Moonspear we're gonna die young.

 Welp, since I didn't actually manage to get her return thread up at the beginning of the week, looks like I have to mangle her to explain why she's been gone so durn long. Free for all :D

Everything hurt.  That was all Finley was aware of as consciousness began to seep back into her bruised and battered frame.  Every inch of her felt raw and burning with pain, so much that it took several long seconds of agony before she could even force her eyelids to part.  The light of the sun was hanging high above somewhere and it blinded her and sent her head reeling.  Her head now throbbed so hard that she thought it very likely her skull would burst into pieces, and almost the moment her eyes had opened, they were shut again, and the world around her faded back to black.

How long it was after that when the Blackthorn opened her eyes again, she had no idea.  It was dark now.  Not even starlight pervaded her sight, which was blurred and patchy.  When Finley finally moved, she felt the pain shooting all over her aching joints.  She tried to pull herself to her paws, but fell back to the ground with a sharp whine.  Her head smacked down against cold rock, and the pain was so intense, she thought she would pass out once again.

Somehow, Fin kept her consciousness.  She laid still for a while, focusing hard on steadying her breathing as her entire body trembled.  Weakly, the beta looked about her, searching for a distraction.  All she saw was rock and sparse brush.  She stretched out a forearm to steady herself as she listed her head again and felt it brush against a series or hard, sharp barbs.  The instant her arm touched them, she felt pain stab yet again, this time centered on her right cheek, up near her eye and down the side of her neck.  

Straining, feeling panicked, she turned her gaze to try and peer back at herself where she spotted them, and suddenly her memory came flooding back - the sheep, the cliffs above, and the porcupine that had appeared seemingly out of no where to fill her with barbs and send her falling down, down, down into darkness.

With a strangled sob, Fin tilted her head back and cried out - a miserable howl, a plea for help, renting across the silent twilight.

i couldn't resist.... Apparently she is collecting redhawks!
Edit: it's doubtful Roz will actually be much help ;) so if someone else still wants to join feel free

Rosalyn was a wolf who liked her sleep.  Naps weren't a necessity but they were a treasured commodity when she could grab them.  Having just dined on a smallish (but still rather piggy, har har) wild hog, she had decided to indulge in one and settled down in the shadow of an adjacent mountain.

She'd been in the middle of a rather lovely dream (involving a couple lovely individuals and, well...) when she was awakened with a start by a miserable howl.  Bristling with annoyance and adrenaline, a result of the startlingly abrupt interruption, she growled irritable.  Rude as hell.  She didn't care if some wolf was dying over there, that didn't mean they had to disturb everyone else in the process.

Still, a cat's curiosity resided within the umber girl and drew her towards the call like a moth to flame.  What she found when she arrived was a sorry sight.

"Y'know, if it hurts that bad, I can fix it real quick for you.  Merciful-like." There wasn't any hostility in her tone, just an off-hand offering.  She was no healer and therefore had no clue how optimistic the strange woman's outlook was, but she looked pretty gone to her.  Might be worth considering, though usually the offer wasn't taken so well.

My hero!! <3 :D  And yes, anyone else can feel free to hop in at any time, I enjoy random ^_^ 

Fin didn't have much hope that her howl would really bring help to her, but it did however relieve some of the tension and panic that had risen in her throat like bile.  When she quieted, it was with a clearer head.  A head still stinging with the bite of a hundred or so porcupine needles, but one that could actually think through the situation.

The pain was intense, but this was not Finley's first time being mangled (though it may very well have been her worst).  She gritted her teeth and turned to sniff at herself, inspecting her body to see exactly what damage she was dealing with.  Porcupine quills were one thing, but it didn't account for the wreckage from which her entire lithe frame seemed to be suffering.

