the calamity. The unsteady earth, the mountains that raged hellfire, and the tumultuous sea all spelled out to the same thing. Perhaps he knew it true deep in the depths of his own heart, but there was little reason to linger on the fringes of a valley lacking in prey.

But they would, for one reason or another; he understood the fixation on wondering if their home would ever be whole again, though he also knew that the bronze woman in his company had no desire to return there. The whys and hows mattered not—she thought of her children solely, at least those that remained.

He wondered on them too, briefly, but his silence held; distracted now.

But the nest he had sussed out was empty, and soon he continued on.

nothing to be found, as it had been for days. erzulie paused now, eyes fixed unseeing upon the earth. her children would starve upon this plateau if they remained, within earshot of the ocean which had sundered rusalka.
she would not have it.
at length the harlot lifted her head, fixed the fierceness of her mismatched eyes upon valtari. "dis place holds not'ing for us."

His probing did not halt until more words sprung from her lips, and his sharp gaze found hers and the fire that blazed within. He could not argue with her and would not; her thoughts only mirrored what his own had. But Valtari did not consider the plateau a lost cause just yet—it had provided them with safety, however minute.

"Then we find other ways to fill our bellies," he answered.

As the words were left to hang, his thoughts flickered back to the boorish yearling that had been at their borders, spouting of the lot and their ilk that had crossed his borders. That took his food. He who had fled at the flash of teeth with nothing more than graceless name calling.

It took little for him to compile these and elaborate.

"Where I am from, in times of hardship in the midwinter, we resort to scavenging. If this means to steal from our lessers then we do, but our kin do not want for anything. Our children do not go hungry for long. If we cannot take from what the sea leaves us then we must look inward." He licked his lips, wondering if she were more civilized than that, perhaps more conscientious than he.

He wondered just how hungry her own children were.

giving a noncommital grunt, the harlot swept her eyes to the horizon before returning her attention to valtari. "i am dere mot'er. i would do anyt'ing it took to keep dem alive." what is left of them, her ragged spirit reminded the woman, and a stab of anguish speared through her. 
"dere is a pack not far from heah, an' from de smell of it, faltering. dere caches will not be as guarded," erzulie mused, before a long pause thrummed between them. "but why steal if we could join dem?" she suggested. "it is not some'ting i want to do, but nor do i want de teef of a rival pack turned against my children."

Her answer amused him, though it was not without fair points.

Though he wondered which pack she spoke of.

"You don't have faith in your peers?" he countered curiously; could Rusalka not defend itself? He thought it was a bit more stalwart than that, but he only had an inkling of it and all of it mired in the stress and strain of what had brought them inland to begin with. However they were without that, he wouldn't know, and couldn't claim to know if it came back when all had settled.

If it settled.

a rolling of her shoulders. "rusalka has not been whole since caiaphas left us. it was den passed from hand to hand, between men who could not hold it. lost over and over in a gamble, de leadership. raleska alone has been de most consistent, and you see how young she is."
erzulie scuffed a tuft of cold grass with a small forepaw. "in a word, no, valtari, i do not. an' if i t'ought it would help, i might ply my old trade. irony," she grit, and then fell silent, returned to the eternal hunt.

He knew not of the names that she spoke of, though he would attempt to remember them all the same. More pressing was the concept that Rusalka had been through it's own trials, ever exchanging hands until it simply did not, and he delighted in the prospect of it being an ever evolving sort of group. It was his way of life, though he did not make note of such or consider it; he was not an ambitious creature without reason. He thought Raleska had potential, but he had not made much of an opinion of Aningan yet.

Not that there was a plethora of time to do so—Erzulie turned back to the hunt and so he followed her actions and gathered his thoughts in the beats of silence that came. A new prospect snaked its way up, and he wondered aloud with the lift of his muzzle once more: "Do you think you could do better? You seem an able sort." It was spoken tentative and gentle; a fool would miss that she may have had a fiery streak beneath the blush of her coat, and he did not seek to find how sharp her teeth were.

He expected the negative nevertheless—he knew such could paint him as having flimsy allegiances, but the world was not a gentle place. If someone had a better idea of how to survive, then what options did he—or any of them—have?

"of course i could do better," erzulie rejoined, a sardonic smile tipping her muzzle. "i have bled for rusalka more den once, i was here at de beginning, and will be here at de end." a snaking of her tongue to wet the salt upon her lips. "but i do not wish to be in de endless fight for glory and for fame and for de title. i do not wish to be de one that is attacked for no reason but a man decides he must be king. let me be a mother, a hunter. i am content as i can be wid dat."