IN THE END WE ALL BECOME CURED OF OUR SENTIMENTS

The last light fell like a siege on the Glacier's glittering visage, at first brilliant in dazzling yellow, pale gold, umber orange. A light the color of flame. Flittering too like a fire, the light changed across the long frontier -- its meridian come in a darkness that hummed, a lengthy shade of bruised blue and purples that engloved the icy headland.

Once the simmering sun had been doused by the starry night's crest, the wraith rose from her burrow in the ridge and dragged forth from it the blooded wedge of a wolf's head -- blind and sightless with eyes gouged and mouth bloodied by abuse and the indignity of death. Behind it the length of its spine trailed in the snow, darkening the ground with the red speckle of its progress.

Boldly the waif threw her claim upon the borders, her gaze harsh. With a tremulous howl that pierced the air she called for the wretched Duskfire wolves to behold the inhumanity behind her actions -- and with a final contemptuous shriek that cut through the air like a dagger, the Siren Queen left, leaving at their gates the rotted, fecund head as a promise that there was only one conclusion to be had for their lives: their death.

@Scarlett @Sen @Tuwawi @Manauia @Týrr @Shalon @Raphael @Maera @Adlartok
We've been given permission to post with our characters coming across Caiapha's "present", despite the thread being read-only, so feel free to throw yourselves in here if you wish!

The ground passed beneath Malachi's feet in a shadowed blur, his only guide the light of the hosts and the lingering note of the wraith's curdling shriek. The voice was one he scarcely recognized, distorted, and his first thought was that Tuwawi had lost herself again. The silhouette breaking the soft horizon did nothing to still his terror, but when the creature's scent rolled in from the plains and filled his nostrils with putrid decay, cold dread wrapped its fingers around his throbbing heart.

A startled bark escaped him and he started when his icy gaze fell upon the creature paces beyond his feet, sockets staring back at him with gaping pits where twin eyes of a wolf should have been. The mangled flesh grinned and stained the ground crimson, and Malachi retched as another gale blew the scent of the dead up the path of his nostrils.

This wolf had not made the cry that had pierced the night, its life long stolen and lost. But as the stench overwhelmed him again, Malachi began to realize he knew who had. Confusion stole him, but soon a sharp anger swallowed his heart, for mingled within the sick sweetness of death lay the tang of salt and sea brine, the scent of tousled waves.

Caiaphas.

His eyes hardened and a low growl escaped his throat, and without a second thought, the man charged forward, seeking her trail in the cover of snow before it vanished like the night.

Scarlett looked up at the howl and frowned. A shiver went down her spine. The female was warmly in her den but this was a different type of howl. The pale female got on her feet to check out the howl. This did not seem like a 'hi-I-want-to-join-your-pack'-howl. The red eyed female had a light and quick pace towards the howl. Soon the location was more clear when blood filled the air. A frown came upon her face.

Eventually her red eyes fell on a the mangled head of a wolf. The kind female froze in shock the sight in front of her. Who would do such a thing!? Her first thought went to Black Feather. It was her fault. Maybe it was Bane who gave her a warning to never return to Black Feather ever again. The young female trembled in fear, feeling terribly guilty for what she had done. Oh no. She could never come close to Black Feather ever again! It would make these horrible things appear on their doorstep.

Scarlett bursted in tears at the thought that she caused this to happen and that she would never be able to see Kove ever again! The albino got her muscles to work and ran away as fast as she could.

Manauia heard the howl, its strange quality eliciting a question but her response still rather slow. When she arrived upon the scene, it was in time to see Scarlett take off. Her lip curled in disgust, and she turned to the gift that had been left on their doorstep.

Even for a seasoned warrior, the sight was not a pleasant one, though neither did it raise in her a desire to run. Instead she looked coldly at the trail it had left in coming. It was obviously a threat made towards the wolves here. With that single thought had, she growled. If anyone tried to touch Tyrr, she'd tear them apart. The rest, however.... She could not harm them, but nor would she jeapordise her mission keeping them safe. She didn't care much what became of them, for they had obviously bought someone's ire.

The huntress too set out on the path, following tracks that had traveled swiftly. She would try to deal with this at the source, for her job was protecting her charge and he had been threatened here.

Once more, a journey the dark wolf had set out on had reached its end, and she was set to return home. Back to the Glacier, where the wolves she shared a space with all resided. Except, something stopped her. She was still not at the borders, but the howl that sliced through the air had her wondering if now would be a good time or not. Shrugging her shoulders, the foolishly fearless woman strode forward, not stopping until the putrid scent of death entered her nostrils. That was enough to stop her dead in her tracks, to widen her eyes and feel her stomach churn. The last time she'd scented such a strong thing of death had been when she and her siblings had found her mother, crushed from a landslide. It brought back flashes of memories, bits and pieces of the grisly sight she'd had to bear witness to, and it brought a snarl to her face. Deciding that standing around wasn't going to solve anything, she forced the terrible memories back into whatever hole they'd clawed themselves out of, and pressed forward, legs carrying her closer and closer to the scent.

Sen isn't one to get sick at many sights. She would rather make jokes about whatever gross thing came into her path than get sickened by it. What she saw this time, though, well it was enough to make bile rise up in her throat. For a second, she was sure she'd end up spilling her guts right there, but the feeling was quickly pushed away, and she tried to catch whatever scents lingered with the dead. Two she knew for sure, the third she knew was apart of the Glacier, but the scent of the salty ocean was very unfamiliar. She hadn't smelled the ocean since her arrival, and even then the smell had quickly been wiped away when rain started to fall. Slowly, she allowed her head to move back and forth, glancing between the direction of the albino, and the direction in which her pack's leader had gone with the other. With an audible sigh, she swallowed whatever still tried to linger in her throat, and followed after in the direction Malachi had gone. She wanted to catch a glance at who—or what—had left such a vile thing on her pack's border.

