Kaija wasn't exactly a prisoner anymore, but she hadn't gone far from Obscura. And why would she? Scylla wasn't half bad, besides the whole imprisonment thing, but Kaija couldn't overlook that- at least for now. Wasn't like she had anywhere better to be. Raiders hadn't come looking for her anyway, so maybe it was some kind of sign from the universe that her time there was over. Maybe there was something better around the corner or some corny shit like that.

Just when she started to think that though, it was like the universe pulled the rug out from under her. The world shook with a series of long but not too strong earthquakes, and the sky turned red when the morning finally broke. It wasn't at all familiar, not really, yet she couldn't help but be reminded of the strange occurrences that had began when she was just a yearling. The night that never seemed to end, the sickness that had taken her mother...

Kaija shuddered. Nah, she was just being paranoid, that was surely it. All that stuff happened so long ago anyway.

That didn't make stumbling upon this place any less weird though. Tall spikes, unlike anything she'd ever seen before, towered high above. They leaned in different directions, almost looking like they might fall, but something about them told Kaija they weren't going anywhere. Weird...

Wary, but with her curiosity always getting the better of her, Kaija pushed forward and moved between two of the spires, sniffing at the air as it whisked past.

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Morwenna hid. Or was it resting? She had stuck her nose where it didn't belong and literally got bit for it. She had misread the situation entirely. Never approach a potential patient if they are pacing and wild-eyed without A. Back up, or B. a fucking plan.

She had grown too comfortable. She had grown too close to some of them. She needed to move away... She needed to return to her nomadic life. It was the only to keep herself and... others, safe.

Then came the rousing, the trembles the bucking and buckling of the earth. She had missed the gathering darkness of night until she scrambled, three legged, into the open, out of the den, and into the open air while the earth trembled around her.

The morning was the color of blood and the sky didn't return to normal as the sun continued to rise. It didn't burn off like the fogs of late summer.

She was drawn, as were others to what seemed the epicenter.

She hobbled onward, not used to her new life on three legs. But as she drew closer she had found a rhythm to bounce on her remaining front leg over the terrain. With practice, she could manage all right. Her hobbled limb was mostly healed already. Maybe after she was done investigating this strange new world she'll head to Obscura, see if she could find Kaija.

She crested a hill and found the strangest terrain. Spires towered over the land. Ominous and foreboding. She carefully made her way down, the ground crumbling and soft until she clung to one of the monumental spikes.

The world was bathed in a terrible red light, but despite that... her wildflower gaze fell over a familiar figure and her breath caught in her throat.

"Kaija!" She called happily, but her voice was lost as the wind wove through the gaps in the spikes and howled mournfully. She hopped and hobbled quickly down the slope toward her, ignoring the ominous features just for a moment.

Kaija didn't have the faintest idea where she was going next, but when did she ever? Living in the present came easily to her. She was always happier that way, not looking ahead or wondering if she ought to regret what she'd done before. It was even easier given the weirdness that started to unfold. That was all that was on Kaija's mind now as she, like so many others in Boreas and Auster, made her way to this strange land and started to poke around.

The soil was strangely loose where she walked, and though she pawed lightly at a patch of upturned dirt she plodded onward, attention captured by the tall leaning spikes.

They structures were quite the sight, stark against the blood-red sky.

Morwenna sure was a sight for sore eyes though, even more interesting than those spires. Kaija heard her before she saw her, and she thought to silently scold herself for letting her guard down so soon after being attacked, but she was distracted by the sight of her friend hobbling on three limbs. Had she really been gone so long? What the hell had happened?

Kaija's brows furrowed tightly, though she couldn't stop the grin that crept over her lips. "Don't tell me you came looking for me," she teased, gesturing vaguely at her limb. No, she knew the likelihood of her injury being caused due to that was slim to none, but she could still jest. "What the hell happened to you?" And what the hell was this place? Kaija had a lot of questions but she figured she'd start with just one.

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Morwenna hobbled forward, closing the distance between them. Without pausing she pressed into the larger woman's fur, her nose finding the space between Kaija's neck and ear.

"I was going to, I..." She pulled back and looked down at where her dainty foot would be.

"Oh... It's... It's nothing. Pushed my nose where I shouldn't have honestly." She replied sheepishly, trying to brush it off, ignoring the hitch of fear in her throat and the tremble in her shoulders.

"I'm just so glad you're okay! I... We... were worried. No one heard from you after the raid." She said, "Now! What... what do you think of this place? This wasn't here before!" She said, trying to return their attention to their usual adventure!

