Shadewood and if i go far away i know you'll find another slave

aw!

fire's disappearance had not gone unnoticed; thinking back on her last encounter with the firestorm, caiaphas wondered if fire hadn't gone to better pastures. if that was the case, that fire had found something better -- well, caiaphas was only slightly offended she hadn't been invited along for the ride.

of course, there was the possibility fire had not disappeared willingly -- caiaphas supposed some sort of search was in order. with svalinn and raleska big enough now to mingle with the adults, caiaphas had slipped from redhawks and searched for the missing she-wolf.

her first destination would be the large woods fire had mentioned -- it didn't take much effort to find the pine-studded sweep -- caiaphas smirked to herself, remarking inwardly that it was indeed humongous. yet no scent of the she-wolf could be found here -- caiaphas wasn't a master tracker, but she knew enough that so far, there was no trace of fire to be found in these shivering halls.

There he was, watching this lithe coywolf make her way through the woods he planned to call home. Not only for himself, but for his family-to-be. Sniffing and waltzing her way through these lands as though she knew them to be hers.
But it was fine. They were not his, yet. And that yet was what prevented him from calling Kai to be his shadow on this meet. His void frame emerged from the shadows of the reclusive place, crispy irises of winter surrounding twin abysses stuck on the dual colored wolf. He watched her make her path through the helm of brackets and blistering heights of the yews and elms which made the gist of these empty halls. He drank in the gait of the svelte fae, noting every single step she took and how she did it like a connaisseur of fine wine. He took the heat of territorial jealousy with a grain of knowing she was here for a reason. Common sense held him back from outright killing her, however, as with her sight came scent, and that scent bore many upon her. She was a pack's member, and his fangs remained sheathed.

For now.

The assassin made himself known with a chuffed bark and an intense cast of glacials against that lean and pale gaunt frame of hers. "Can I help you?" came next, baritones dancing like the frigid ire of wilting, frostbitten flowers. Against the shadows of the forest, the phantom of a man still held a silhouette of mystery despite removing himself from the majority of the darkness.

fire had not been exaggerating when she mentioned the shadewood's immensity: caiaphas found herself dwarfed among the tall spires, wandering between leagues of gloomy shadow with the occasional sunspot pale against the pinestraw floor. after a while she became aware of a presence alongside her: she was sly in her careful inspection of the environment around her -- it was a wolf, though he kept himself flitting among the shadows for some time.

when he made himself known the sylph paused and coyly placed one thin front paw in front of the other. he was a noble presentation of a man: a dark, unremitting black pelt and cold, wintery eyes. there was little warmth to him, but that did not dissuade the siren queen.

her gaze traced the puzzling patchwork of scars that marred his back before she spoke. his words seemed purposeful - was he some denizen of this forest, bent on protecting it? such an arrangement of words seemed deliberate: perhaps he lived here, and she was invading his home.

if that was the case, she cared not one whit; giving him a scarecrow's dreadful smile between the crusted cuts on her battered face, she answered: "that depends. is your offer of help extended so that you can sooner see me leave, or is it because you don't like seeing poor old ladies alone in a spooky forest?"

She was delicate, but something much moor loomed in her. Something that reminded him all too well of the Sea, something he knew he was going to miss if he chose this forest as the respite for his Family. In her words, she pointed out to him without blandly saying, that she was a creature of much more refined sophistication, her doubled path choice given up to him for his choosing. To save, or to suffer? The glint in his gaze reduced it's rigidity with her light return. His tones reflected this appreciation for her respective position, the blizzard rolling over to a lighter shade of frosty severity. "Perhaps neither." He could have been in goal to see what he could get out of her before strangling her in a secluded place, burying her far enough where the trail of her scent would be lost to any who searched. "Perhaps both." That was more the truth, though his demeanor showed none of it. He was immobile, and wouldn't dare allow her any information of who he deemed himself to be. 'Or who I'm trying not to be' he mused, sourly. He knew Gwen was going to expect him to open up - but who was he to make assumptions of his Empress? "The choice depends on your meaning for being here."