The howl that rose into the crisp air of the dusk, quavering as it breached across the claimed lands of the Glacier, drawing Týrr's ears to stand erect upon his crown as he froze, each muscle pulling taunt beneath his coat of chocolate brown, straining the excelled hearing of his species to further and better assess the sound. Though the voice struck him as familiar he knew it was not one of the Glacier's wolves that had made it, despite that he did not know all of the wolves that called it home. It was familiar to him but presently he was not able to place it; instead allowing it to nag at the back of his mind, persistent even as he abruptly turned and leapt in the direction that it had originated from. A few others had beaten him there previously, his lip curling back in disgust at present that had been left on their doorstep, crystalline blue eyes rising to see an ebony woman take off in the direction that he scented Malachi and Manauia had gone, he assumed, in pursuit of the culprit. Despite the Rekkr's disgust and the need to set off as well, eager to catch the perpetrator and see justice done upon them for threatening his home, faces primarily Tuwawi's and Maera's flashing in his mind's eye briefly, he resisted. Already, three of them had gone off in pursuit and someone needed to stay behind and protect the borders. As acting sentry of their homeland, lest the trail was nothing more than a clever trap.

He took a moment to assess the scent aside from the one wafting unpleasantly from the present that had been left from them, smelling salt and ocean brine. His first thought was immediately of the Bay, and how he would love to sink his teeth into and tear Ragnar's throat from his body, to feel the last gasp of life in the Viking's throat as his fight was lost in vengeance for what he had done to Týrr — after all the Rekkr could think of nothing better; Ragnar had stolen from him everything he had loved, and if Týrr did not kill the whore and her child he called his family, then he would tear Ragnar from them so they might suffer as he was left too, except he would be kinder and allow them their memories so that his vengeance might be all that more cruel and sweet — but the scent of the pack was not that of the Bay. It was unfamiliar to him, though the nagging persisted.

For now the Rekkr tuned it out, focused on what he had chosen to do: to protect those that stayed behind. There must always be a wolf in Duskfire, after all; despite that he had momentarily caught Scarlett's scent retreating further into the Glacier, right now there were more pressing things on his mind aside from why she was retreating instead of pursuing or guarding.

The vagrant's delivery of Malachi's purposeful secrecy regarding Larus' location had sent Tuwawi into a tailspin. She drifted despondently across Duskfire's scrim and let the night's biting cover embrace her. It felt difficult to breath at times -- hard to maintain the clarity to decide exactly what she should do. If the dethroned hadn't been completely inconsolable before, then she was now; armed with the knowledge that her son wasn't lost for ever... but instead stolen by the heathens of the coast. She seethed viciously, heart bursting at the seams as if it had been scorched by a hot iron -- betrayed by Malachi and spurned by the sea witches of the West.

She gnashed her teeth indignantly at the thought, a strand of spit oozing from a canine. Had they abused her son? Refused his return? She could only imagine what Larus looked like now. Maera was fiery and beautiful -- the apple of her eye -- did her child resemble his father? Or perhaps his golden mask was as vibrant as Tuwawi's red cape. The memory of her missing boy made the ember's face burn, bereft by his absence, and her eyes welled with rare tears of complete, and utter remorse.

Without warning, a shrill cry pieced the glacier's silence and Tuwawi broke into a canter, fur wild and posture untamed. She was one of the last to arrive -- just in time to watch Malachi, Manauia, and Sen kick off into the outlands. Scarlett wilted away towards the territory's heart but Týrr stood, eyes gleaming, at a dark and ragged clump a few yards away. There, in the snow, laid the ruined head of a wolf. Its eye sockets were bloodied and gouged in the most horrific way, the tail end of its spinal cord spindled like a rat's tail. The rotting smell was putrid, but not nearly as strong as the message it represented -- something Tuwawi understood all too well.

Every hair stood on end as she ruthlessly beelined towards the decapitated head like prey, pouncing with a violent jab of both forelimbs. In a moment she snatched it up in her tattered maw and delivered powerful bites to rend the skull apart. Its taste was rancid, texture chunky but brittle, and the coagulated blood spilled on the ground in thick, soupy clumps. She broke the jaw in two and cracked the cranium in her frenzy, tattering its face until it was but an unrecognizable piece of meat. "I'll kill them!" the queen screeched, unbidden -- tossing the head aside. "I'll kill them all!"

"lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones"

[size=small]Unaware of the poisonous lies the Siren Queen had begun to weave into the minds of the Glacier wolves' and the truth that hid beneath her accusations regarding her dear brother, she was completely ignorant to the reason why Malachi howled into the air with such anger. With a leisure movement of her head she looked up from the curled ball she had wrapped herself in, in hopes of getting a quick cat nap before the sun died out entirely. She played with the temptative choice to skip the meeting --whatever it's purpose was-- and keep sleeping, but unable to shut her eyes again, she soon found herself drawing closer to he summoned spot, her ears turning as she began to hear the commotion.

Her lips pursing in thought as she tried to imagine what it was that had happened, she was struck with the sound of erratic screaming and growling, and all of it coming from familiar voice. Her mother.
Terrified that she might have lashed out at one of the very own members of the Glacier, (she had heard through the grapevine what had happened with the loud-mouth boy Adlartok) the girl broke into a run. Quicky, weaving her way through the gathered bodies, she reached her mother and with a stern voice yet kind eyes she tried to hush her.
"Mother! Mother?!" she urged, her muzzle poking at her side softly in an attempt to soother her.

Until now, the piece of shit that was Caiaphas, and her literal piece of shit she had left behind remained a mystery to the girl. [/SIZE]