All welcome but tagging some specifically
keepin things vair vague
They let her go. She didn't breathe easily, but being out from under the oppressive cliffs, even if still in their shadow, allowed her to regain some of herself again. Some reminders would be lasting, as she adjusted for her eye, but others would hopefully heal. If she was allowed the time for them to do so. It took her time to circle south.... but the north with its brutal cold would never be her home. She passed inland, then down, in a wide arc that took her to the southern edge.
It was her first objective, but not her destination.
She passed directly across the borders of Rusalka without pausing, because she'd been made to wait long enough. She was exhausted with only three legs to move on, and her pace was slow but steady. She wove a path through the sound, intent on only one face.
@Erzulie.
@Caiaphas would need to be found too, but that could wait.
She didn't want to call, to make the wolves on the cliffs think she was not honest in her promise. But she did send a cry, soft, even more so because her voice was thin with fatigue. Then she stopped, collapsing into a sit to wait. She didn't want to answer any questions, but she couldn't just gallivant around searching. She was spent.
wounded as the sylph was, it did not stop her daily excursions into the forest -- to collect moss for
@Lucca to tend to their healed, or plants erzulie instructed her to find. a cry had caused her to pause from her examination of a lichen-crusted trunk, her ears (or one, since half was truly chewed beyond recognition) alert.
the sylph tensed, snaking through the underbrush until she came across the form of a well-known yet battered comrade. her fur lifted, wondering if this was a trap sprung by drageda's hounds -- but there were none save for her and rosalyn present.
if caiaphas was made ugly by her wounds, rosalyn was destroyed by them -- her limb appeared in rough shape, yet salvageable, and her eye lost to the drageda curs. she stood close, throwing her head back in a howl for erzulie -- and lucca, should he come.
She was grateful when Caiaphas showed up - this would make everything easier. She closed her eyes as Caiaphas called, and waited, determination steeled against her exhaustion. It would be tempting, so tempting, to just remain. But she knew she couldn't.
She remained silent, not wanting to explain more than once. There were questions she wanted to ask, but at this point, she didn't know if the answers mattered anyway.
erzulie did not immediately arrive, for too shocked was she at first to even move. and then the harlot was galvanized; leaving behind the plants she had gathered, she moved as swiftly as she might with her own wounds toward the place where both caiaphas and rosalyn had called for her.
there, her leader, and before her, the woman she wished to call wife.
tears tore stingingly at the wounds along her face; erzulie paid them no heed. drawing a shuddering breath, she passed caiaphas and pressed her forehead against rosalyn's shoulder, throat thick with an audible sob. her pirate, so rent, so wounded, reeking of those in drageda who had tortured her. but alive, all the same, alive, and returned to her.
skipping with permission <3 we can settle into an order now I think!
Rosalyn didn't think she'd ever see a more beautiful sight, or feel a lift as high as the one she felt when Erzulie appeared. She stood immediately, and made to move, but in her haste she'd nearly forgotten her leg and was forced to freeze.
Luckily the woman closed the distance for them, and as she pressed in, Rosalyn shifted to burrow her own less injured cheek into her lover's neck.
She waited there a moment, trembling and silent, drinking in her scent and the feel of her there.
Both she and Caiaphas were both injured, she could see when she did finally lift her head, and that confirmed what she had supposed. A hatred greater than one she ever felt roiled in her now, and if it's caustic rage could manifest, she had little doubt it would send even the cliffs tumbling into the sea. Unfortunate that it couldn't.
I heard you.
She said, looking at Caiaphas with her good eye while staying where she was, pressed against Erzulie as tight as possible.
I tried to come, but they stopped me.
How was a story clearly written on her face and frame.
I... spoke with them after, and finally convinced them to let me go.
She didn't want Erzulie to know what she had threatened, nor how close she had been to a decision that likely would have ended in tragedy. Not yet, and certainly not right now.
They warned what would happen if we crossed paths again. I can't stay.
Running wasn't much her style, but neither was hiding, and she couldn't be forced to live a life fearing the specter of the cliffs. It was a war she didn't think worth fighting, not for a piece of beach. They'd be safer if she was gone.
the siren allowed the pair a moment to reacclimate, her gaze elsewhere as erzulie swept over to rosalyn, the two burying their affections deep in each other by gentle, tender ministrations. LAME!! she allowed them their weird shows of devotion, mostly because as an emotional stunted little harpy, caiaphas had little understanding for physical displays of affection --
but she did understand grief, and fury -- and seeing rosalyn, these emotions became turbulently renewed.