Cry analyzed what the Coywolf had given him, thus far. She was a member of a pack, dawdling off and about through an unreserved area. She could have been scouting for a new place, hunting, but the pace she chose was not one of hunger needing to be satisfied; it was one with watchful purpose. How the dark guardian recalled her way of viewing the woods. It wasn't 'Wow, look at this place'. Those sharp eyes were much more watchful, the gems of gilded gold flitting from tree's corners to corners in lower sweeps. No, this wraith was searching for something, and her dedication could not have been for food, despite that near wispy bodysize. And so it clicked.
She was searching for someone.

Trying to call the coy's bluff, he showed his card. "Along with how long you plan to be here, looking for them." He watched for her reaction, reserved in this growing narrative.

all caiaphas' life, she had looked for the loose thread, the frayed edge -- so that she might worry it or unravel; she knew well the sharp looks of a studied creature, and she caught that in this instance, cry was subjecting her to the same careful inspection she had subjected thousands of wolves to.

a rueful smile set shop on that horrific face; for a grandma, she was too battered to appear friendly - instead, that smile took on a more sinister expression, perhaps because of the various angry welts that cut her lips, and distorted her muzzle.

inspect away, boy -- she seemed to silently challenge -- living things rarely like it when they discover what lurks beneath the dirt.


he might have thought he was clever, deducing from her unshielded body language her purpose -- any wolf with an eye might have figured out she was looking for something. caiaphas set back on her haunches in the most obscenely settled gesture, and had she nails to inspect, would have looked at them in a rather indifferent manner. she didn't answer his first words; one, it hadn't been posed as a direct question -- and two -- she knew by the gleam in his eyes he knew her purpose for being here, and wasn't going to play along.

"how long?" she repeated, analyzing that word; there it was, the true intention, obscured under the exchange of words  -- how long -- her time here wouldn't matter to a wolf on its own, would it? time was implacable, passing of its own accord in and out of the fabric of their world -- how long -- it was something a wearied host might ask of those taking advantage of his generosity; how long will it be before your flight home? or to put it impolitely -- how long until you get the fuck out of my house?

then this man was the host, the shadewood his home; caiaphas' gaze scanned the high canopy of whittled trees, their dark sour faces bent down around them. "i'm here, until i find them." she gave another insufferable half-grin; it wasn't a smile at all, it wasn't warm, it wasn't genuine. "care to scry from the trees, who 'them' is -- or maybe ask their all-knowing presence where they went?"

It seemed the gig was up. But the funny thing was it wasn't. She had given him a bone, tossing the 'yes' uncaringly out there with a smartass response back. It was something much less than what he expected, as he thought there was a jousting of cunning they had going on, but seemed he was mistaken on his front. The bone sat between them, and while he took the victory as a loss, he was disappointed even more when the sophisticated mystery they had disentegrated into something of just testing his intelligence.

"Or" he began, irritation trying to pull him from his cool demeanor. Refusing it, he continued. "I could help you look for them that way you and them can leave." A smirk went to tilt the edges of his mouth at the wily idea of deducing someones information from the trees, but itsn't that what they did? Prying the information from the ground, the trees, tracks left inbound the mud and litter to find out where things went? "I'd have to ask you not to exclude the ground, considering whoever it is you're looking for probably uses it to walk." He said such with the same near indetectible cynicism she used in her own response. Unless she was looking for a bird? She'd better not be looking for a damn bird. After that raven incident with Kai, he wasn't too keen on birds at the moment.

"C'mon", he invited, completely uncaring whether she accepted the invite or not, dark phantom up and walking casually back into the shadows of the woods. "Unless you'd like to climb up trees, yourself." He pointedly began sniffing out the fallen leaves, nosing the litter and mulch around trying to unearth the scent of another wolf other than Kai. He had intented for whoever this unknown woman was to assist in the search, but she had better hoped she found whoever it was before he had. This older woman had gotten his selfishness a bit more interested, callousing his own reasons to help her. But the piece of Gwen's ideal stuck with him, that faint light that some might need asssistance and he would have to be the one to deliver it. It completely ran away from his own ideals, only scratching someone's back if they had scratched his own. What was it called? Kindness?

