Dragoncrest Cliffs thursday night began much like the others, but ended much less happily.

her sides ached with a kind of foreign tenderness that had her leave the Sound, in search of some place where she may rest without contest. despite her fondness for her new home and rank, Rusalka was anything but stable, and so that morn found her high on the cliffs, investigating the past signs of occupation that faded quickly under the sudden influx of wild things come to squeeze what they could from this forsaken territory. 

the woman stretched herself across the rocky earth, surveying her stomach with mild discontent. here and there the pale stretch of her skin was visible, where surely her fur had been torn away during the challenge. with a huff, she lowers her forelimb and surveys the cliff edge some distance from her, the roaring crash of the sea below muted.

The behemoth had been ordered away from Warsaw, to which he was hardly pleased, but it was his duty to obey his masters and the bloodline had since grown — no longer encompassed by Skellige alone, but by many half-breeds to the name. The orders sent him far and wide, and when he came upon the landscape of these wilds Tetsubō was not one to reminisce. He bludgeoned his way north on his hunt, then moved west with the coast, drawn to the seaside like any beast worthy of the islands. The cliffs rose as an impenetrable wall before him and he grew flustered, frustrated; but then he found a tender scent in the air of flesh and fur. He moves with a lethargic persistence, heavy-handed with each stride, and pauses where the trees begin to thin to watch the stranger lounging in the sun. He thinks of what use she could provide to him — but wishes, above all else, to taste her in between his teeth.

a gull wheels into view as it soars above the cliffs, something caught tight in its beak. she watches it with half-hearted interest, and it is only the prickle along her spine that whispers warning that has her gaze stray. her intuition, heightened for she knows the territory to be only recently abandoned, has seldom misled her. she moves to rise and shifts to survey the copse at her back, as she hardly expects anything to come climbing up the cliffs. the sun has thrown bright spots into her vision, and her search for some other is pallid. the scent is borne to her easily enough, however, and it tastes of metal against the roof of her mouth. gaze, dancing with sunspots, finds the outline of a stranger then, and she regards him with stoic stillness.

It is not his way to remain hidden, for surely it is an impossible feat. He might not be the largest of the wolves in these wilds but he is hulking, hardly bothered by the prospect of being found-out by any force. Confident in his own abilities. He did not endure the fickle nature of his commander just to become a sleuth — so when his target shifts and appears to show an interest in the forest, he is neither glad nor bothered. She blinks against the scattered spots across her vision and he uses this moment to lunge from the tree line, thrusting step after step against the rocky ridge as if it is his intention to pummel the earth in to submission. 

He draws close, but appears to be more interested in the mighty ledge from which she dangles her limbs. The beast's gait slows from its quaking shudder to an abrupt absence of movement entirely, and he turns his stony face to the crumbling ledge as if he is judging the distance. Perhaps he will find the Cairn children further down; the sea rolls and booms with a familiar pulse against the stonework below, but there is little beachfront that he can spy.

As he withdraws he turns the deadpan glare upon the woman. His breath is naturally deep and heavy, and out of him drawls a draconic voice tinged with a palpable loathing. I am hunting for the Cairn. He does not elaborate; however, the beast waits for her to speak all the same, assuming that her brine-heavy coat is a mark of a loyalist to the bloodline. This view is tremendously limiting but Tetsubō is not an imaginative creature, nor a conversationalist.

he moves as if he expects the earth to bend to his will, for the rock underfoot to be pressed deep into the core of the earth. she holds her place but is wary, for the scattered spots will not dissipate and the man bristles with threat and strength. he is roughly Vaati's size, but is honed, dangerous, with a strength she does not think the former could match and is immediately apparent. the sea continues its steady boom below and he peers down at it, the opportunity the grasps to scrutinize him further. 

he turns to her and her expression withdraws into its earlier self. a hunter. the Cairn. she does not know what he means by the latter and the word and it's meaning are foreign. the Cairn must be formidable to require a the, fitting, she thinks, for it to have such a hunter. "I know no Cairn."  she offers, and because she knows not if he references a wolf, a pack, or a beast, she continues, "My loyalties are to Rusalka." and she would not stand in the hunter's way.