The little moment of comfort offered by Wenna was pretty nice, she had to admit. Kaija, for a woman so independent, really liked being close to other wolves- especially ones she actually liked. When she pulled away, Kaija squinted to examine her missing paw. "I've seen a whole lot of nothings and I don't think that's nothing," Kaija jested lightly. Really though, she was just happy to see her friend again. "Same thing happened to me- stuck my nose where I shouldn't have. But I'm here now," she said, with an air of finality. That was all that mattered, anyway, right? Survival?

Kaija wasn't really sure how she felt about the Raiders and nobody coming to look for her, so she wouldn't think about it. Feelings were lame to sort through and try to dissect. She'd done too much of that these days, for weeks on end. She was glad to move on from it all, and focus on the present.

"Ain't no way this place was here before. I've never seen it," she said, brow furrowing tightly. This place just didn't logically make sense to her. "And it's not like these things could just be... constructed, no way." Kaija pawed idly at the dirt around the edge of one of the spikes, trying to imagine it.

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Morwenna nodded, choking back the attempt at stuffing down her tears. She was so glad to find Kaija, in the mess of all this. How had she escaped Obscura? The questions might remain unasked, unanswered. She didn't want to admit the healer had overstepped her bounds with Siduri. She fully accepted the fault of the attack was her own. Things always seem to go awry when she starts to feel like had found a place to settle down in, someone to hold her for longer than a few nights. She should keep away from Scald and Calliope before something happened to them too. Maybe she could linger a bit longer at Kaija's side for this, but she didn't want to bring down the bad omens that seemed to nip at her heels.

"You're right. I've been to glowshroom caverns before and this was never here." Morwenna recalled, her tail touching Kaija as if to reassure her the woman was still near.

She watched Kaija brush away some dirt at the base of the spire.
"If we dig here do you think we could find where they've come from? What they're made of?" She wondered aloud and moved to another side of the spike. She made to use her paw to brush the dirt away but the ghost of what should have been physical made no changes to the dirt and it made her pause for a moment. Still adjusting to a life with what was once there. At least her pretty tail had escaped unscathed.

She fully lay down and used her remaining forelimb to dig at the earth around the strange moaning spike. Refusing to check if Kaija had seen her fumble.

If Kaija noticed Morwenna getting choked up, she didn't make a show of it. Move on and move forward- that was what she kept trying to do these days. No use lingering on shit they couldn't change. With the weirdness going they had plenty of other things to focus on anyway, at least that was how Kaija felt. "It just doesn't make sense. Things this big don't just... appear out of thin in," she mused out loud, not expecting Wenna to have any sort of theory for this impossibility. It didn't make any sense, but she'd seen other things in her life that made no logical sense either.

"Maybe," she replied in response to Wenna suggesting their dig. "Can't hurt." Well, maybe it could, but digging around in the dirt sounded pretty consequence-free to her. Focusing on her own digging, she spend a good few moments making a good little dirt pile. It seemed solid all the way down. Nearby she caught sight of something on one of the spikes opposite the one she'd been standing at, heading over to scope it out. It was a strange figure, face contorted in a scream.

It was weird, and unsettling as fuck.

"I missed you," she mentioned after a moment, casually, like they weren't in the middle of something downright terrifying. "I was stuck in a hole for awhile and I had a lot of time to think, and I kept thinking about you for some reason," she added. Kaija didn't mean for it too be too heavy of an statement, but she'd decided there was no use not saying how she felt. It certainly hadn't done her any favors in the past.

Morwenna began digging in her own spot, one paw scraping at the dirt. It was a good exercise at least, helping her get used to her new life with one foreleg. Hopefully, soon it didn't have to be the topic in her brain space for much longer. It would just be a fact of life.

She continued to shift the soft loamy soil aside as Kaija moved to another spot nearby. Her claws met more solid earth then she froze. Her breath stopped in her throat and her eyes locked on the space between Here and There.

"You... you didn't..." She whispered softly into the air in front of her. Perhaps too quietly for the other woman to hear at this distance with the eerie sounds looming over them. Her bright wildflower eyes slowly scanned away from the earth and up to the woman who had said she missed her. She had been in a hole? She had been trapped this whole time? She was thinking about... her?

"I... Kaija..." She couldn't help the way her face contorted and twisted away from the woman. The pressure building behind her eyes, threatening to spill over. Kaija was the first person she had thought of when it happened. She had asked Scald what had happened to her when he came for healing after the raid.

"I thought of you too..." She said softly. A tear escaped its confines and fled down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away. "No one knew what happened to you when the raid ended. And... When this happened... I... It happened so soon after-" She was blubbering! She'd never blubbered!

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