the hawks wheeled overhead, and taltos fell away from their claws. he had climbed to a low precipice overlooking the ruined shore beyond, with the idea that he would procure a gift for blue willow. yet the debris strewn across the sands, flotsam thrown by a vengeful god of storms, deterred him.
he lingered only for a moment before he dropped away and continued upon his path. on a whim, he slid into a trot, then a run, wincing somewhat at the catch in his shoulder but pushing through the discomfort all the same.
panting, the beta drew up and stood panting, sides heaving with exertion, but in his heart he was proud of the paces he had wrought.
to say the ruined strand fit caiaphas well would be a gross understatement. she enjoyed the labyrinthine lay of shipwrecked timber and irregular terrain. the flotsam rudely thrown upon the shore served as both a meal and shelter -- here and there past the scent of salt a bouquet of rot stuck heady and cloying -- the perfect miasma for a wretch as miserable as she.
yet as the sea-waif trowled along the shattered remnants she heard the steady patter of a gallop -- quickly she scrambled across the face of a felled tree, her ears pulled forward as a streak of ombre passed her vision. a male she immediately recognized. she would have haled him were it not for the breakneck pace he was committed to. unlike most of her kin she was far too lazy to consider catching up with him.
his frolic was shortlived, which made him approachable. slyly she slid down the gutted tree, a coy look crossing her features as she slithered towards the mainland wolf.
!!!!!!!!!
his rest was perturbed by the not unwelcome approach of the strait's ragged sylph. noting her coy stride, lasher recognized her at once, but did not move from his pose until she had drawn rather near. he did not need the posturing of his species' role-demands; taltos invited the seawitch into his inner presence with a gentle wave of his plume, a guttural flicker of sound in his throat reinforcing the gesture.
the druid had missed her salt-rimed sarcasm and cold demeanour; his heart had been smitten by her at one time, and his gaze floated over the remembered beauty of her oddly tattered visage. but he did not speak; there need not be words betwixt them if no meaning was to be had.
as she drew close it relieved her to see no change in the familiar wolf's posture -- her last few interactions with the natives had permanently soured her. she was above admitting her altercations were perhaps a result of her own direct (or in some cases, indirect) demeanor. as far as the sea witch was concerned, every wolf that haunted this world was an enemy.
but then there was lasher.
she was not sure how she felt about this man -- while there was no sliver of disdain in her regard of him, she found him too complex to easily analyze. he was neither a target of her contempt nor a paragon of her worship. whether or not this confusion was drawn from her own inexperience with connecting with her kind, she could not say. they had never spent much time in silence together, yet all the same she relished the quietude that overcame them. the last time they had met along these desolate straits he had professed a great burden upon her -- one she had promptly and coarsely rejected. he was a better man than she to not resent her for it. had it been the wretch who had been spurned she would have ordered the world to turn against him. for now she was content to wonder of this man's intentions, though no words of hers dared trespass the tranquility between them.
"your bird spoke of your loss; he said you wished something returned unto you. did you find it, bean na farraige? his words carried the familiarity wrought by their odd acquaintance. taltos was unsurprised to feel the old weight of his affections for her surging to the fore -- despite the glacial rebuke he had received for their revelation. hers was a life rife with the stresses of leadership, and he was bound wholly to the plateau. yet he wished to pledge himself to her, this cultist salted with sea-spume, seaweed woven implacably into her wind-twisted plaits.
a silent moving within his breast bid the druid reach to her with a welcoming protraction of his earthen muzzle, murkwater eyes tipped to the light as their familiar green became apparent 'neath the sun-rays. he was still then, a figure of burnished mahogany resting as so much driftwood upon her ruined and precious strand.
a dark expression flew across her narrow countenance as the memory of kevlyn besieged her - she turned to lasher, her expression raw with vehemence. kevyln's ghost was not his to dredge - for a moment a snarl threatened to break the tranquility between them, yet it was quickly suppressed by some small remaining shred of rationality. she looked then at the dark-furred man, his russet coat coruscating brilliantly in the sunbeam's radiance. how then could she strike him? even the sun favored his stillness.
