Whitefish River flares like a supernova

please let dacio reply first!

the fact that the rusalkan crone had been speaking the truth about verx's death, confirmed by @Dacio who walks at her side as she makes her way to kaistleoki with her heart heavy and fury brewing beneath the surface of her otherwise cool exterior makes praimfaya begin to resent this. the wolves of kaistleoki have done nothing but twice — twice! — she has sought wolves within their reign to bear bad news. verx ...! how could one so tough and so cool fall? was it truly at the jaws of these easthollow wolves as the crone had spoken? she had been regretfully telling the truth about verx ...was it possible, praimfaya thinks, that the easthollow wolves were to blame for her bloodkru's death?

his death was the will of the spirits of the commanders.

that was what was said about blodreina's death too. that the spirits of the commanders have willed it. she's lost blodreina to become worlida ...to become wanheda. what has she lost verx for? praimfaya wonders. her steps begin to slow as the scent of kaistleoki becomes thicker and more pungent upon the air. when there exists a more than an amiable distance between their borders and the roankru pair she halts, tilts her head back and lets out a howl for isi and/or dragomir despite that she does not scent either upon the borders and feels an all-too familiar tickle of nervousness tuck itself within her breast.

@Ira or @Evergreen, perhaps?
P.s. thread is waiting to be moved to Hoshor Plains.  lol nvm

With the confirmation of Vercingetorix' murder, Praimfaya was livid. She seethed, appropriately furious, while Dacio observed her quiet rage with ears splayed back and his tail limp. He understood the bitterness and resentment she harboured for the unknown creatures who'd bested who she considered kru, though his difficulty lay with the uncertainty of his own feelings.

Verx had been his brother, once. He'd respected him wholly as Cheka, and remembered the dull ache left behind by his betrayal. That abandonment of Drageda remained at the forefront of Dacio's thoughts as he and the aspiring Wanheda took their leave of Roangeda to follow the river in search of Isilmë and Dragomir, the pups that robbed him of a comrade before their birth.

He did not resent Vercingetorix' children for the crumbling of his birth pack, for that decision had been made by their parents alone. He could embrace them as kru as he did with Eske's daughter, he was sure, for they were not to blame for the adults' mistakes. Dacio carried on alongside Praimfaya not with an anger that matched her own, but with a familiar weight in his chest and worry churning in his belly. 

Pastel gaze constantly searching and charcoal ears alert for danger, their trip was mostly without conversation. Dacio felt tension tighten his muscles when he detected the musk of an unfamiliar pack, and he studied the area in silence as they drew to a halt. Praimfaya's voice rose with a sense of urgency, an attempt to reach out to her friends, while Dacio hunted with a searching gaze for any suggestion that Blackhead might have followed them. 

her and dacio wait and they wait and they wait. no answer comes. not in a howl, not in the approaching presence of a pack wolf. it is only then, with a furrow of her brow and a bold step nearer that praimfaya realizes her mistake. steadfast in her confidence that this was kaistleoki's claim — this was where ingram had escorted her, this was where last she'd spoken with verx — that she didn't immediately notice the fade of their borders. her heart sinks as a wave of disappointment washes over her. she is disappointed in herself for being so inattentive to what she could've noticed first. her worry for isi and dragomir bubbles once more to the surface and she lets out a low rumble that matches the fierce scowl that twists upon her lips.

they're not here. 'they're' being the pack as a whole though whether they disbanded or relocated praimfaya isn't sure. confident that this time she's correct ( you think she'd have learned by now ) she crosses over the fading borders without a moment's hesitation. lets look around. because she promised that isi ( and verx ) that they were bloodkru and that kru didn't leave kru. maybe there's some clue as to whether they disbanded or moved... it was a long shot, admittedly. a desperate grasp at straws. how would they know unless they happened across someone more privy to what happened than the wolves of roankru?

He looked around, mossy eyes scanning for any sign of approach, but no one came. Not even a call went up in response, and so Dacio felt unease creep into his bones. Turning his head to exchange a concerned glance with Praimfaya, she voiced what they were both thinking: no one was around.

