Totoka River compose a poem, an honest verse of longing

anyone want to hear a star story?

The Totoka River had not been kind to her, but Ravensblood Forest was worse. Olive had been confined to the woods for so long, healing her wounds and begging for forgiveness from any family member that would hear it and now the confines crushed her and she found herself [once again] craving a location fresh and new. A place where she was not constantly reminded of her mistakes and the tension that continued to wrack her family. Teaghlaigh had grown in numbers since their return and while this was soothing to the ragged woman's anxiety of Arturo's [empty] threat, the extra presences within the bleeding forest felt ominous and oppressive. The filly wanted peace, stillness, silence of both voice and thought; and amongst strangers, this was not possible.

So when she was healed enough to move, the vagabond stole away in the night to visit the river that flowed strongly through their forest and rushed towards the sea. It was the farthest she dare go; for she moved gingerly and delicately and, in all honesty, quite slowly — but Olive need not travel far to experience the benefits of a nice jaunt. Olive planted herself next to the river’s edge and dipped her pale lips to the water to drink. The waters which one placated the infection of her ankle now slaked her thirst and she silently thanked the river for allowing her such a reprieve. The cold water rushed to her belly and the life within her stirred. Olive felt the swimming in her stomach and turned her head to look at how her sides swelled out, sitting prominently and heavily on her gamine frame. Olive knew her time was soon, but Olive relished these last few weeks as well as the glow she felt radiate out from within her. Pregnancy was becoming to Olive and the druid seemed to be nurtured from the closeness of her children. It was a wondrous thing, how her body created life. It was the epitome of womanly experiences and she enjoyed feeling the influx of feminine hormones. Though her body was still torn and her silky fur was still sticky from all of the sheepdog’s healing salves and poltices, Olive felt strong and divine and part of something much larger than herself  … and honestly, she felt pretty sexy, too. 

After drinking her fill, Olive sat and looked up at the night sky. The stars shone brightly, although the sky was becoming continually more clouded and veiled with the oncoming spring season — the season of her children’s birth. Silently Olive began to calculate the positions of certain constellations and where they fell on her map of the night sky, tried to read what laid ahead for her, her husband, her children and her family. There the fae sat for some time, moving her mouth in the silent repetition of star’s names and bathed in the strong energies and gentle pull of the same moonlight that strongly reflected in the swimming of her peridot gaze.

Life without Doe, Szymon, and the brood that Coelacanth had irrevocably failed was a torturous, wearying thing. In time, the pressure built to fever pitch, all those words and all those feelings weighing heavy and immovable upon the little Groenendael’s heart, and Seelie escaped to the river that had always been her sanctuary. She tiptoed with bowed head and tucked tail across the mirror-like deltas and meandered listlessly along the familiar banks until she reached the ruin that had once been her summer home. The winter thaw had essentially washed all of her belongings away, and the den itself would require clearing out if she wanted to use it when the weather grew warmer. For some long seconds, she regarded the dilapidated state of her former den site — and then she turned away.

Wading in the shallows, mindless of the winter chill that clung grittily to its depths, Coelacanth paused and her Neptune eyes drew in the starlight as she regarded a form in the distance. Olive was always a classically pretty wolf, but gilded by moonlight with her face upturned to the heavens, she became something altogether ethereal. Seelie’s tiny body folded like a shy blossom, the graceful ridges and planes of her delicate framework painfully evident beneath the atramentous feathering of her fur as her spine curved in eloquent submission. She would leave if the pale sylph wished her to. Tilting her head back to create a streamlined, swanlike silhouette, the lonely guardian’s pelagic eyes mournfully searched the sky; her tufted ears fanned forward upon her skull with eager attentiveness as though the winking sentinels called to her, and her head tipped to one side, then the other, in doggish curiosity as an airy whine tiptoed from her lips.

 
The sky was full and clear, as if it did not linger in the storms and atrocities of the past season. This aspect of the universe was one of Olive’s largest inspirations – how the world moved on without consequence, without anxieties and without regrets, onto the next new day [after new day, after new days]… while she, a mortal being, was replete with these very emotions she sought to escape. Olive couldn’t seem to stop ruminating on the past: Dakarai’s submission, Arturo’s ire… The sylph nurtured a healthy apprehension over her immediate future, too. Perhaps that was the challenge of an earthly existence – and the beauty of it: to experience life as it was, rife with trials and tribulations, happiness and sadness… and overcome it all in the end. To leave this life with a much deeper understanding of the role they played in the divine scheme of things.