she was surprised that lasher had met the bird, but then again, not so surprised -- given bartok had a penchant for harassing those within caiaphas' proximity perhaps it was not surprising after all. "no." she uttered forlornly, accepting the tenderness of his advance.
the rough-hewn and sudden knit of her features contracted coldly about his heart; he had not meant to invoke her ire. and yet she came to him all the same, delicate, irascible. tentatively he traced his lips with deep affection along her salt-rimed cheek; his touch was featherlight, ready to be drawn back at a moment's bristle from her. the swampwater of his gaze flickered to the bright falcon's-eyes set in her angular face. "i am sorry," the druid murmured in muted tones, enchanted by the brush of her fur against his muzzle.
lasher meant only to comfort, but his man's body threatened to betray evidence of his fleshly response to the gentle collision he had desired for long months, even after she had disappeared from the stretch of beach her amazons had once ruled. it was upon his tongue for the man to tell the seawitch he had pined for her, to beckon the priest to the shaded hollows of his domain, but he knew that she would not come.
the sea was her throne; its spume her robes; its sands her mattings. she would not depart it.
the waif had never been one for platitudes, having often found them to be lacking any depth of contrition. but the sienna-cast comrade besides her was absolute in his empathy for her - so much that she could sense the clutter of compuctiousness between the two of them. she was almost too absorbed in her own self-pity to notice the stirring lasher felt -- but where he sat besides her caiaphas thought she sensed an inking of longing stain the air between them.
she pulled back, suspicious - the feral yellow of her eyes barbed with sharpness. but he had not pursued her, not yet. she did not wish for him to utter any sort of admittance before her for fear it would ruin the very real moment they shared. "where are you now?" she inquired, hasty to change the subject both for the sake of her mourning and personal comfort.
the flare that lit the woman's face with an abrupt caginess turned his tongue from the whimsical words that threatened to pirouette into the open space between them. refusing then to natter at her if she so chose to turn aside his offerings, the man cleared his throat rustily and turned his murkwater eyes to the crash and lap of the foam-capped surf upon the cold sands of the strand.
"blacktail deer plateau," he whispered, not the amazonian priestess, but the salt-rimed air that huddled about them with cool jubilance. her pack had gone; the slyph smelled of nothing but the breakers and the golden grains, the seaweed washed up upon the beach, but he sensed no loss in her, only resignation.
"will you never leave this place?" the spirit asked at length, turning back to the seawitch at his side, his countenance adopting a slightly pleading air.
as lasher's poignant stare fell along the cold shore caiaphas traced his gaze, watching the bluffs as they withstood the relentless bludgeon of frothy waves. how could she leave this place? the shore was just as much a part of her as the black that fouled her countenance -- she knew the bleak strand better than any -- down to the darkest corridor of the secluded grottos that flanked it.
she turned attention to the dark chestnut wolf besides her, noting the deepness of his moss-cured gaze. there was an alien calmness in the stark steel-grey of his gaze -- she was reminded of some celestial planet, tranquil from a distance but chaotic within. it was enrapturing the way the eye captured colors - there was a sheen to his pupils not unlike the oily radiance of a nebulous gas spill. not wishing to be caught studying him, she turned quickly. but the image remained sharp in her subconscious.
"no reason to." she quipped, returning her stare to the shore. after all, the food was plentiful here -- it was much easier scavenging the bloated corpses along the sand than it was stalking prey for miles inland.
*has just realized she has made no reference to lasher's injuries WHOOPS*
pain flickered in his newly-mended flank; blue willow would surely have his head once she came to know of how far her mate had roamed. but for the unkempt imp alongside him, lasher might not have roused himself to fleck the shores with the meandering tendrils of his desirous attitude.
her words brought a skipped cadence of longing to his heart; he did not wish to sever the thin threads of agreeability that bound them upon the sands, but nor did he wish to leave any stone unturned.
