thank the gandy dancers for a path well worn

@malachi set a little bit aways from the border, but figured i'd plug it in here. feel free to assume you can smell larus on her fur, if you'd like.

It was dusk when Caiaphas first saw the glacier in the distance, lit in luminant lavender and cheery, erubescent cerise. Had Caiaphas been one inclined to appreciate the splendors of the resplendent world she would have been floored by the coruscating brilliance of it all. But as it was, she was not a creature disposed to earthly wonder.

As she drew closer she couldn't help but feeling like there were many pervading yet faint scents familiar to her. She trailed each one with her narrow muzzle planted to the ground -- yet never once did she approach close enough to the borders to appear a threat. The perimeters south of her were heavily marked with swarthy piss and spoke clearly of the pack's residence. With a shrug she swung west, trailing the faded scent of a bygone wolf who had headed off it the direction of Horizon Ridge.

Alright (: Thanks for starting!

Malachi stole past the borders that evening while dusk came upon the Teekon Wilds and set the stony Glacier aflame. With both Tuwawi and Njal returned, he felt more comfort in leaving for a time, and lesser guilt that he, too, was abandoning the pack with his momentary departure. He would be back by the evening of the next day, after all. He wouldn't be gone for long. But Malachi had not disclosed his intention of wandering to any other, and prayed none would notice him gone.

So he headed West, toward the sea, led on by moonlight and the shimmer of stars peeking through the clouded sky. But as he made a jagged path from the Glacier to the raging waters, something stopped him in his tracks, a faint and familiar scent that made his brows crease. He whiffed the ground again, dissecting each scent, and felt a small uncertainty prick at his skin. It couldn't be...

Without thinking, Malachi turned his paws from his destination in pursuit of this new end, ignoring the doubts that rose in his mind and fixing his hope on what he couldn't deny: the presence of Larus' scent, hidden amongst a slew of ones unfamiliar to the grey boy. What he would find at the trail's end remained a jarring mystery - a broken body, a child already sold to death - but he pursued nonetheless.

As the pale waif headed back towards the shore, she was surprised to find fresh tracks. Not necessarily wanting to explain why she was so close to the Glacier, Caiaphas swung wide of them -- careful to tuck herself under the shadowed embrace of the shady copse.

But scarce a half hour passed before she came across the tracks again, and this time, the owner of them. She halted in place and regarded the heavily scarred male coldly, her sharp muzzle held aloft as she scented him. Being directly in front of him, there was no chance he would miss her -- and resigning to her fate she afforded a curt, venturous greeting. "Who are you?"

And then he came upon her, the end of the trail. Her sudden appearance startled him and he drew back, only to gather himself in a moment's pass. The smell of Larus hung delicately before him, still mixed with a myriad of others and hidden beneath the woman's stronger scent. He eyed her with a sense of precaution and equal curiosity. If she smelt of Larus, she must have been near him recently - unless his mind was simply playing awful tricks with him.

The woman's fur made her look half draped in deep shadows, a pattern of shades he had never encountered before. Malachi responded to her query with a small dip of his head and chose his words with care. "My name's Malachi. I lead a pack nearby." He did not take his eyes from her, but deflected them off her face. She was a stranger near the lands he'd agreed to protect, but he would not challenge her. Her potential connection with the lost boy made her an ally he wanted to make, and though he felt her gaze cold upon him, he deigned to meet her with a gentler tone. "And who are you?"

The sundry colored male seemed offput by her appearance. Caiaphas flicked an ear as if dismissing her startling emergence, electing instead to draw smoothly on her angled quarters and regard him with a dismissive gaze.

He was so polite for a man so coldly accosted. Even the mellow blue of his soft gaze seemed imparted with some patriarchal ease. The wretched coywolf, upon realizing her error in revealing herself to a wolf of the Glacier, did not stir from her perch. With a flicker of contempt crossing her gaze, she remembered Danica -- a wolf that frequented their strand once, beggarly entreating their kelp.