Dacio knew nothing of the Kaistleoki wolves but, for the sake of his young ward, he hoped her friends had found someplace safe. He supposed Mother Nature had done a good job of displacing more than he and his sister with all the recent tremors.

He hoped she'd wiped Rusalka clean off the map i the process.

Casting dark thoughts aside, the sterling Klikalida hipped his muzze in silent agreement with his companion's suggestion. He stepped forward, branching away for a time to cover more ground. The earth was soft beneath him and he veered around several large puddles, suggestions that the nearby river may have burst its banks.

"The river must've swelled," Dacio shared when he sourced the aspiring Wanheda again, "I can't tell where they might've gone, though." Away from the threat of water, of course. But in which direction?

the earth under foot was swampy, soft and threatens to suck her toes into the pliable mud with each step. praimfaya is frustrated. she is hurting over the loss of not just her mother but verx, and she is angry. oh so angry! but she remains uncertain of where to direct her anger. should be at the sea crone whom hadn't been lying about verx's murder? or should it be at those easthollow wolves that she pinned for his murder? and now ...now kaistleoki was gone from this place and with them, she assumes, dragomir and isi. unlike her mother, praimfaya's always had a good grip of control on her emotions ...but she stares at a broken treelimb with an intensity that could've burnt it to ashes would she have been capable of willing it to be so.

why stop with one of them? she thinks. maybe the sea crone was right — she still needs to speak with the wolves of easthollow for herself ...not that she expects them to admit to his murder either way — but why should she stop with easthollow if the crone's words were true? why shouldn't she and her roankru just raze rusalka to the ground while she was at it? jus drein, jus daun. blood must have blood. had she not already promised she would go to war against rusalka prior to meeting their crone of a leader anyway?

she swipes at the broken treelimb with a low growl of irritation in a burst of hot anger that she's been so careful to hold onto. she hopes that kaistleoki's disbandment or relocation might serve to buy isi time but the fact was that the sea crone seemed pretty obsessed with her and suspects that she wouldn't stop until she's found her. praimfaya hears dacio's footfalls — not really caring if her klikalida saw her break of cool facade or not. i hope it's bought isi some time... praimfaya expresses with a small slump of her shoulders. but she's still in danger and i no longer have the advantage. she scowls, turning to face away from the destruction of the risen river to look at dacio then.

what would blodreina do? praimfaya asks herself ...and for once she doesn't have an answer. giving up was out of the question but she genuinely doesn't know where to go from this dead end.

Luckily for Praimfaya's pride, Dacio did not witness her little outburst. He continued to study their surroundings, test the air with flared nostrils, even when his young ward grumbled out loud. It was then he blinked toward her, noticed defeat in the sag of her narrow shoulders, and he reached out to bump his speckled snout to a pale shoulder. A rare gesture, one of quiet support, a touch he shared only with Opalia.

"Let's keep moving," came his suggestion, understanding her frustration but not drawing attention to it. The girl is entitled to her rage, especially after all she'd suffered through in recent months. "Maybe we'll find a clue if we head deeper into the territory."

Like what, Dacio wondered as he pressed on to take the lead, a trail of fucking breadcrumbs that would lead them across the wilds to find all of Kaistleoki holding hands and singing around a campfire. He frowned to himself, knowing their chances of pinpointing where they might have relocated were slim to none, but he felt unwilling to allow Praimfaya to give up hope.

praimfaya's ears taper back as she fights to regain control of her usually mild temper, surprise ebbing away the last of the burn until it is nothing but smoldering coals once more at the bump of dacio's muzzle against her shoulder; a gesture that she recognizes as one of support. she cannot explain to dacio why dragomir and isi matter so much to her other than that they are bloodkru and beyond that they were her first friends in diaspora — and besides stag, likely her only friends and then they'd been torn from her by their mother; and now they've slipped off her radar again except this time verx was dead and last praimfaya had heard: aure was missing and the rusalkan crone had some weird fixation with isi.

