Seaside Moors Once, you know, you were my friend.

Indeed, life was fraught with danger. But just for once, did it always have to be so hard? Couldn't Raleska just once live her life without that red mark on her back, that target that had been there since day one? Couldn't someone like her and Erzulie and Rosalyn shape an empire, a safe haven -- a home uninterrupted by strife?

Raleska took a long moment, drinking in Wintersbanes words about insanity. She had never heard that quote, but it had a way of sticking. She played around with it in her mind, wondering if it was that simple. "Doing the same thing over and over again. Hmm." Raleska repeated to herself, wondering where it was Wintersbane had got that token advice.

Unfortunately, it was not so easy as one simple task. Raleska, to her credit, made it sound as if it would be a simple thing -- in reality, it was anything but.

She resisted the urge to say (she was Caiaphas' daughter, after all) okay great, fuck right off -- instead, Raleska took this turn of events as an opportunity to push into placement some pieces that had long since needed momentum to move. "To be Rusalkan, is to walk with a target at your back. We only barely surived Drageda, and there's no telling when -- or if -- they are planning their revenge. You picked a strange pack to overturn, but that is your business, and now you're part of this mess same as us."

Raleska drew in a breath and pointedly turned her muzzle north and then south. "Look around us -- this place is no fortress. We're exposed on all sides. We moved here out of necessity a few months ago, but it is no sanctum. I would think, as your first action as leader, it might serve you to look at this place objectively and ponder if it's not worth it to move. Rusalka has lost many of its warriors, and all that's left are the hardy and scrappy -- but none of us are ready for war again."