she searched for her boy. it was daytime hours and erzulie could not stop moving. her honed legs churned in a practiced run across the slopes, for she was embracing the sea-stone as best she could. the harlot hurtled, leaping from one spire to the next.
and each day she had swept for regin. but now she meant to devote her time to
@Valravn, seeking him as desperation began to rise in her heart, the nervous energy that whispered she had lost him again.
first it had been val to go missing -- now regin.
he had tracked her to the slopes and there her scent faded, scoured by the whipping winds along the polished stones. he sat here now, peering down at a sea as restless and unforgiving as the clouds above.
footsteps, behind him. val turned an ear, and then his head -- a bright smile chasing away the clouds that gathered in his eyes as he beheld erzulie. "maman!"
his little piping voice touched erzulie's spirit, though he was not so small as of late. "mon petit roi de la mer," she sighed with a glimmer of a grin, despite the dour attitude of her inward heart. she too, glanced toward the sea, swallowing back a sigh as she settled beside valravn. "i am ready for the snow to go away."
val's bright gaze roved over his maman lovingly -- a shadow darkened her cinnamon-dusted countenance. val studied that strange pallor, recognizing the subtle lines of grief.
steadfast, val tried to chase those demons away. they did not belong on his maman's face -- they did not belong cluttered in her heart like a murder of crows huddled around carrion. "i'm not a sea king!" val quipped, rising with a wag of his tail. she of all people knew his wariness of the depths. "maybe a sea baby..." val mused, tilting his head. "maman.. would you like to hear a story about snow?"
a sea baby. he was silly; maman favoured valravn with a genuine beam of happiness rarely felt. "of course i would."
had anyone ever asked the boy about his fantastic adventure, or had they merely been relieved to have him home? erzulie wondered at the expanse of his growing mind. her mismatched eyes settled on her son, waiting happily for his tale.
for the most treasured moment, his maman smiled. encouraged by that brief knife of sunlight nestled between barbs of darkness, val sat on his haunches and grinned in return.
"our story takes place a hundred years ago," val informed erzulie. like any child, that breadth of time seemed immensely huge -- little did he know it was only a mere handful of generations. "once upon that time, there was a tribe of wolves known as the kamatiki tribe. they lived just beyond the cliffs, in that big mountain over there." val motioned to the grim peaks sagtannet had dwelled.
"they were lead by proud wolf who was white as the clouds, and for that he was named nimbus. he was loved by almost all the wolves in kamatiki, save his brother shade." val peered at his mother to see if she was following along - of course she was. "shade lived in his brother's shadow. every day resentment built in his heart to see the people love nimbus, and shun him. day by day the townfolk grew more fond of nimbus, and more wary of shade.
shade busied his time with trying to earn the affections of a young she-wolf named woka. to shade, woka was the most beautiful thing to walk this earth. he confided in his brother his intentions to marry woka, to bring her to the hotsprings to the east where he'd stored elk-pelts and rabbitfurs, and earn over her heart.
nimbus encouraged his brother's dreams, meanwhile he took his brother's idea and claimed woka as his own. shade was devastated, and in a fit of anger he found his brother at the rendezvous and threw himself upon nimbus.
there the two brothers fought viciously. the townspeople gathered in horror to see shade and nimbus at each other's throats, fur flying. woka was horrified and begged to the gods to intervene -- she flung herself off a cliff while the two brothers tore into each other.
the gods were furious to see woka's life wasted. pamola, the god of thunder and the skies, reached down and seized both brothers by the scruff and lifted them to the sky. around the towns-people, white fur fell in soft flutters. enraged by the mortal brother's short-sightedness, pamola turned the two of them into white birds and banned them from the earth. woka was lifted from her grave and placed in the skies, the brightest star next to the moon.
now, whenever it snows it is said it is the spirits of nimbus and shade, searching for woka."
she was following along, fascinated by the formal nature of valravn's usually playful voice. something had come over her son, something filled with a great verve of creativity and tale-weaving. with his words also did erzulie find herself enthralled.
warring brothers, a treachery over a girl. in beautiful sentences, valravn tied together a story of regret and of romance, of tragedy and punishment. and in it were the gods, and rebirth to become snow that prowled for a lost love.
it was magnificent, and so was her boy, the spring-sward eyes dancing with the spirit of happiness that seemed to dwell at all times in his heart.
"what a storyteller you are, valravn!" erzulie exclaimed with delighted thumps of her tail. "and what a story. i too am sad dat woka died. but she became a star. a gift to be a star dat looks down every night wid de moon."
with his story finished, he looked to erzulie expectantly. her praise fluttered down upon him like gilded rain, lifting his spirits and easing a warm smile upon his features.
that smile faded as erzulie mentioned woka and the stars above. almost instinctively, val searched the clouded kingdom which lingered above their heads always. he could not help the question that sprung to his mind and unknowingly passed through his lips before he was even aware of it. "do you think raleska is a star too?"
erzulie wanted to answer valravn, but the mention of raleska's name clenched her throat tightly. a star. "yes," the obsidian chose to say. "she be one of dem now."
erzulie thought of regin. how much more must her boy lose in this life?
that he had not known she was his mother had protected him from that pain, but now erzulie carried it for both of them.
"what do you t'ink it is like, being a star?"
a star.
val's eyes searched the skies, where stars were hidden behind a veil of clouds and light.
what was it like, up there? he closed his eyes and tried to imagine;
swirls of cosmic pink, silvery blue --
a spume of comet dust, the roar of a distant sun
iceshards traveling along ancient rocks, which hurtled past on their own unseeing orbit --
val's eyes opened, and he regarded his maman solemnly. she looked incredibly sad; would she like his answer?
"lonely." the boy murmured, and his imagination of the worlds above trickled away from him like riverwater.
lonely.
erzulie hoped that raleska was not, that somehow kaertok's star had found its way to her.
but in her silence she did not want to hurt this beautiful perceptive boy. "i suppose being a light in de sky would be a job to do alone," she inched into acceptance, though her heart felt twisted and aggrieved within her. he was correct. and she was the fantastical one.
she rumpled his ears. it was a good answer. "you are not too old for a treatie, are you, valravn?" she inquired in the next breath, turning a warmer look upon the child. though truly, he had grown beyond that, though erzulie was not yet ready to admit it.
he endured the soft rumple of his ears in silence, pulling his gaze from the star-littered heavens to the earth, where they remained.
he hoped forever -- but grief had a way of putting things into a perspective ugly and unkind. one day, his maman would be lonely too.
one day, it would be his turn to be pulled to the heavens in dark and lonely orbit.
against his wishes, val's ears perked involuntarily as erzulie spoke. of course he was too old for a treatie! he wished to speak this, indignant -- but the childish part of him won over, as it often did. "no. only if you aren't, either." he tried to bring a little levity to their sorrowful talk, hoping wherever this treatie was that there would be enough for his maman too.
valravn had grown into his thoughts, but it seemed the mention of something she had always done for him brought him out. erzulie smiled in a mixture of amusement and relief. this, truly, was an age of many difficulties for the young. she tried to remember back to her time at this year, but found this taxing.
humoured, she gave a playful switch of her tail. "we will bot' have one." a laugh, and then the harlot was casting off into a lope, prepared to swing her boy into a good-faith run that wound through sapphique.
with his maman revealing they’d both have a treatie, valravn booked no further objection. he was still somewhat subdued as he followed after erzulie, but eventually her carefully laid play had its intended result: the boy grew long and quick, leaving his troubles behind with each step he took to gain ground on his fleet maman.