If that was the truth, Olive was a sage by now. So she gazed up to the billowing heavens, willing that the celestial bodies above show her guidance, to give her some sign that she was still on the path that they had laid out for her.

A rustle and a whine drew her attention away from the dark sky. Before her stood the silent shadow, the sheepdog who continually reappeared in her life when she seemed to need her most.  The small, dark-furred woman was quite comforting, having always been the hushed reprieve that she sought. With Doe and Szymon, she had been the last lingering presence. She had gently healed both her and Dakarai’s wounds – twice. The sheepdog starkly contrasted most of the wolves who accompanied her in life and it was always a refreshing experience [this might have been a product of her muteness, but Olive attributed her affinity to the entirety of the woman’s reserved mien].  Maybe she was the star’s answers to her constant questioning… after all, there were no coincidences in life, only celestial design.

Olive didn’t move her rotund body, but dipped her head affectionately and beckoned the silent woman closer with a flick on her greyscale tail upon the soggy ground.

“I never learned your name,”  the sylph sought, but Olive knew she never receive.

The gentle mother-to-be turned from the stars, but their light lingered in her forest hollow eyes, and Coelacanth buckled at last beneath the weight of her unspent words and overwhelming solitude. She moved as close to Olive as she could without leaving the healing touch of her river, and her Neptune eyes shimmered as though lit from within by the bioluminescent blue that illuminated the ocean by night.

“I never learned your name,” bespoke the eburnean woman, and a shy smile played about the corners of Seelie’s sensitive mouth as she helplessly shook her delicate head, tipping it back to demonstrate her impediment with an airy “howl” — more sigh than sound, it winged from her lips in a smoky plume that carried no discernible melody. Her finely tapered muzzle dipped in an apologetic cant once she’d finished, and her tall, sharp ears folded just long enough for their tufted tips to dip below surface before they fanned forward with a flicker of crystalline droplets. She emerged from the water and distanced herself as she gave her tiny body a hearty shake, returning to Olive with a sigh of quiet contentment. Breaching the barrier of touch, Coelacanth sought to brush the bridge of her muzzle against one ivory-and-argent shoulder.

“It is for you to choose,” she thought, looking with a mixture of longing and hope at the celestial female.

do wolves know what ships are? *ponders*

To the young mother-to-be’s delight, the sheepdog moved silently, cloaked by the dark blanket of the night. Upon her demonstration, Olive’s head bobbed in immediately understanding — Olive had made the assumption that the dog’s true name would forever remain a mystery — but this was the first time that the sylph had been able to stop and muse upon the sheepdog’s furtive monkier. All experiences they had together [before this one] had been so busy, so… messy. The flurry of emotions present in each and every one of those moments prevented from her from ever stopping to ask, or even stopping to consider, what her prodigal healer’s name was. For that, Olive felt a thin veil of guilt settle upon her spirit. The stranger deserved more than a name [for all the assistance and kindness which she offered Olive so freely] and felt remorseful that her focus on her own problems had made her blind to those around her for so long. 

Just as she nursed her own sense of uncertainty, Olive was sure the silent women did not think so highly of her either. And why would she — what had the cream and ash shewolf ever done to improve upon the stranger’s associations? The sides of Olive [that she worked so hard to conceal, to forget, to pretend they don’t exist], this small medicine woman had seen them all in blazing technicolor. Olive had never felt guilt like she had felt with Doe and Szymon, never felt rancor like she felt when Dakarai had been stolen from her, never felt shame like she felt when Arturo chastised and berated her. The sheepdog had been there for all of it, silent and affirming, but never judging.

“Carina,” the shrouded shewolf spoke after some moments’ silence. Now it was Olive’s turn to tip her head back in demonstration, pointing her black-tipped muzzle towards the night sky, bright with a smattering of stars, like paint pushed about on an artist’s mixing palette. Carina, the constellation in question, was a long string of tinkling stars that shone in a bright zig-zag patten before doubling back upon itself [much in the manner of the big and little dippers]. It’s location in the southern sky meant that such a constellation radiated supportive and nurturing energies, much like the foundation of a building or…

“like the keel of a ship, working to keep the entire ship upright.”  Olive explained further, keeping her voice soft and lilting on her breath. Olive believed the constellation Carina paled in comparison to the newly christened Carina that stood at her side, and she hoped the name would be satisfactory to her new friend. But, even words as beautiful as the stars couldn’t represent that sense of gratitude that Olive had for Carina, so Olive stepped her slight frame closer and, if her shadowed companion would have it, she would lay her milky crown across the dog’s set of slender shoulders in an embrace — a silent act of intimacy and trust. 

