Blackfeather Woods wake me up; i wanna feel the sun

She padded after @Vaati, an odd lightness in her steps. She still was not completely sure of the decision she had made, or its implications. She knew certainly that the cloud of exhaustion over her seemed to have lifted, the fear faded. It was as if the darkness had slipped over her head, pulling her under, suffocating her in terror and exhaustion until she had simply stopped struggling. And, she wondered, if the darkness would drown her, or if she found that she could breathe.
 
She said nothing to Vaati, not yet, though her gaze slid to him. Never had she thought a wolf could be so perplexing, never had she thought that circumstance would lead her here. She did not know what led to her decision to stride to his side, but perhaps it was the knowledge that, but in Wolfskull, a child lay dying and its parents did not come. Perhaps she knew that her life outside the wood was well and truly shattered beyond repair. She paused, then, poison gaze turned to Vaati. ”I won’t be your captive. Not anymore.” her voice was steady, though her body was still and unmoving, uncertainty and some unknown emotion boiled beneath her pelt.

Cassiopeia stands before him with a defiance that has somewhat changed in spirit since when he had taken her in the first place. Now, it reeks of the will to survive rather than blatant disobedience, a desperation that he could work within his path to rearrange the core of who she is. Internally, he smiles, but it does not reach his lips; it never does. He looks up at her unfazed, before licking his chops and refocussing on cleaning the bone that is settled between his forepaws. "Then don't," Her courage doesn't offend him, he expects nothing less of her. "Join our ranks," The Silencer offers shruggingly, her standing within the pack doesn't matter as much to him as the fact that she is still there, and he doubts she will be of any other use than becoming one of their own. It is clear the wolves of Moonspear don't care about their own as much as he believed. In that same thought, he wonders what her experiences with them were, who they are and what they are capable of doing. If anything, Cassiopeia was rather a treasure trove of information rather than a means to threaten those within. Perhaps he could find a reason within her memory bank that would give her the motive to hate them too. 

Leaving many minutes between this proposal and his next point of focus, he looks up confesses the circumstance of her kidnapping, something he had not intended to do before. "I assume you know of three raven-haired women within your old pack with the inability to use their words?" His head tilts, looking up at her expectantly. "It seems I have angered them, for reasons unknown. And before they bring their cute little death band to our borders, perhaps you could tell me what you know about them and why they have taken it upon themselves to see me dead," The question of why they care in the first place is still, very much unknown to him. It had not been them he had attacked, therefore, it was not their place to judge his actions, despite how murderously inclined it was. Vaati too had no reason to justify himself. Perhaps the only being he would ever need to explain why he did what he did would be to Rannoch himself, if he ever saw that problematic beast of a man again. 

His words shock her, first. The simple demand was met with simple agreement, and she is silent. Anger flows in soon after, filling the void that shock has left. It was that easy? To simply ask to stop being a prisoner, and be met with agreement? She did not expect to feel anger, but she does, and it glints in her gaze a moment. Though catches up to her a moment later, and she realizes that terms of her freedom; she is to join them. She cannot simply leave; she is bound to their ranks still; though not in the way of a captive any longer. "I will."  She says, the words spoken with conviction. She does not know what this new development is too entail, but certainly, it must be better than the hellhole. 

His next question, she supposes, makes sense; she is too be used for information. She isn't stupid enough to think that the offer to be more than a captive (and yet still less than free) comes without a price.  "the Cerberus"  is all she answers at first, knowing as well as any their title. She is silent, faint loyalty to Moonspear struggling with her desire to simply tell him what she knew. His next words have her cant an ear towards him, words thick was sarcasm. "You have absolutely no idea? Was it perhaps that you attempted to steal - rescue - a child again and were less than successful?" She watches him, though her sarcastic bravado fades as she recalls a memory. It is of the Cerberus, she thinks; confusing memories of water and desperation and three dark shapes, words she couldn't quite make out or understand. She blinks, wondering at the memories she has forgotten for so long. "Hydra, Alya and Lyra."  she mumbled, not quite sure if he already knows this or not, brushing the memory from her thoughts as she looks up to him again.

Cassiopeia's shock is brief, but understandably evident within her features, following his words that grant her freedom to roam the dark woods. She covers it up quickly with a resolute agreement to his proposition, and instantly, she is situated higher within the ranks. But she does not realize that she not free, at least, not free yet. There is still much more to go before she can truly call herself a free-woman, able to come and leave as she pleases. No, that ability would take some time to ensure that she would not simply run towards the first glance of what was beyond the dark woods. But he doesn't tell her this, instead, he simply nods and lets her continue on.

The Cerberus. He snorts. As if the flashy titles of Blackfeather's ranks had not been boastful enough, the three women had actually found themselves important enough to give their miniature death club a catchy name. However, he is not surprised to learn they have. They had seemed to attack as a singular being, something he had found unusual at the time but had simply disregarded that piece of information as irrelevant. It did make sense now, how they would title themselves to be something of a whole. But he is unsure if he is supposed to be impressed. Vaati judges them based on what he has seen, and while their skills as warriors are formidable, they do not scare him as much as their imposing name suggests it should. He has seen far worse beings and their intentions within the dark woods to be frightened by the concept of them and their self-righteous plans of presumably eradicating him from their neck of the woods or bringing him to "justice", as Charon's presence had suggested. Cassiopeia jeers at him with words he can only grumble at, knowing fully well that he has failed to do many things he set out to do in recent times. Perhaps it is just a turn of bad luck, or, the gods had cursed him once again. But what is clear to him is that the outcome of the simple attempt to kill Rannoch and the events that continued to unfold after would lead up to become something terrible, if it even occurred. 