"you.. can't stay..?" caiaphas repeated harshly, glancing first at the tawny features of erzulie, and then to the cliffs beyond -- a hateful coldness had settled over her keen features. "we risked our hides -- eurycrates died -- for you. do you think they are worth running from?"
caiaphas paused, and then spat in the sand. her lips curled back with needle-teeth showing as she spoke up once more. "they outnumber us and they can't even keep us off the beach. they know our numbers, and they haven't launched an attack. they could have killed you, but they didn't; a strong pack would have killed you. they are weak, and you should not scurry away from them like a little sand-crab afraid of the light."
the queen's diatribe ended, and her gaze slid to erzulie, wondering what the sharp-tongued harlot's thoughts were on the matter. "you would leave her? and leave our safe harbor?"
Skip me as needed! This thread doesn't concern him at all lmao but DEAR LEADER SUMMONED HIM I wanted to acknowledge the tag!
He had heard the call of Rusalka's leader, a howl for both he and another. It wasn't urgent but it was...commanding, and so Lucca obeyed the summons. He was still terrified of her — and every other member, really — but he wanted to retain his place within the pack (at least for the rest of the winter), and so hurriedly made his way towards where the call had come from. Lucca swallowed back a nervous whine as he came upon the scene, the sharp, metallic scent of wolf blood instantly drowning out any other smell.
He skidded to a halt at a distance so as not to intrude, tail tucked against his belly as he surveyed the situation. A gravely injured, red-cloaked stranger pressed tight against the breast of that strange, masked woman, while Caiaphas stood opposite with the countenance of a viper. He could feel the tension even from where he stood, and the leader's words only confirmed the gravity of the stand off.
His gaze flicked between the three, not quite understanding the circumstances but feeling the familiar fluttering of anxiety in his gut.
Man, did he join at the
worst possible time. It was then the cogs in his head began to churn and he realised why Caiaphas had let out the call in the first place. Regardless whether this battered lady was staying or not, she needed something for her injuries! He gave a start,
before turning and scurrying off again to find some of the herbs the pack had been using for the wounded.
perhaps she had misheard; perhaps she had — no.
slowly erzulie lifted her head, eyes wide with shock; she drew back from rosalyn. caiaphas had flown into the silence now, filling it with castigating words that mirrored the chaos spiraling within her mind.
her gaze traced the grisly wounds that had robbed rosalyn of her sight and the use of one leg; tears wet her cheeks. "why would you leave?" she whispered plaintively, though anger began to kindle within her. "we fought a war for you, rosalyn! we lost one of our own. you cannot even walk."
fuck what the dogs of drageda had said — her lover would surely die if she turned into the snow now, unable to see well or hunt for herself. ire vied with grief; had she gained rosalyn simply to lose her again?
Caiaphas thought her a coward? Fine. Pride. All any of you care about is your thrice damned pride.
Her single eye burned almost feverishly as she spoke now, and there was a dangerous undercurrent of desperation to her tone. She hadn't known any died. If I have to sacrifice mine so that they keep theirs, fine. If I go, maybe it will be enough.
They'd bled for her already. She couldn't force them to do more. No one here should be dying for me.
She was in their debt enough now, it seemed.
Besides that; Drageda had kept her, starved her, broken her, and left her considering submitting to the sea's mercy to the extent where she'd nearly made her peace. Being forced to look at those cliffs and unable to do anything about the malignant presence she would know lurked just outside their borders. To be forced to remember that and pretend like it hadn't happened? Already just imagining it wore her down and lent a tight desperation to her chest, one that hadn't resided there since her time with the pirates, before.
In the end, though, she could care less what Rusalka's alpha thought. It was Erzulie's reaction she feared, and it was her that made the words hard to voice. Obviously her time here had been enough to form bonds strong enough for war. Rosalyn had a hard time believing the grotto witch would jump to her aid so readily without some direction from her love. Where she made enemies, Erzulie had always found allies, and it was one of countless things the red woman loved fiercely about her.
That seemed true enough now, because when Erzulie stepped away, the tightness worsened. One of our own.. Rosalyn had been right, Erzulie had made a home while she had been gone. Well, she would rather leave than risk starting a war, but she'd start a hundred wars if the alternative was losing her. Even this fear couldn't change that.
There's an island, just south of here . I think I could stay there. But I won't if it means losing you.
