Phoenix Maplewood so come sit down, will you talk with me now

as the she-wolf sulked among the rife berries she was aware of a presence in the copse -- her illuminant gaze uplifted to behold the scavenger form of a familiar compatriot. despite the coldness of his tone she was not dissuaded as she abandoned her shaded hideaway, slithering out into the open in the manner of some verminous mink.

he smelled of sap and sweetness and she found this most beguiling for she found him neither saccharine nor hospitable. rather, the cloak of maple sap that burst along his muzzle was cloying in flavor and scent. sweet pine tar and bark, the old scent of petrichor. somewhere along his riffled fur the scent of comradeship and closeness. she tilted her narrow muzzle and turned upon him like the sights of a gun, though her expression was carefully construed as disarming. she distinctly recalled handing him no such sharpness as he showed up on her shore soggy and starving. the tide may have turned in his favor, but there was no ironic justice to her predicament.

despite all this, she was not cowed by his displaced wit. acerbic as ever, the siren queen's gaze hardened as she acquired a newfound target for her misery: reek. yet unlike the black wolf, caiaphas had a unique brand of destruction that was subtle and systematic in its ruination. nonplussed by his jaded sarcasm she simply issued a roll of her shoulders in retort. "not from you, comrade." her loftiness was secured by an idle flick of her slender tail. "i remembered you being wittier than that." perhaps all the sap he'd been licking off the trees had caused his brain to rot worse than his teeth.