"If they're here, we haven't come across anyone else yet." He offered this information freely, partially hoping it would push the woman to check elsewhere away from the woods, and partially noting how it would possibly make her search harder here. Damn, how he hated double edged swords.

oh, he was witty -- caiaphas indulged in a small smile, pleased by the snappish quickness of his retort. it had been a long time since she had engaged in any sort of intelligent riposte, and as much as she wanted to throw down in the battle of barbed tongues, her time was short-pressed; they would have to contest their banter some other day.

she looked pointedly to the ground, a look of bemusement across her waifish features. "the ground won't help you much, because i'm afraid she hasn't walked on it." her tail lashed gently around her hock as she watched the male drift from briar to fern, nose to the ground -- was he helping her?

"in fact, i am certain she was never here at all." caiaphas concluded with a solemn finality, her hawk-yellow gaze seeking the compelling glacial icewater of his own. "but, she had come here once, and had mentioned it with... a fondness." caiaphas put a certain weight in the latter half of her sentence, slyly watching the man to see if he too shared a fondness for this spectral and grimly shaded forest.

His gait stopped in the middle of upturning a small stick as he though something might reward them there. Instead, her words killed the potential as she revealed the woods not harboring the find. Damn it all.

"Well, I can say," he said, turning around to address the slender wraith with a huff. "that I'm glad you stopped me before I really started difing around." It was true. It took energy and resolve to try finding someone, and Shadewood was HUGE. Wiping a void hued paw across a snout, freeing it of the scratch of leaves and debris, he punctuated the liberty by shaking his onyx coat out.  "Forests have a nice touch of secrecy to them. I however, prefer the sea." He did; the sea held everything. The ocea was something no one could ever get to the bottom of, and it held so man creatures. There was talk of all animals coming from such a vast place, and he could actually believe such a myth. It just sounded so much more familiar than anything simply sprouting moving and living from like, dirt, or something. "But wolves can't live in seas, apparently, no matter how much they would try," it was a murrmur that spoke much more than it should have.  "But yes, woods are nice. Quiet and deterring."

he didn't react much to the way she had described fire's interest in the shadewood; maybe her initial impression of him was wrong. all the same, caiaphas categorized him still as a possible competitor, particularly if fire's entreaty with the redhawk alphas was successful and they decided to come to the shadewood after all. caiaphas couldn't say she would be disappointed in the move; it was closer to the ocean, for one -- and caiaphas didn't have much interest or fondness for the plateau. in her eyes it was an ugly heap of stone and soil, carved with the callous uncaring of some ancient glacier and left there, more blemish than landmark, some thousands of epochs well before she ever walked this earth.

she supposed the shadewood was old too, in its own way; the trees around her, while not as big as the impossibly large sequoias of her home in ankyra sound, were riddled with a tired gloom old trees often possessed: as if they had seen everything the world had to offer, and nothing that ever walked through their forest surprised or brought them joy anymore.

caiaphas hadn't missed he mentioned he preferred the ocean -- a flicker of a smile appeared on that blighted lip of hers -- she too, had a predilection for the coast. the shadewood, she surmised, must be perfect for him: within walking distance of prime beach real-estate, while still offering the protection a bosk often did. "seems an ideal location then, for you anyway." she purled, her eyes resting on him with little compunction.

"It has it's charms," he agreed with her. "I haven't explored all of it yet, but there's plenty of time for it. I'm not going anywhere, let alone far from it." He had made a promise to Gwen, and he wasn't going to live it down. He also had to spite Slade's dead promise with a renewed and better version of what it had been. He wanted to live a life with Gwen and Kai, to prosper the way they were meant to. A lfe, free of the roguery he was used to blodily dealing in. Away from the contracts and the swindles. Away from the lies and fake promises. Something much more fulfilling, something he could have children by, be a decent man by. To have worth much more than a killer on command.