she knows she cannot sacrifice roangeda for them: roankru must come first but she thinks she is perfectly capable of striking a proper balance. perhaps even, she thinks, she could send one of her wolves out to scout around more indepth for signs of kaistleoki. maybe they wouldn't have gone far, she thinks hopefully, as she follows along after dacio as he suggests they keep moving. or maybe they went far away from this place. she couldn't say for sure. maybe. comes her slightly despondent response.

unrelated to kaistleoki's new whereabouts but ...verx had asked dad and i if we'd seen aure when we went to tell him that mom had died...i guess aure'd gone to moonspear or something. he'd seemed pretty worried about her. praimfaya recalls to dacio as she peers around at the swampy landscape, stepping around a felled tree, peering over it to dacio. do you think he might've went looking for her when he was killed? of course this doesn't particularly help them in the search for kaistleoki, isi and dragomir but she hasn't forgotten his murder nor the conversation with the rusalkan crone pinning the easthollow wolves as his murderers.

The land appeared barren, with the stench of damp and decay causing his nose to wrinkle. While he doubted very much that they would find any real suggestion of where Kaistleoki might've moved on to, he quietly considered the possibility of these stagnant pools harbouring all sorts of nasty sickness. Dacio felt a sudden urge to be gone from the land, swiftly making their way homeward.

A charcoal ear rotated to hear what the young Worlida had to say of Aure, and it was news to him that she'd been separated from Verx. Surprise lifted his brow as he shifted his head to look upon Praimfaya, recalling his discussion with the hunters he'd seen at the lake. They'd shared that Vercingetorix' family were safe, collectively. Might they have lied to him to keep him quiet, out of their way?

"It's possible. The wolves I met when I went to look for Verx told me that Aure and the cubs were safe," he twitched a whisker, "though they were unwilling to share their location and asked that we look no further, for they felt it possible that we might lead Blackhead right to them. Do you think they may belong to Moonspear, then? They were eager to avenge Verx, said the pups were the ones to locate their father's body." Dacio had no real knowledge of the local packs, and fancied an opportunity to seek the raveness and her kin when the dust came to settle.

praimfaya isn't sure what to do with what dacio shares with her: that the wolves he encountered in his search for verx's body had told him that aure and her bloodkru were safe. frankly, praimfaya doesn't really care much about aure's wellbeing but she doesn't speak this aloud. likely it would sound just as callous and cold out loud as it does in her head. praimfaya, feeling trapped in a spider's web of lies and truths is having trouble telling the difference between the two. she'd been confident the rusalkan crone had been lying but she hadn't ...at least in regards to verx's death and she was to just trust the claim of strangers?

she didn't.

they have no right to demand such things of me. praimfaya wants to say. dragomir and isi were her bloodkru. what were they to these strangers? and while the reasoning of these strangers makes sense it also makes praimfaya suspicious and uncertain and chiefly annoyed. maybe, praimfaya hedges uncertainly. admittedly, she doesn't know much of the wolves of moonspear despite having visited there once to inform them of roangeda's claim. do they expect me to just trust their word? praimfaya scoffs around the word 'trust'. would they, if the situation was reversed? but she had an enemy in the rusalkan crone, and by proxy rusalka ...and a potential enemy in easthollow if the crone's words were to be believed. she was not eager to make more.

i won't sit back and wait for them to take her down. what if they fail? does that mean i'll never be able to see my friends again? who are they to decide that? praimfaya huffs, mostly airing out her inner frustration as opposed to looking for an answer. i made a promise to isi and i won't let these strangers come between that. but what is she to do with the obstacle of these strangers standing in her way? ...maybe kaistleoki is a dead end, and for now it seems like i have no choice other than to take those strangers' words for it. loathe as she is to do so. i know verx was a natrona but i'd like to visit easthollow, figure out if blackhead was telling the truth about them murdering him or if she was lying. whether they did or didn't... they might be able to give us information on her.

the pair converse a bit more before they head back to fen, just as empty-pawed as they'd been from the start.