Horizon Ridge i walked a thousand sorry miles

Caiaphas had been so engaged with her own private thoughts that she scarce heard the approach of a wolf below her - much less a crippled one. When the unfamiliar voice pried the silence open and smacked her from her reprieve she flinched inwardly -- arching her spine in stifled surprise. Recovering her composure she tilted her head carefully, craning her neck to view the stranger that hailed her. The preliminary thought that this female was not part of Horizon's Ridge occurred to her, but common sense dictated a recovering and battered wolf would not have greeted her so openly. Caiaphas withdrew from the ledge, disappearing from view entirely -- her footsteps echoed down the steppes in a vague unison that suggested she was making her way towards Pied. She reemerged from a particularly large crevasse a few seconds later, content that she was now eye-level with the female. She had once been told standing above other wolves was a sign of insolence and disrespect - and in deference to this memory she was happy to be on the same level as the female before her. There was no flicker of surprise or pity in her eyes or posture when she assessed the sorry female before her; if she wasn't the quintessential image of a wolf mauled by a shark and picked off by the gulls, Caiaphas didn't know what was. Sullenly, her gaze settled on the leg Pied favored - and without trepidation she unabashedly spoke. "What happened to you?" Her words, however veiled, contained no malice.