Heron Lake Plateau A beating heart of stone.

jesus another book im sorry rofl.

the siren gave a cant of her head in rejoinder: indeed, she hoped it would be their first and only event with the hell-cat. unfortunately, she knew life to not be that simple - and was certain if the beast had moved on, something far worse would have likely slithered in to take its place.

she kept her dark musing to herself, lifting her hawk-yellow eyes only when towhee changed the subject to her own journey here. something hardened and cold seemed to pass over her features, but it was flitting at best.

"misfortune, mostly." she answered, finding bile at the edge of her throat to think of her fractured family so soon. yet, it may as well be a story she was forthright with, for she had little energy these days for anything beyond simply dealing with the present moment. while her scheming ways were unlikely put to bed, they were sleeping, exhausted beyond all measure, as if their very spirit had been hammered out from her during her grueling months-long crucible in the wilds.

"we -- my mate, four pups, my adopted son and his son, svalinn, all lived on the coast." there were others, though she spared them any mention. "in ankyra sound. i have lived there four years now, and seen many packs rise and fall along its coast." a glitter of longing appeared in her gaze; she was a thing of the sea, and belonged in its swell reach -- to be so far inland, on the rough arm of some insensate mountain -- well, she looked withered and old, a crone out of its element and wilting swiftly. "a bear came." her voice was not stricken with grief then, but enmity. "he chased us from our halls and followed us for miles. i do not know what happened to lycaon, svalinn's father. we ran." and she was not a wolf that had ever run from anything; a bitterness spread across her sharp tongue.

"we ran for weeks; my mate and i gave our food always first to the children, but we were tired. our children were tired. we were farther inland than i had ever been when we finally shook the bear off of our tracks. at that point, our children were no longer tired. they were starved." she paused, thinking of how small and skeletal her children had been - how it had pierced her heart with a fierce tenacity she had never known. "we sought refuge in easthollow. we were turned away after we had told our story. the woman there suggested we go to bearclaw valley; ironic considering this sad odyssey started on the back of a bear." her tone was oddly flat - not that towhee would have been able to tell -- but perhaps the intrepid beta would catch a dull gleam in caiaphas' eye that gave away her true emotion: a dull and monstrous malice, that sat prowling in those yellow spheres. how she wished to enact vengeance on those wolves, that in her eyes had turned her away and committed her family to death.

"it was unfair, but such is life. we could do nothing to change their mind. we made further inland, and found shelter at the side of a great hill. while we pondered our options there was a storm of such might i have only seen in far-off seas. a deluge of water and lightning; ephraim was the first to run - that was one of my sons - terrified as he was, i do not blame him. my mate searched for him, and i for my mate --" it had been her own foolishness that had resulted in what transpired next: "when i returned, rhakios and illidan had fled too. i should have known better, but starvation does something strange to any creature unfortunate enough to endure it. you become desperate, haunted by an unthinking madness. i thought only of finding ephraim, and not of keeping my family intact. yet illidan and rhakios were gone - the rain fell so heavy i could scarcely see anything, and great swaths of water came down from the hills and swept all scent and pawprints with them." jesus, this was a long story -- caiaphas flicked her gaze to towhee briefly, just to see if the beta was still following.

"when the rain let up, i kept our remaining children close and looked for my mate. there were some tracks after the storm, his -- yet they met their end at an engorged and raging river." she reflected, thinking of those pawprints that said so little, and yet so much at the same time. "at that point i had little options - stay there and spend my remaining energy searching for children that in all likelihood were drowned in the storm alongside my mate -- or, expend my remaining reserves ensuring my remaining children's survival and future.

i chose survival."