"I am Caiaphas." No pack or rank followed her name -- hushed, the silence rushed in to fill the void of her title.

Her displeasure only seemed to worsen at his greeting, and he took silent and subtle offence to her fleeting scorn. Between her frosty gaze and curt response, he could tell his presence was not wanted here. At a different time he would have taken the hint and left her. But the scent of Larus kept him there. This woman had information he needed, and Malachi would bear her coolness if it meant finding a link to the Sveijarn's missing son.

Caiaphas' introduction came lacking, and the silence that followed pricked Malachi with a budding unease. He still felt naive to the wiles of others, and though his gut cautioned him now, he stubbornly remained, perhaps against better judgment. "Are you a loner, then, or do you belong to a pack?" The youth allowed his most pressing query to rest for the moment, until he learned more of what this woman was about. Easing onto his haunches in a smooth descent, Malachi rested his steady gaze on the shadowed woman, her angular form half lost in the darkness of the night.

Caiaphas was not yet willing to reveal her alignment -- it was a precarious position to be in, and once the Glacier wolves got wind of her involvement with Larus, relations would be most soured indeed. She bore this knowledge with nary a flicker of doubt in her countenance, and smoothly she answered him -- her lie concealed better than the savage glitter of her teeth.

"No, I am not a loner. I belong to Stavanger Bay." So precisely did she issue her guile she scarce batted an eyelash -- and nothing about her posture or expression betrayed the untruth in her words. She smelled of the Bay, in some ways -- of brine and sand and sea. "The pack you lead -- is it not the Glacier?" She queried lightly, quick to steer the course of conversation away from her lie. She recalled how Danica had said the Glacier owed the Nereides a favor -- someday, to Danica's chagrin, Caiaphas would call upon the debt to be repaid.

Something about Caiaphas upset him still, but Malachi dismissed the disturbance with a flick of his ear. Having been raised amongst packs who trusted each other like kin had once proved a blessing to the peaceable youth, but here his heritage served more as a hinderance than a help. He took her response at face value, and allowed a small ease to settle in him now that he knew where her allegiance lay. On her scent he tasted the sharp tang of the sea, an understandable aroma if she lived near a bay. He knew nothing of the packs that lived near the sea, nor had he known any lived there at all.

To her question he gave a short nod. "Yes." But his reply, though simple, hid a myriad of hope and uncertainty. Caiaphas - this woman who carried Larus' scent - knew of their pack at the Glacier... but had not returned the boy. If she had been with Larus, surely the boy would have told her of them, unless the only time she'd spent near him was when he had already become a rotting corpse. The thought that the woman could be harbouring the boy away did not even cross Malachi's mind: that a wolf could knowingly hold a pup from his family was unthinkable to him. But his scent was too fresh, too... whole. Too alive.

At a loss, Malachi shook his head and felt his skin burn when he realized he had let his attention drift. "I'm sorry - I didn't - " But he caught himself and paused. Assumptions would only get him so far, and his queries now biting at the tip of his tongue spoke too loudly to ignore. "I can't help but notice you carry the scent of a pup we lost over a moon ago. We thought him dead, but... his scent is fresh on you."

Malachi finally let loose the inquiry Caiaphas suspected he would -- and for a moment her innards squirmed with displeasure. She kept her composure yet a flicker of annoyance passed her sharp gaze -- she was stupid: brazen even, tempting the impassable guillotine of fate this way.

"Larus?" She queried lazily, hoping he would be blind-sided by blunt honesty and halt any further questions. "He's fine." She hoped to leave it at that, and spoke in a grave tone that commanded finality.

Malachi grew rigid at the mention of Larus' name, and soon his whole body tilted toward Caiaphas, ears alert and eyes wide at her revelation that Larus was alive. A flame of fire scorched his veins from the tip of his tail to the back of his throat. Her undertones fell on deaf ears, or simply ones that refused to drop the matter until he saw the boy back in the embrace of Tuwawi and Njal, and back at Maera's side.