"It's the secrecy of it that keeps me here. Quiet and nice. You can easily pinpoint a scream here." Glacials met the eerie topaz of hers, and he decided to find out more of the woman who had come to converse or capture in these lands. "Where is it you stay?" If anything, it would help had he found whoever she had previously been looking for; he could deliver them there, eprsonally. A treaty of sourts, hhad he grounded himself in these woods quick enough. "If you give me the details of the one you seek, I can have them delivered there, if possible." It was moreso for his knowledge than out of kindness. He would need to know where to seek this elder woman out had any trouble arose.

caiaphas supposed there was little harm in revealing her intentions here -- for one, the old hag was a Strong Independent Woman, and for two, she could just as quickly rip the throat out of any wolf that crossed her - or so, she thought. thinking of such violence delighted her, in an odd way -- but her eyes remained flat, and spoke nothing of the black thoughts that milled behind her sharply cruel face.

"i am from there -" she pointed with a paw to the ugly plateau, which sat frowning over the shadewood the way natural formations often did. "we are called the redhawks." we. well - caiaphas didn't consider herself a redhawk anymore than the redhawks considered themselves an eyjolfur - she had assimilated well into their lives, and they had accepted her with more grace than she would have accepted an outsider, but still, that is exactly what she was: an outsider.

"i was looking for fire; you wouldn't miss her, she's red --" and not at all inconspicuous, caiaphas thought wryly. perhaps a bit belatedly it occurred to the siren queen that maybe, fire's disappearance was not a casual jaunt - the prospect of her being whisked away, killed, mauled, whatever, was very real.

the only question was, who?

He couldn’t help himself; he laughed. It began as a forced attempt at his usual poker face, before cracking into a grin, evolving into a snort, then erupting into a chortle of short barks. RedHawks?? What in the hell??

“Okay, hold on,” he began, wintery gems sending an avalanche of jesting her way. “Don’t tell me you guys got a theme going on here. Like, tell me there’s a mascot, or like, some kinda bird thing you guys worship. RedHawks.” The laugh got more intense as he pictured this witchly old woman leading a parade of scarlet birds and nothing but red wolves down a trail. Did they decorate themselves with red feathers, too? Did they eat everything but birds?

Bringing his hysteria back to earth, he dried up his laugh and admired the woman. Though the name was silly, and as ‘meh, kill it’ as she looked about mentioning it, she still represented it. 

“You must be the most out of place one there, miss.” Well, he’d feel the same way if he traveled up north with Gwen and her current pack; it wouldn’t be any worse. He hadn’t known the woman’s name however, and deciding it would be a decent time to, he gave her his lifelong alias. “I’m Cry.” 

caiaphas endured the sniggering of the stranger, listening on with a sort of detached disdain as his tirade went from quiet giggles to full-blown derisive laughter. underneath her coldly collected composure she felt a ripple of something unexpected -- was she offended he was mocking the pack that had housed her?

she decided a few seconds after, that yes, yes she was.

her opinions of the validity of the name 'redhawks' aside, caiaphas did possess a sort of burgeoning loyalty to the pack. it wasn't that she loved her packmates (she certainly didn't) or was devoutly attached to the location (definitely wasn't) -- but she had lost much in the storm that lead up to redhawks, and they had let her in.

for that, they would get a strange brand of loyalty -- though one that might come at an unseemly cost.

she raised her head, delivering a look that could cut down men. he was done with his odd belittlement, but caiaphas was only just getting started. "cry?" she repeated rather quietly, almost stupidly -- "shouldn't they have named you 'giggle'?" he had mocked the plateau, and thus, had earned himself the unkind attention caiaphas was often prone to administering. "it is a family name," she explained, knowing she might have sounded defensive. "but it is not mine..." caiaphas had spent enough time with him that she thought she detected the real reason he was here -- indeed, his scent certainly seemed to permeate the place.  "they would not like to hear you have designs here." it was not a warning so much as a subtle show of force: he was alone... but caiaphas was not.