Vaati narrows his eyes in her direction. "No. Because - " He stops himself short as the utterings of their names reach his ears. Vaati instantly wonders why they couldn't have been named something stupid like Spazzy, Jazzy and The Third Wheel but nevertheless, he takes this newfound information with seriousness. "What else do you know?" This time, his tone commands a sort of persuasion, the tone of a man whose life rides on all she has to say. It doesn't, Vaati has more than one or two tricks up his sleeve to ensure he lives, however, the more he knows about his enemies, the more he is able to understand them. Specifically, understand why they care so much about killing him in the first place.

His words become saturated with persuasion, something she does not miss. Vaati is truly the first friend she has; if she can even call him that. To call one's captor and warden friend seems - and is - wrong, but she does not know how else to explain the way he seems to hold her interest, to draw her into his dark world. Thus, it does not take long for her to reveal what little information she holds, the tightening in her chest the only sign of her faded loyalty to Moonspear. The words seem to stick to her tongue, but she forces them out all the same. "Hydra is beta. I couldn't tell them apart, though, they all seemed exactly the same in every way."  Her tail lashed, the only sign of her apprehension as she continued. 

 "I remember - water. And the Cerberus were there, I think. Drowning and-"  She clamped her maw shut. It seemed too personal a memory, and besides, " it's not important. they're the alphas' daughters, they hold the highest ranks and are obviously important." Her gaze found his, not sure what he wanted to know, and knowing too that her knowledge on the three was running out. They were formidable, and she had avoided them for the most part.

He listens intently, hanging on to her every word. Their leader is Hydra, and he assumes, the one who had given him the scar. The other two work as the enforcement of her decisions, and when they move, they move together. These are things he gathers simply by connecting the dots, branching out into a web of knowledge he has obtained by asking the right questions and formulating the right assumptions. But he knows there is more to know, and he leans in further, hoping that Cassiopeia's memory serves her well.

However, his query takes a morbid turn as the girl reveals something quite damning about his enemies. "Drowning you?" Vaati instantly stands, the bone dropping to the ground with an audible thud. He does not know much about these girls, but he knows they are no better than him. Vaati is not bad, he simply never claimed to be good. He does what he has to do. These girls, however, well, they did not have to attack him. They did so on their own volition, which he found to be more concerning than anything. If what Cassiopeia was telling him was true and they were not above torturing children, he doesn't understand why they would seek to punish him for ending the life of a fully-grown enemy.

He leans in, and her unease fades. His attention to her is hardly unwanted, though she would never admit that to him. He is more interested in the memory than she warranted, and she shifts, regarding him. "I don't know. I think I was drowning. They were watching."  She memory is eerie, mad even more so by the fact that she is not sure exactly what transpired, and that she is recounting it in this place. She shakes her head stiffly, looking to the boy sharply. "Why does it matter?" She doesn't know why the boy asks, but her gaze moves to his scars. 

 "Moonspear wants you dead. The Cerberus - they gave you those scars, didn't they?"  Her words come carefully, but she does not expect an answer anything besides an affirmative. It would certainly explain his interest in them, and her next question is softer, yet bolder. "What did you do?" 

He listens, and the rage simmers beneath the surface of his cool exterior. No matter their part in what they did to the child version of the woman that stood before him, Vaati realizes that the self-acclaimed Cerberus are no better than he, no more morally superior than the blackest, most crooked parts of the dark woods. He tilts his head as she asks him why it matters, why what they had supposedly done was of importance at all. "It matters because them, despite what you have told me about them, seemed to have set on a glory path of bringing me to a justice I apparently deserve after carrying out business that had nothing to do with them," He scoffs audibly, knowing that at least those within the dark woods could not call themselves hypocrites. "At least that's what their Alpha, the man, suggested." The demands had been clear, what was once his business and his business only was now shared between himself, Rannoch, and an entire pack of strangers who quite evidently, had nothing better to do than avenge someone who had not been theirs to protect. It was that willingness to potentially start a war so quickly that concerned him, and foremost, what troubles their self-righteous death band would bring to their home where newborns lied. Every piece of information he gathers from her is gold, and he indicates her to go on, but the girl avoids the subject of her traumatic childhood experiences, and turns the cards on him.

He nods, admittedly. "Yes, they did. And what I did was none of their business, I made sure of it," That was the fact that most quelled him, the lack of connection between Rannoch and the Moonspear pack. He knows for a fact that his victim had not been of their ranks, rather, an Alpha of a small band much farther away. And, as he had told the man who had appeared at their borders, Rannoch was evidently not of their blood either. The strings tieing the two factions together was something he was yet to figure out, and something that thoroughly begged his frustration.