The boy's words came quiet, rushed, and his body refused to loosen from rigidity. Even his tail lay still, as though the night air had frozen him through. "Please, you must take me to him." However far he had to travel, he would go just to see the boy returned - and to see the light grow in the Sveijarn's darkened eyes when they laid their weary gaze upon their youngest son.

Caiaphas visibly stiffened as Malachi nearly leaned closer; her posture readied -- intent. Should he prove too excitable, too anxious, the nimble wretch would flee.

A nearly sympathetic smile played itself in parody of a genuine one on her gums, and she met his gaze boldly -- the brazen ring of yellow unremitting. "No." She answered simply, her words a command -- and with a sulky flick of her tail she held his gaze before sauntering off to quit his company.

No.

At first he fell dumbstruck, silent and taut as Caiaphas' final drawl echoed round his skull and her shadowed form began to drift from sight. He hadn't heard her right - he couldn't have. But the thought was fleeting. His spine still bristled from her jarring gaze, a stare unrelenting, a blatant challenge, a smile that set itself in stark contrast to the words she'd spoke, and with a lurch the youth flashed to his feet.

On swift paws he bounded toward her, heart and mind relentless as her resolve to leave him on a thread. "Why not? He is not yours to keep." His voice came sharp, forceful, and he stood his ground, unwilling to let the woman slip away without giving him passage to the child he sought.

Understandably, Malachi had reservations about Caiaphas' edict -- and so clamant was his denial that he came to her quite quickly.

Without pause the spry Caiaphas whirled artfully upon him, the insistence of her gaze acrid with churlishness. There was no pity in those harshly lined eyes for the sundry-colored male -- no remorse. Only the chill of an unconcerned party.

"He is not yours to take." She resounded, her voice low and firm. She did not soften -- she did not bend.

Malachi met her eye and did not waver, despite the urge to pull his gaze away. He refrained from curling his lip and tensing for an attack. Who was this woman to claim for herself a life that was not hers to hold? Larus belonged with Tuwawi and Njal, and with his family alone.

The youth could conjure no empathy for the woman's position, refusing to acknowledge the attachment she may have formed with the child over the months he had spent away from the Glacier's bounds. Malachi's heart remained trained on bringing Larus home, no matter the personal cost. Since it appeared Caiaphas would not return the child willingly, and since he imagined no amount of persuasion would coax Larus from her paws, Malachi turned to a different approach, one more risky and potentially as futile as those previous. But he would try. He had to.

"Then what can I give for his return?"

soooo sorry for my long wait time.. it was awesome to thread with you - malachi is really cool! wanna thread sometime again?

The man was adamant -- Caiaphas could begrudge him that much. And yet her stance remained unyielding. Despite the fact Larus was not hers to give, she felt quite fond of the youth -- and the idea of another pack (the very pack that lost him) consuming their custody of him incited maternal outrage in the pale waif.

"I will ask the Alphas, and seek you out in a week's time." She said suddenly, slyly. A lie. She felt no remorse for its utterance. At the very least, it would likely soften his persistence. Without another word she then made her leave -- and if the male allowed her, she would trail back to the direction of Stavanger Bay and walk along low-tide so that her scent was no longer detectable.

It's all good! :) And same goes to you - Caiaphas is such a great (and wonderfully unpredictable) character <3 We must definitely thread again!

What he would do if Caiaphas refused him again was an answer not even he could give. His paws did not know the blood of another, and the thought of sinking his claws into the flesh of a fellow wolf brought only sickness to his throat. Yet though his weapon would always be words, the look of the woman's unwavering form worried the boy there was nothing he could say that would ever bring Larus back into their paws again.

So when the sea maiden finally spoke her hasty reply, Malachi snatched her words with every ounce of hope he had left and stored them deep in his heart. The lie flowing so smoothly beneath her utterance fell deaf on his ears, and the boy only felt a trill of uncertain anticipation where he should have felt doubt. Her words were all he needed, and her words were all she gave, for in an instant she turned again and climbed back into the shadows of the night.