the shape of her body had changed once more, pronounced. she felt their movements and sensed how long it might yet be.
coraline was missing.
with loko firmly bound to the cliffs for now, she descended, searching for any further desecration of the site.
her voice called for her daughter. was it so soon that they would leave her?
jorunn had heard this song once before from erzulie.
a different daughter, a different time.
still it seemed she was but a sidelong shadow in the blooming figure of the obsidian. content to orbit her, to learn more from her. jorunn may have settled into life at sapphique but she was not so settled as to not stray when others did as well.
perhaps she should have stayed back, with the threat of others treading the sound.
perhaps she was needed here as well.
sjømor,
a name she had used once before, when they had first met under similar circumstances.
she was constantly searching it felt.
"jorunn," she murmured as the saltwolf drew closer. "my children, dey have always left early."
there was more acceptance in her this time.
she was content to have the other at her side.
"how does de hour fin' you?"
jorunn understood it.
perhaps not through the vision of a mother but as a child who had been wayward. although her raising had lent as much, a nomadic band who roved the mountainside. nothing like the tightly woven family that claimed the coast.
but the attention was turned to the pearl and she would not shy away from it.
worried. i think of you,
she let it linger in the air, content to let the seamother take it as she may.
the babes kicked.
erzulie did not comment aloud. she only turned a thoughtful look upon jorunn, one that said much and said nothing at all. "i be all right."
she suddenly wanted the icy crush of the sea, the way that it wrung gasps from her throat and sundered her passions into worship.
and yet i still think of you,
she laughed soft, but a not very humourous sound.
i do not question your strength, erzulie.
she questioned nothing about the woman. only thought of her. of the curves in her figure that spoke to more motherhood.
erzulie was not oblivious, but in this moment she did wish that she had this ability. her mint-glow eyes rested upon jorunn. she wanted to ask if the thoughts the woman had were for her wellbeing, or if she should continue to be evasive.
the sea steadied her.
her heart thudded dully. "an' what do you t'ink, jorunn?"
her voice scarcely carried above the sound of the ocean.
a loaded question.
just of you,
she offered softly back, the seas carrying her voice to erzulie.
of...your future, of your own thinking.
but it was not her place to ask for them, was it? certainly erzulie carried much in her mind as her womb.
just of you.
erzulie wanted to drive jorunn back for a moment.
but her voice did not reach to lash.
"my future is to be a mot'er again. raise de nex' generation of sapphique here on de cliffs."
i am thinking that you should not go.
jorunn could not pick apart the words, she only saw them as bare truth.
the rounds of erzulie's sides proved she would be sea mother once more. another generation of her brood to settle into sapphique.
and they will be wonderful, as you.
an exhale.
her chest tight.
a pause.
a swallow.
"i should get back to rosalyn." what she wanted now was to lie next to her wife, to burrow into the shoulder that had long held her in strength and love.
erzulie smiled at jorunn and started to turn, body deft despite the swell of her sides.
closing up <3
she would only watch.
tongue clenched between front teeth, curving along the roots of her canines much like the curved sides of erzulie. she did not know what to do, besides seek the sea.
so when the seamother was finally gone jorunn would bathe in the brine.