“I— I have a question,” Olive asked, remaining close.

Seelie does!

“Carina,” Olive breathed, and for a prolonged moment Coelacanth regarded the mother-to-be with an expression of bashful bewilderment. Her delicately crafted head tipped first to the right, then to the left — and there it remained in an expression of puppyish inquiry, tufted ears erect and attentive upon her velveteen crown, Neptune eyes wide and limpid. It had been so very long since anyone had given the tiny Groenendael a new name or addressed her by her true name that ofttimes she didn’t feel real. Set adrift without a leader to guide her, frantically trying to hang on to the frayed ribbons of three tiny tugboats until they too floated away, she was a frail and wayward outrigger canoe in a vast and lightless ocean. Her heart was so loud, crying out for the wolves who had claimed her and left her, but the only creature on earth who could truly decipher her secret song was nowhere to be found. The misted druid’s sage-green gaze was heavy with prophecy as she gazed upon Seelie, and an uncertain bubbling of warmth both familiar and foreign strummed her heartstrings and stirred her feathered tail to waving. Joy. That was its name; she remembered now!

Comprehension dawned within the atramentous sheepdog’s pelagic gaze, and her tail began a sweet accelerando, thwpp-thwpp-thwpping wildly when it hit peak velocity. She followed the cant of Olive’s muzzle and gazed lovingly upon the night sky, her throat tight with words that longed ardently to break free. Her constellation seemed to wink at her, and despite the reverent silence of the moment, Seelie swore she could hear a soft, bell-like tinkling as each individual star became known to her. “Silly puppy,” bespoke her grandmother’s voice, warm and worn like a well-loved book tucked securely beneath one’s pillow for easy reach and safekeeping. “With the stars above you and the sea at your side, you will never be lost.”

The glimmer of tears lent Coelacanth’s seablue eyes a glittering reminiscent of bioluminescent plankton as she turned to the approaching daughter of the moon, and as Olive embraced her the little yearling quavered and uttered a single, hiccupping sigh. Starsilver pooled in her long-lashed eyes and melted into the velvet of her cheeks as she tucked herself firmly against the older female and felt against her flank the flutter of new life. Without speaking or moving away from her confidant, Seelie nodded acquiescence.

If she could find a way to answer Olive, she would.

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The atramentous healer’s outward carriage gave Olive the impression that she approved of her new name; and if Olive knew anything about Carina, it was that she had an authentic spirit and her actions belied what she truly felt within — which was more Olive could say about most wolves she met along this coast. A grin swept across the fae’s sliver of a muzzle and when the two women fell into another embrace [albeit side by side], Olive returned Carina’s enthusiasm a thousandfold. 

Olive swept her neck slowly, deliberately, to gaze at her belly as. Olive’s concave curves fitted Carina’s convex curves, like the black and the white halves that represented yin and yang. So close to childbirth was she that oftentimes her pup’s movements were completely visible from the outside — as they were at that moment. “They will come soon,” she stated plainly as her eyes trained her son [or daughter] as it rolled against the confines of her womb. “Will you stay close? I— I don’t trust anyone else.” It was a scary thought [the thought that she might need the assistance of a healer, in addition to her lack trust in her own family] so Olive was sure not to linger long on it. Carina had seen it all; it was likely she would understand her exact meaning without a diatribe on the inconcreteness of their reality. The pleasure of the moment had overtaken Olive and she was determined to enjoy it.

“In return for your kindness and unending generosity,” she chimed “may i offer you a humble star story?”

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NOTE: In Coelacanth’s personal timeline, all current threads take place before this thread because impossible timelines are best timelines.