Her fur was a dirty, matted mess, but she scented blood only near the quills.  She tested each of her paws by putting pressure on them in turn.  They all shouted in protest, but nothing seemed to be broken.  Encouraged, Fin made another attempt at standing - more slowly this time, taking great care not to push herself too hard or far.  A stabbing pain erupted in her back leg when she did, forcing her to lean more on her other three.  They were bruised and aching, but it seemed that maybe her back leg was the only one that suffered any sort of fracture.  

Fin stood for a few seconds before she laid herself gingerly back down, knowing very well her strength wouldn't last much longer than that and she'd rather not collapse in a heap again.  It was then that she heard the sound of approaching paws, and Finley's heart throbbed with anticipation.  A dark woman appeared, her golden eyes glinting at her with curiosity.  The beta whined in relief, opening her mouth to say something to her when the stranger spoke instead.

The beta stared at her for a moment, not quite getting what the woman was saying.  When she did connect the dots, Finley groaned and rolled her eyes.  Mangled, bruised, and stuck like a pincushion, her own personality was not one easily dampened.  "Fuckin' great..." Fin muttered moodily to herself, though plenty loud for the other wolf to hear, "This is what I need, sarcasm..."  The Blackthorn growled in annoyance, which swiftly turned into a whine of pain as she attempted to pull herself up onto her haunches.

"If that's all you've got to offer, you can clear off," Fin said through gritted teeth.  She had barely lifted her front off the ground before she paused with trembling forelegs, breathing hard but controlled.  She could do this.  It would just take a while.  A long while.  And hopefully she didn't starve or die of thirst before she even got herself out of this damn mountain.

She shook her head when her offer was disregarded, but her mouth twisted into a smile.  "That wasn't sarcasm.  A genuine offer."  She shrugged.  "You are so clever, to have avoided the climb down. That would be sarcasm." From the nature of her injuries, and the quills still visible in her cheek, Roz had deduced the most likely cause for her presence, impaired, at the base of a rather large cliff face. Call it an informed guess.

"You're rather testy, for a wolf who can barely stand. I happen to like it here." She sat down as a wide yawn took her. "I'm not the one who woke everything in a five mile radius up with her racket."

Generally speaking, toying with injured wolves wasn't a pastime she often engaged in. Sometimes pain and fear could make a wolf unpredictable and she liked her skin too much to risk it like that. But this wolf showed more irritation than fear and Roslyn did get a kick out of making irritated wolves more irritated.

Maybe I go ahead and mark this 'mature' for language >__>

The woman didn't leave.  Instead, she stayed and poked more fun at the injured beta, which caused Finley to shoot her an irritable glare.  In any other circumstance, Finley may actually have enjoyed the stranger's wit.  Bloody and bruised and a face full of porcupine quills, though, the Blackthorn wasn't in so good of a humor to be able to appreciate the clever wordplay.

"You're also not the one with a shit ton of needles stabbed into your fucking face," Fin snapped when the stranger decided to complain about how she had been woken on top of chiding her for her testy mood, "So feel free to get the fuck over it."  "Testy" didn't even begin to describe it.  After the initial shock of fear and panic, Finley got over it and went straight to determined, stubborn, and mostly just super pissed off.

With another grunt, she pushed herself up even further and slung her back legs beneath her.  Favoring her not-so-fracture back leg, she hobbled forward an inch or so on three legs.  She did her best to ignore the other wolf, hating the fact that she was still there to gawk at Fin while she was so vulnerable - Not to mention probably looking stupid as hell.

"I guess not."  She was smart enough to avoid such situations, though on that point she did hold her tongue.  Good girl, Roz.  A veritable saint.

"Such language." She tsked lightly, dropping down to lounge in an easy and languid parody of a sphinx's repose.  She fell silent as she stood again, managing a surprising few inches.  Hell, it was shocking she'd found her paws at all.  "Heading home then? Don't let me keep you."  Her tone was innocent, but the jab intentional.

The woman replied with a bit less sass than before.  Perhaps she thought it prudent to keep her mouth shut since Finley was clearly in no mood.  Or maybe she was just running out of sassy things to say.  In either case, the beta was grateful for it.  She had other things to set her focus on rather than keeping up the verbal spar with some stranger.