He snorted as she sarcasmed her way around his name. It hadn't broken his merriment at all; he knew how pitiful 'Cry' sounded, but 'Giggle'? "I meann," he began with that grin returning. "If they had a choice over what my name was, it wouldn't be either Cry, nor Giggle. It would be something alot more 'intimidating'. Would probably have some meaning, or be a part of some wicked prophecy." He passively and hiddenly hinted that they had not given him his name, nor was this his actual name. The assassin was sure she'd pick that up; she was a smart little whip.

She had eyed him as a disapproving grandmother would, and without a mother, nor father, his discipline came and went as he allowed it to. He could either be a knight, polite and proper, silent and only speaking when spoken to, or he could be a cynic, as smartassed as he desired. "Lucky them for keeping a family going," he said almost wishfully. It was unintentional, but he allowed it to flitter past on that silken wind. He was almost fearful of being hopeful; optimism was for those who had luck to back it up on. "But good for them."

Upon hearing her next remark, he rolled his eyes, frosty gems twirling away his care. "Well, in that case, I won't follow every man's dream of establishing a home, founding a pack, and finally having a family. Since it would be against your wills, I'll cut it short, and just kill myself now, it seems."

it wasn't surprising a wolf that had a penchant for sarcasm also possessed a flair for dramatics. caiaphas' level gaze studied the male a moment, unamused by the quip. "that's your lot, i suppose." she shifted, stalking past a band of ferns, their fronds frost-bitten to wilted sheets of pale vegetation. if he wanted to go from zero to sixty, she wasn't one to stop him.. besides --

population control, and all that.

she supposed there were enough wolves in the world that his sarcastic presence might be missed, but easily filled in. everyone wanted to think they were wit's second coming - problem was, with most of the world, they tended to overestimate their talents. "well -cry - you do you. and if you find a pretty little red thing, you come find me." she turned around and faced him, her eyes cold: "and in return, i won't tell the redhawks about you encroaching on their  favorite off-site hunting ground. it'll be our little secret."

He watched her as she completely removed herself from any comfortable level of exchange, the fun sifting into dust as she ruined it with bitter nonchalance. However as swift as his own personalities, he tucked his away as well, returning to the stoic casting that he had been molded into being. The silence returned as he considered her words, and it sat between them as the ice built.

A small chuff left his onyx lips. She was blackmailing him, now? Letting him go 'free' if only he found their friend? Pathetic and insolent the hag was. But as true to her name, it was a coy move, and well played on his near nill ground. He wouldn't endanger his family - but he wouldn't be taken lightly, either. Should these pack come upon them and slaughter them while they slept, Gwen would never know. It wasn't his time to die; he had a mission, and this he would see though.

"Of course", he canted his head in a modest tilt, voice melding back to calm demeanor. "As long as you don't go missing too before I find her."

It was quite the subtle threat, but who could abduct her? She was within pack lands and protected, whereas he was protecting these few he had under his wing. It wasn't the time to make threats, but this Coywolf had come and called herself trying to blackmail him. She had numbers, but he would fend off his family, regardless. Well atleast, he would try.

Figuring their exchange was nigh done, he began to recede inland by a couple of paces. And he hoped it wasn't already an avalanche of snowballing bad coming their way.

wrap up, hun?ANDTHANKYOUSOMUCHFORTHIS<3

some wolves might have risen to the subtle threat in cry's words, or even reacted to the not-so subtle insinuation of violence the promise held. caiaphas, impulsive and rash as she could be, had long learned to hold her teeth: many times, it was words to cut down a man  -- not pain.

she smiled a simple smile, convinced he would have nothing to do with her eventual disappearance. when and if the old hag decided to shuffle off of this earth, it would be on her own terms -- her own bloody, horrific terms.

i am glad we have reached an understanding. she purled, her tail curling out from her thin hips in a satisfied, almost too-smug response. adieu, buddy.

she would hold her end of the bargain - not out of honor, but simply because by the time it would occur to her the warn the redhawks of their new strange neighbor, caiaphas would be hundreds of miles north.. and very much wrapped up in her own cacophonous, terrifyingly strange world.