I’m sorry for the lackluster post. I am not feeling well. ;-;

The likeness to yin and yang was not lost on Coelacanth, who had been raised under her grandmother’s tutelage and exposed to stories and songs from a kaleidoscopic array of cultures, but she rejected it immediately and vehemently. She had only one yang — so far away, and for so long! — and without him, everything was moonlight and shade. A little distractedly, she refocused on Olive and the question the silvern druid posed. The newly named Carina nodded gently, committing herself with an ingénue’s innocence, nibbling with companionable tenderness at the eburnean mother-to-be’s scarred cheek.

It was the prospect of a story that chased the worst of the gnawing, clawing ache from Coelacanth’s Neptune eyes; the airy, toneless whine that trembled from her lips was soft and pleading and her inky visage was undeniably eager as she nodded again, her tail whisking eagerly behind her.

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The sheepdog accepted the offer and Olive felt relief knowing Carina committed to nursing her after the birth, should anything go awry. The mother worried quite often that her attack, the panic that shot through the entirety of her system, had poisoned her womb and hurt the little ones within; and though all pointed to a healthy pregnancy, Olive couldn’t help but feel some guilty for even risking it.

But then the sylph turned her attention towards her half of the promise. It had been quite a while since Olive had turned her attention towards the stars and she felt the distance from them at the moment; if the stars felt undervalued, rarely did they reveal their secrets. Instead they would obscure their messages in a veil of clouds of a persistent mental block, as they were that moment. But as Olive’s eyes of jade surveyed the stars and took note of the planet’s alignments, slowly a clear path began to reveal itself; blossoming in her mind like a bud unfurling its petals at the sign of first light. This feeling was her muse and she would always strive to seek such higher understanding — dedicate herself to the study of the stars. Her eyes darted from the east to the west, locating the stars she knew and identifying its neighbors, assessing their relation to the moon and the earth’s axis. The universe provided endless variety in this way and the prophet took great pleasure in deciphering its message; it was never the same twice.

Olive gave a hushed gasp, hot breath rushing from between her parted jaws.  Then Olive looked at Carina, then her namesake constellation, then Carina again. “Your stars, right there,” Olive grabbed the girl’s moonshine gaze and held it strongly, gently leading her to look up at the cluster of nine stars, swathed in the feminine softness and allure of the darkened sky. ”They tell me that your life will not be boring. There’s activity soon to be had, but then there will be silence to reflect. When mars enters gemini,” Olive painted a picture with her facial expression and sweep of her delicate, scarred maw against the atmosphere. “You’re posed to make great and profound partnerships.”  Olive then nodded, as if affirming to the universe yes, I heard you.

”It’s not entirely a story — nor is it even practical advice… but it may help you live more inline with the universe’s intentions, and that can do nothing but good. Olive grinned sheepishly, knowing that oftentimes the skills of starreaders were undervalued. The mother had a sneaking suspicion that her friend would understand, and possibly want more.  “There’s also a group of stars that I know as Kalb al-Ra’i — the heart of the shepherd.” Olive notched up a creamy eyebrow, looking down at the girl she embraced at her side.  ”You have the time…? Olive let her sing-song voice trail off as she gently posed a her question. The sylph did not want to keep the dark girl if she had placed to be. She was a busy thing, flitting and flittering across the coast to different places and different peoples. Olive so wished she could speak to Carina, to learn her true name and to learn her story.... No doubt a dog whom found itself in these wilds had an interesting one.  

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There was a spellbinding quality to Olive’s meandering alto that might have acted as a soporific if it wasn’t for the intensity that colored and warmed her rich, feminine timbre. Coelacanth’s knowledge of the stars, though far from rudimentary, was practical rather than supernatural; she used them as her ancestors did, relying on the glittering tapestry as a navigational aid. Kailani in particular possessed a certain predilection for stargazing, and the stories and songs she’d passed on to her tiny, tuft-eared niece ensured that the little Groenendael held the celestial bodies’ utility and mythos in equal reverence.

That being said, gleaning advice and making predictions based upon the alignment of the heavens was an entirely foreign concept to Seelie, and bewilderment was writ upon her delicate features as she tipped her head first to one side, then the other. An airy whine stirred in her throat but clung breathlessly to her lips as she tried to make sense of what she was being told. She had expected a story — something that would draw her mind away from her lonely, wayward existence — but where Olive found enlightenment and illumination, Coelacanth got lost in the shadows. It was not skepticism but confusion that glimmered in her Neptune eyes, and even after Olive explained herself, citing the prophecy as neither a story nor concrete advice, Seelie couldn’t wrap her head around the information she’d been given.

