The Tangle masked in blood and bathed in fire

caiaphas was no stranger to the mean cut of land that slanted away from ankyra sound: the brambles, equally as mean as the thorns they sported, were a natural barricade that conveniently sat atop the most vulnerable flank of the sound. it was rare she approached this miserable plot of squalid land -- it rarely needed reinforcement, what with its bitterly impossible egress, and it also had very little game to speak of.

she had only come out here in an effort to stretch her lax and atrophying muscles -- childbirth had exacted its toll on the thin wisp of a woman, who was already too sharp and full of angles to be comfortably pleasing to any eye. her morning routine of conditioning her weakened body was interrupted by the sound of thrashing litter, and the strange noise of something abrasive being drawn rapidly and furiously across a dry surface.

already near ballistic in terms of mood, caiaphas immediately fell upon the source -- a stalwart and vigorously carved male that for a moment, she nearly thought was aella's ghost come to haunt her. she froze, a stern expression glinting in her hardened eyes as she watched the male's russet backside. instinctively her tail was held at a callously high angle, and she looked at him in a way that suggested she expected some sort of answer for the reason he had caused a ruckus and betrayed his location moments prior.