Ankyra Sound ... a ritual "godspeak" song...

sickness raged wild in the prophet.

she dragged herself weak and weary onto familiar pale sands. stopped to empty the slim and sour contents of her stomach onto the ground. breathed. and dragged herself on,

and on, and on,

and all around the spirits murmured.

open your eyes,

it is here, here...

all around you,

you must see!

ah, a familiar scent to this place. almalexia allowed herself to rest in the sands, in sight of her beloved sea. understanding flowed through her like the blood in her veins. consuming, nourishing, overtaking.

there she waited.

Reverie had been sleeping. She woke to a scent she would never forget carried in on a soft ocean breeze. There was a false innocence to it, a quietude to the warning that made it seem somehow... not pressing at all. Was there even any danger, truly?
She left Blossom to sleep and drifted thoughtlessly to meet the dark woman she knew lurked just beyond. Reverie thought of very little in this moment, though a few faces passed through her mind. She thought of @Lestan; she thought of @Bjarna, and Rose, and Tybault. In thinking of them she found some kind of resolve. A cold calm, a knowing that whatever end this brought would truly be an end.
Perhaps her own.
But Reverie did not fear the dark; she feared the fire. She was the fire. A wildfire blazing through the Sound, descending upon the sole spot of darkness among so much blinding hope. But she did not expect what she found. A prone figure, weakened, rawboned around the distinct swell of —
Pregnancy! Reverie froze, her ears pulling forward as she struggled to process this sudden revelation. For a moment, she could only stare.

sunlight in spiraling descent. daywalker. she glowed, accursed thing that she was. her wrongness clung to her still, sickly sweet scent of mother's milk and the daughter that could not be hers.

the prophet laughed. reclined further in the sand, paws spread in a gesture of helplessness. sheer irony, that death should find her in this manner.

that the lives she had so struggled to protect should end this way.

the spirits whispered all around.

She laughed! Laughed! Reverie trembled, not with fear then but anger; a deep and gnawing sensation which drove her forward in a snarling rush, teeth snapping —
Ah! Reverie cried out, and stopped short, and the grip of agony at her midsection swelled into a rushing pulse of blood down her thighs. She stumbled, then curled into herself without thought; instinctive and raw in her response to the pain. Still she tried. She tried once, then again to right herself. In the end she gave up, and flopped into the sand with a spurt of her own embittered laughter bubbling to the surface. What a fine pair they made; two who would murder one another if only they were not already dying.
This was the truth Reverie had come to accept since that night she woke screaming into a new reality. She had shed both weight and blood in the days that followed, and it was harder with each day to hide it from Lestan. How long? She asked herself all the time, it felt. How long has it been? How long do I have? Maybe the answer was here, somewhere.
She stared at the woman lying mere feet away from her. Nearly close enough to touch. For a long time she did nothing else; only stared, and waited, and wondered.

the end, cut short.

her assailant collapsed. a familiar scene, reminiscent of the den in the valley and that pale warrior she had felled with words alone. words of power which she no longer possessed.

the prophet was silent, listening to the spirits shrieking over the golden woman's laugh. mismatched eyes traced patterns in the air above her. the scent of blood permeated the space around them.

i can tell you how to make it stop, almalexia muttered after a time. her eyes fixed to the woman. for a price.

I can tell you how to make it stop.
Reverie was in too much pain and distress to process it at first. Make it stop. Was what what she wanted? Yes, yes, more than anything —
What do you want? It came out a gasp. Anything. I'll give anything. She did not want to leave them, the pieces of her heart she had woken to find detached from herself and freely roaming the world. Could not leave them! They needed her! So in spite of the immediate swell of regret and shame she felt to be dealing with this woman whose crimes she could not even recall, not truly, Reverie did not take back what she had said.
Whatever this woman had done to make Reverie hate her so, she could look past it if only she could find some way to steal more time for herself. For her family.

a rare and slow smile spread over her features. the taste of the golden woman's desperation was sweet even in her own suffering. the battle was won... and the only blood spilled this day was not her own.

safe passage to my islands. a vow that i will not be followed.

her look was level upon the bleeding woman.

The pain intensified, and Reverie could not hold back the frantic sobs that began to spill from her in intervals. She tried to stifle herself, to truly listen, but in the moment she only barely registered the woman's meaning. Okay, She choked out through her tears. O-okay, what - whatever you want.
Please, She couldn't think. Nothing existed then but the pain. Nothing else mattered. Not even the ones she loved the most; if that was the price named, she would pay it. Anything to make it stop.

still smiling, almalexia leaned forward and drew in the sand. she kept her wounded arm close to her body. slow, deliberate touches with the opposite paw formed a shape. a base of cedar wood, she spoke as she worked. twined and held with sweetgrass. keep it where you sleep.

you will find a certain plant. a cactus which grows in green clusters. it will be in flower now. pink flowers. you will consume it. only a touch.

the prophet finished her sketch and found golden eyes with her own.

to be healed, you must touch divinity.

and you must never look back.

What? Reverie cried out even as she hung on to each word the woman spoke. She didn't have any of those things! What about now? It hurt, it hurt so much that she could hardly stand it, and the blood —
Had slowed. Had stopped. She stood in confusion and inexplicable horror, and in a sudden fit of pain-addled rage began to kick the bloodied sand furiously toward the water as if to erase all evidence of it. Reverie could have screamed then. And she did.
Just go! She shrieked, and broke off into another agonized sob. Get - get away from me! And if the woman did not start to move right then, Reverie would turn on her in a snarling fury. Seeking not to hurt her but to hurry her along to her destination, wherever it was. They had made a deal. She wouldn't go back on it now.
But she didn't want her here anymore.

her expression showed no hint of sympathy for the woman's plight. the prophet was unmoved and unmoving until she was set upon.

she fled. not in fear, for she knew her safety to be assured through their deal. a woman already cursed could not dare to bring further ill upon herself through the breaking of a vow.

the spirits urged her on. to her islands. safety. healing.

where new druids would be created.