Life was rarely boring for the anxious stray, and the ancient rhythm of storm and calm was familiar to her, but what Carina clung to was the promise of “great and profound partnerships.” She was tired of silence and tired of reflecting — she wanted sound and solace and companionship, and she was beginning to worry that she would not find any of them here in the Teekons. Her cerulean gaze met Olive’s eau-de-nil one with all the melancholy and loneliness she owned shimmering therein, and she nodded as her eyes turned skyward, seeking out Kalb al-Ra’i — a star with which she was intimately familiar. Her star. A shy little smile parted her muzzle, coral blush tongue poking playfully between the spires of her canines. The Arabic kalb, though occasionally erroneously translated to mean dog, in actuality indicated heart — a play on words that Kirynnae and Kailani delighted in, for Seelie’s sweet nature and loyal devotion suited both interpretations.

Shall we tie up this golden oldie?

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If Carina had wanted a story, well, she wouldn’t have to wait long — as fate would have it, Olive soon found the legends of old upon her tongue and a curious glint in her eye.  Olive’s eyes followed the aquamarine gaze of the girl, seemingly trained to find the constellation. Once they had found the crystalline fixture, they did not leave it — instead, they hovered over the distant light [millions of years old at that point] as if she drew the words directly from the depths themselves. 

“Kalb al-Ra’i  is known as the heart of the shepherd,” Olive began, jostling the girl affectionately with a bump of her shoulder — though she was mindful to the sensitive belly that existed between them. “it is blindly goodhearted and capable of intense passions… when the gods argue and bang their fists, and even when we can hear it in the squalling of the weather and in the tremors underground, it is always Kalb al-Ra’i that settles the forces and brings them to peace.” Olive’s toes flex against the ground as she witnessed the scene play out before her very eyes. — the captivation stirs the lives in her belly and she can feel them roll against the confines of her womb. They wanted to see, too.

But the movement from within reunited soul with body. Olive blinked several times, then looked at Carina and tuckered her nose into the black feathering of the sheepdog’s tufted ear. It felt nice to be so close to another, so intimate with another besides Dakarai. She had so few friends these days. “It is said that, because of this, those who identify with Kalb al-Ra’i tend to have skills in medicines,” Olive picked up her head and shot Carina an exclamative look, having just discovered the synchronism herself. “I kid you not!” she said laughingly, shaking her head and, at last, pulling away from Carina’s side to dance in a circle and face the young girl.

”The night is getting late.” Olive commented, almost disheartened at the late hour. It was at this point that Dakarai would wonder where his wife went, as he was prone to do in this stage of her pregnancy. ”We can offer you shelter ’til the morning…” Teaglaigh’s compliance in this offer was something the fae was not sure of — but Olive was not going to leave her friend wanting if she was in need.

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When Olive nudged, Seelie nestled — her wounded heart was in desperate need of kindness, and the mist-shrouded druid had provided it in spades. Coelacanth kept her eyes fixed upon the stars, but the ear nearest Olive turned and cupped attentively as she began her tale. “Blindly goodhearted and capable of intense passions,” fit the tiny Groenendael like a glove, though she couldn’t always see it for herself. The idea that her star, or the story behind it, celebrated a peacemaking element was pleasing to the inky ingénue. She giggled, an airy flutter of breath, at the ticklish touch of Olive’s cold, damp nose against the aphotic feathering of her ear, and kept on laughing as the storyteller rose, pirouetted gracefully, and faced her audience.

“The night is getting late,” murmured the matriarch-to-be, and Coelacanth visibly drooped. She had lost track of time for the first time in weeks, but now it was being returned to her — and with it, all of her responsibilities. Olive’s offer was a sweet one, but the pull of her guilt was too strong to ignore. There was still hope that the Cairn children would come home to her. They had become god, king, and country to the little stray, despite giving her nothing back, and Seelie was in far too deep to realize that the relationship was a toxic one.

“Thank you, but I cannot,” bespoke the whisk of her tail, the tip of her finely-sculpted head, and the pointed sway of her brilliant Neptune gaze toward the coast that lay just over Olive’s shoulder.

With that, Coelacanth kissed the woman’s cheek and set off toward the bay.