Heron Lake Plateau i can see a shitfaced brother that i covered for what must've been the last ten years

once her howl had flourished to a finish, the sylph sat down - the motion more a defeated slouch than anything. her gaze flickered to the children and to blondine, but she was silent until a male approached them. under normal circumstances, caiaphas might have risen to meet him -- but she was too battered, too bled of her energy do to much more than sweep her ears back to gesticulate she had come as a supplicant, not an enemy.

had caiaphas been in any less of a dire need for help, she might not have liked that smirk. even needing help, she didn't like that smirk; it suggested a comfortable superiority (and subsequent belittlement) that the matriarch, if she were any more young and hale, would have delighted in correcting. as it was she kept her gaze to the floor and her words to herself, noticing a boldly colored female and a limping dark wolf approaching from the opposite side. curiously, the wolf with the limp had a bird -- caiaphas' stomach did a jolt and she quickly looked to the ground.

she didn't care for the threat that being surrounded might present her children; instinctively she hunkered closer to them, but did not bristle nor stare. "no handouts," she contested, sucking in a deep breath through her ragged body. she had learned from easthollow, and did not mince words nor waste time.

"a home, for the four of us. in exchange, we work. i am a master warrior --" she canted her thin muzzle to the wolf that, to her eyes, looked clearly battle-adorned. "she is limping. i could kill whatever hurt her." the tone in which her quiet voice spoke suggested a deep wellspring of confidence in her, uh, killing abilities.

then, the sylph turned to svalinn and pushed him forward with the flat of her head, as if he were some golden offering before the face of three stern and terrible gods. looking at them each with a quiet tiredness, she spoke. "this one is not my own, and my mate and my other children are gone."