Blackbeak Bluff as a game i put my hand over the flame

here u go u blessed crumpet

the siren was limping as she made her way south, her teeth clenched and gait stiff as she went. the curs of drageda had left their mark on her tattered pelt -- but she was alive, and that in itself was a mockery of their army -- for rusalka had been handily outnumbered.. and yet, her comrades had all returned home that night save for one.

truth be told, it was likely boiling hate more than anything that kept caiaphas' ragged body going -- if it weren't for the infernal emnity that consumed her hollowed bones, caiaphas likely would have been dead a long time ago.

she recalled blackbeak had a peculiar kind of kelp that rounded its shore; kelp that erzulie had instructed would help stave infection from the blistering wound on her neck. the rest of the pack did not fare much better, but their healing wares were in short supply, and as the sound's leader, it fell on her to collect what little they could.

-- first light --

Dawn hovered upon the sedated surfs beyond, a concerto of color painted with eager fingertips over twinkling swells of starlight that fell from the ethereal tapestries of the night.  They danced upon the pliant surface of fluid curves – the sun winking off of their faces as they rose to meet his warm, paternal caress, casting a sheen of reflected hues across the water’s surface.  He had been suspended in his journey to reunite with the ocean – to let her salty kisses burn his lips, and pacify aching, nomadic muscles – coerced into slumber by the sheer, encumbering fatigue of his body.  Though a practiced wanderer (he’d never known a time spent lounging too long in a singular location) he was not immune to the influence of a seamlessly trekked span of pilgrimage.  He had not known rest nor sleep for what seemed an innumerable amount of days, once becoming lost in an insurmountable stretch of territory vacant of nourishment and, what he craved most – water.  It made him restless – he could not know peace without the sound of wind whipping across waves, crashing against a formidable shoreline – a sense of home despite him never knowing such luxury.  He unraveled from his position (curled, as though a unified burst of flame) and he lifted himself partially, forelegs stretching outward so that his toes may unfurl and curl into the hardened, weathered earth.  He rose, satisfied, his full height catching the glare of the sun, his form alighting as though a beacon – an aggravated ember setting the peak ablaze with its intensity.  Metallic gaze settled upon the horizon, a deep inhale of crisp wintry air expelled forcibly: the smoke to the fire of his presence.

caiaphas' ambition to collect kelp dwindled as a copper vision unfurled in her peripherals. eyeing the bronzed predator with some misgiving, the sylph made to adjust her course -- until a sharp exhale bid her to stay her exit.

he was a roughshod looking hellion; caiaphas had not seen so brilliant a sheen of fiery hue since mona, and even then the ember-tufts of his fur might have put her goldspun pelt to patchwork shame. hiding her injury best she could by approaching him from where her hale side was visible, the siren chuffed into the wintry air and kept her posture neutral. it just so happened he was standing not so far from the drop-off where the stony arch slid into tidal flats -- and if she played nicely enough, perhaps he would allow her passage rather than turn her round.

The wind threaded through his wiry pelt; the tides below tugging into the shoreline with an ambient crash, before receding and reinforcing its elemental strengths against the land.  His senses were ignited by the burn of brine and winter, his throat throbbing as he inhaled barbed vapors that seemed to cut against the yielding, vulnerable flesh of his trachea.  A peculiar sound begins to vibrate against the hairs of his ears – footsteps, uneven, labored.  A single ear is pulled – towed by the threads of curiosity – as he trains upon the acute sonance of chilled foliage crunching under the pressure of a decidedly demure weight.  He did not have to look at her to discern her size – hers were a trudge that seemed feather-light, though her injured hobble afforded a distinct weightiness upon one side.  She calls to him – her polite notification dampened by the agitated gurgles of the sea – so that it is not but a whisper upon the crest of his ears.  He turns, the silvery spherules of his eyes dancing upon her curves – she seemed worn, a haggard, battle-weathered Valkyrie simply drifting across the landscape as though the tattered vestiges of her comrades littered under her feet.  Her sharpened visage akin to a knife blade, jowls scornful under the concave of her cheekbones that jutted alike the apex of a toothy mountain – “You look a little worse for wear, love,” he comments, though it does not hold a mockful tone – playful, perhaps, as his upper lip pulls over a tooth.  Charming, in an unwashed, vagrant-like way.

admittedly, caiaphas was thinking of what kind of meal she might happen upon in the tidal flats just beyond red when he spoke; her yellow eyes returned to his robust visage, studying with a crow's scrutiny the mirth in his gunmetal gaze.

many wolves often find their humorous comments returned to sender by the sharp stamp of teeth; some are lucky enough to simply earn the contempt of their company, while others find a pithy joke falls flat -- caiaphas, having had little in the way of intellectual banter as of late, hooked her gaze upon his with a harpish fervor. "so i am in good company, then." she smoothly rejoined, the tip of her tail slightly arced in quiet humor.