"Oh, I won't," Fin reassured her, continuing to move forward, "Since you're clearly just going to sit there and be useless, I have no reason to stay."  She winced visibly as she moved at a snail's crawl, but now she had gone a foot.. two feet... three feet... And now she paused to catch her breath.  A sinking feeling fell in her gut - there was no way she was going to make it back to the Caldera like this.  If she didn't get actual help, she was going to die.

Steeling herself, she looked again at the bitch that god had sent to aide her.  She grimaced for a moment, then pushed it aside and forced herself to be humble, even though it went against everything in the Blackthorn's nature.  "If you actually want to help," Fin said, already knowing that this was probably a useless attempt, "I'm the beta of Redhawk Caldera.  Find Fox or Peregrine and tell them to send help."  Don't tell Elwood was a comment Fin left unspoken.  She knew he'd find out, but he hadn't been too pleased with her going in the first place.  This would only make that argument worse.

Oh, but this was going to take a while, wasn't it?  She supposed she should lend a hand, but she was rather comfortable and the other wolf quite hostile.  Though she had nothing personal against the other wolf and at times could give in to softer inclinations, in this particular instance she saw no gain by doing so.

"Oh?" Hell, another one. "Your group seems to have a habit of getting into tough places. But last time I helped, I barely got a word of thanks for my trouble." She pushed herself up to a seated position once more, leveling golden eyes at the Beta. "So, I have a hard time in deciding if it's worth my time." That was a haul for her, even more hunting time wasted for a stranger's sake. And this stranger was quite a bit less cuddly and cute than the last one had been. The unspoken words lay behind the slight challenge in her look - what can you offer to make it worth it?

The woman remained just as unhelpful and infuriating as ever, and Fin grit her teeth.  Who the fuck would do this to someone?  Make them grovel and beg while they're lying in front of them, broken and pleading.  This chick was a bitch.  Straight up, awful, terrible creature.  And though Fin would have likely found herself behaving exactly the same as her were the roles reversed, it didn't stop the anger that rose in her throat like bile.

But.  In spite of all of her dark, insulting, vicious thoughts, Finley knew that this bitch was her best shot at not dying.  She couldn't promise her anything - what could she possibly give her?  Unless she wanted a few porcupine barbs to stash in her scrapbook, Fin really had nothing.  Except... "Please... my son is only three months old," she murmured pathetically, shutting her eyes against the wave of terrible guilt that crashed down her on.

Wait did she... Did she just play the kid card?  On her?  Did she look like a bleeding heart?  Fat chance.  She had her own hunting to do.  Her own places to go.  Why did these sorry sods always think she should help them out of their own stupidity?

Damn it.  She was going to help, wasn't she?  Roz, you pushover.

Rosalyn breathed a long-suffering sigh, giving in.  "Fine."  If this woman was so avid to get back to her kid, she could probably help her out.  This once.  But after this, she was done with charity cases for a time.  "Just... Wait here.  I know where to go."  Not that she looked like she could do much more than wait here anyways.  

That kid didn't deserve to have his mom disappear, even if she was an idiot.

Fin was surprised - no, more like shocked - when the female gave a heavy sigh and finally agreed.  Her brows lifted in surprise, but furrowed slowly as suspicion crept back in.  Any second, she would tell her she was just fucking with her and that she wouldn't be going anywhere near the Caldera, and then she'd leave Finley to die.  
Even when the woman told her to wait, insisting that she knew where to go, Fin was still skeptical.  Her heart longed to believe her, to thank her and urge her to hurry.  She said nothing, though.  Instead, she laid very still for a long while until the first reaches of dawn began to stretch out from the horizon.  Fin knew she couldn't stay there.  She'd waste away and die if she allowed herself to remain stationary for too long.  Trusting that her packmates would know how to track her down if they caught her scent in this place, Fin forced herself on, clinging desperately to what little hope she felt.