"could you not think of a reason?" the spirit queried his lithe compatriot, head turned again by the fragmentary allurement that besotted her narrow features.
was it for a practical or sentimental premise that the stalwart seawitch dared not depart her shores? he wondered, but in truth he knew the answer, though taltos would not speak it aloud, for to give it flesh was to give it breath and existence as a barrier between them.
could she picture a reason? the sullied female drew inwardly, a retrospective glaze accosting her yellow eyes. kevlyn's ghost -- would it follow her inland? could she exact some sort of revenge on the unknowing earth for her son's passing? the strand was cold and empty as was the rest of her world and in truth she envisioned the forest no different -- shadowed, hollowed, devoid. sure there was sustenance and sure there was the promise of pack living but all of these meant very little if the life caiaphas lead was no longer worth living.
"no." she answered simply, unapologetic for the brashness of her assertion. lasher had his world and she had hers and while his was waxing with bloom and promise hers was drawing to an eventual and isolated close. she was fine was this prospect -- it fell in line with the chaotic view of her life. "could you not think of a reason to leave the land?"
likewise, lasher found the plateau to be the end of his days, and though perhaps in the sorceress' eyes his invitation swelled with the fruit of promise, he had found that as of late his body was less responsive to the largess of his responsibilities. he took solace in blue willow's presence, and pleasure in the achievements of his children, but the ageing of his mortal form was a proverbial thorn in his side.
"no," he murmured truthfully, wondering if his view of their tenuous bond was quixotic at best. he was silent then, and glanced out to the licking surf, nares flaring at the slight salt-flecked breeze that rose from the ocean's breath then, tendriling about the pair.
taltos let his eyes rest upon her again, and his mouth tipped into a cogitative bow. they were without an inkling of the future beyond their own assumptions; he could not be persuaded from his pine-forest, and she could not be removed from the shores.
his answer was simple, monosyllabic. for some it would have beckoned the end of conversation. caiaphas overturned the syllable in her mind, shaping it along her tongue. their provinces seemed forever split -- their undying allegiances irreconcilably different. she thought no less of lasher for his predilection, as she assumed he thought no less of her for hers.
"the sea would heal those wounds." she commented dryly, making the first mention to the blemish that grieved his smooth hide. she did not await an answer, or even an explanation -- with fluid movement the waif rose and sauntered towards the frothy water, settling along the white-capped cusp of gentle shallows.
he made no rejoinder, but watched her sidle to the foam-caps of sea that licked the shore. here was her dominion, and as lasher lay his eyes upon her nearest the very element that comprised her heart, her lifeblood, he knew he must not ever ask the priestess to depart her shores again. the brine and its expanse of pale sands were to her as the glen had been unto him.
taltos lifted himself then, and moved to accompany the ragged sylph near the feet of her god, holding his tongue even as he looked out over the face of the waters. he doubted that the lap of salt could ameliorate those tears upon his spirit, but his hesitation was rooted in no truth, and so lasher softened toward the ocean, his glance coming to rest briefly upon the seawitch before he waded several steps into the icy lash of the shallows.
[ooc] i suck.. sorry... want to wrap up for a more recent thread?[/b]
as the sylph embraced the cold whip of water she felt her body shiver, shocked by the sudden decrease in comfort. lasher treaded slowly behind her, embracing the cold in the delicate manner of a wolf accustomed to the comfort of land. but caiaphas relished the sharpness of the sea, and the fierce lash of the water's tongue -- in many ways it soothed her oft irrevocable anger.
she was content then to stay like a buoy to the tide's will, and felt her fur drag to and fro by the lap of brinewater. she gazed out to where the world dropped away in unfathomable grey and remained silent, cherishing the company of both the sea and lasher. the days upcoming would not be this serene and this would likely be the last time the waif could withstand the cold assault of the brine for the season.
of course! and u do not suck SHHH <3
they stood alongside one another in solemn and silent contemplation of the grey brine with its unknowable depths and roiling tension. his murkwater eyes moved once toward her but he turned them quietly back toward the slow lap of the deep waters and was still, his heart finding the cadence of the waves and meeting it with matched beats as he breathed in not only the salt-rimed air but the fragrance of the waifish priestess -- and in this he found peace.