Rosalyn watched her, fighting to keep herself calm while everything felt like it was teetering on the edge of a fracture. I don't want to go, but please don't ask me to stay. I don't want you to leave, but please don't make me go alone. She felt like another entity had taken residence in her mind, one that didn't settle well and fought tooth and nail for prominence. She had never been great at hiding, least of all from Erzulie, who always seemed able to read her every thought.
she can scarce hold in her tongue, but she does so for erzulie, her eyes trailing over the anguished features of rusalka’s healer. to little surprise, erzulie echoed caiaphas’s sentinenta (perhaps a little kinder), leaving the siren to wonder what horrors rosalyn has endured under the drageda dogs.
the notion of her traveling in her current condition was laughable; caiaphas dismissed it with a snort. you’re staying.
she announced, sharing a glance with erzulie before she made to depart; rosalyn’s wounds looked bittered by time, and needed tending.
"dis is my lan'," erzulie declared. how could rosalyn even think of leaving? she had wandered with her lover, yes, and would have done so again, had not caiaphas offered them both a home. "i fought for dis place. i fought for you," and here her two-toned eyes snapped with balefire. "an' i would shed blood for de bot' again."
to die for rusalka, for her lover, was not a sacrifice. to be in the service of the seawitch; to take from the sound all she had earned with her own sweat and wounds: that was her reward. she knew not the sum of what drageda had done to rosalyn, only what was so plainly writ in twisted pain upon the other's face and form.
an island. erzulie knew it, though she could not recall having met a wolf from the place. hurt billowed in her chest; rage threatened to lace her words with more harshness than she meant. caiaphas snapped a declaration, and erzulie blinked at the finality of it, before lifting her chin with a pride she did not feel.
"we can talk of it later. please; let me tend you, rosalyn. you will die of infection if i do not, and den it will be a moot point what you decide to do." there was a bite to her tone she could not keep hidden, but the harlot did not see how it was possible, not when faced with the very real prospect of losing the wolf dearest to her in all the world.
It was unanimous. And just as quick as the words flew from them, any fight that she had within left her. She slid down, the tension leaving her good leg, and uncontrolled tears began to run down her cheeks unbidden. They burned in her ruined eye and tracked acid trails down her ruined muzzle, but she couldn't stop.
She was a pirate. Pirates didn't fight for land - they roved and, when the going got too hard, they sought other seas. Fighting for crew, yes. For love, yes. And those two things, she'd be willing to do. There would be repercussions, she knew, when the Drageda wolves found she was there. She would be pinioned here, so close to their claim. But she would have Erzulie, and she would be free.
The tears continued as it finally sunk in that it was over, and they came harder as the coil in her chest slowly unwound. She turned her head aside - she couldn't remember the last time she'd lost herself like this, in front of others - but she was too strung out to care right now. She could only nod to Erzulie's question, the anger in her voice registering distantly.
She was a captain no longer. She could only voice what she felt, but the decisions were no longer her own. She was content enough to take it, because whatever happened, the consequences wouldn't be hers to bear alone. At least she had tried.
last from me <3
caiaphas had already turned away when she heard erzulie's declaration -- it brought a rare smile to her lips, for the harlot spoke with a rooted passion that gave the siren confidence in her verdict. rosalyn stayed -- for now.
the siren had always known, in some way, that her hold (or even unity) with the pirate was tenuous at best. someday, perhaps, rosalyn would leave their shores -- but she would do so in full health, and not crawl from ankyra a rotted, soggy bag of meat pulp like she presently looked.
besides, caiaphas couldn't let her leave so soon -- who would mock her face?
well out of earshot now, caiaphas slunk to the grotto -- she would return in an hours time with some pitiful collection of herbs, but it would be enough to start rosalyn's healing.
and for me!
rosalyn did not answer but with tears, and her broken sobs echoed openly against the walls of erzulie's heart. she felt a lance of agony rush through her; in a moment she was at her lover's side, nuzzling the slashed muzzle, the wetness of the pirate's cheeks.
and again her hatred for drageda rose.
what had they taken from rosalyn?
She cried herself out against Erzulie, taking comfort from her being there. She didn't notice Caiaphas leave, or anything else - she didn't even know why she was crying. It was a release she needed and her body was going to do so, though, whether she agreed or not.
Eventually they would stop and she would follow where she was led, completely spent. She just needed a meal and the chance to sleep. It seemed like ages since she'd had either.