Sequoia Coast blue raven

at last chakliux and @Marina came to the place where he had brought his sons to kill the seal. "wa-how!" he whooped, pleased to feel the touch of the cold here, the bitterness of a sea-wind which slashed the shoreline from beyond the blue glaciers.
"it is a fine place for a village," chakliux grunted, "one day, my wife." his promise came with a kiss to her temple, and then he stood back to look at her, to seek where he hoped the brightness in her gaze still stood.

Oops Marina fell out but I'll post with her next when she's back in <3 sorry for the wait, but I should be a bit quicker now!

A figure in the distance, bobbing among the icy waters; still for a time, as if lost there. But soon the pale creature made for the shore. He had seen the pair. Now he came to greet them.

River Sea-Snake stepped from the cold waters, shook them from his coat, and fixed his eyes to the sister he'd never known. He knew her now; how could he not? All his life he'd heard tales of his mother and the sister she'd stolen away. The promise she'd broken. The shame she'd brought to them all.

Marina? His voice was soft, his eyes wide. He took a trembling step forward.

Marina was smiling at him as their eyes met — and for a brief moment, the world seemed perfect. She felt better. She felt good, with the lingering ghost of her illness finally exorcised and their whole futures stretching ahead of them.

Then her mirror stepped from the sea, and all at once the world changed. She couldn't breathe. She knew him. How did she know him? How could she not know him? He was her; taller, perhaps not so honed by a life spent on the run, distinctly male and yet — !

In every other way, he was her.

He knew her name.

She couldn't breathe.

Marina pressed close to her husband, sucking in a sharp breath. No words came to her. She could only stare, anchoring herself to Chakliux while the rest of the world tumbled into chaos and unreality all around her.

no worries whatsoever! love the twist!

there was a wolf here on the ice. their presence would not have been enough reason to react; it was the direct approach that put chakliux on edge, and then the reaction of his wife. 
the seal hunter put himself between marina and the stranger, his berrybright eyes hard with caution. "stop."
who was this? if they did not look so similar, he might have wondered if this was the man who had fathered her first children. teethtips flashed in the sunlight, a warning.

<3

Shock met him; hostility met him. River remained unmoved, unblinking, only soft and open as he stood and allowed them to take in the sight of him. To the man he offered a nod. His sister's protector, perhaps.

Did she live as the Sea-Snakes of old?

His eyes lingered on Marina a moment before he addressed her pale guardian. She is my sister, River told him quietly, voice melodic with the lingering tinge of siren-song. And a Sea-Snake, do you know this? I would speak with her, if she will allow it. This question was for her, yet still he addressed the man. It was only proper, if she truly lived as their ancestors had.

He could scarcely imagine anything else.

My sister. A Sea-Snake. Marina was dizzied, unmoored for a moment — but she was not the frightened girl she'd once been. She took a breath and straightened, pressing her nose to Chakliux's shoulder to express her gratitude. He was always so steady, so protective of her.

It's alright, She murmured, words meant for her husband's ears alone. I don't know him, but... I think we can trust him.

To the brother she'd never known existed, she said, If you want to talk to me, then talk, For him her eyes were not so warm, but neither did she hold hostility in her gaze. Marina was only watchful; waiting.

to not know him but to allow him close confused chakliux more. he wanted to forbid it, and never would. delicate as his wife was, she was a seal hunter woman now, and he would not seek to make such a choice for her.
sister!
"marina is a seal hunter trader of moontide village. the teeth of many packs are behind her, and those of her husband," chakliux growled, before he became silent and stepped back a pace, dropping to his wife's flank.

A seal hunter. Grief flashed openly across River's delicate countenance as he came quite suddenly to the truth of it: she did not live as the Sea-Snakes of old. She did not live as a Sea-Snake at all. Marina of the seal hunters; Marina the trader; Marina the lost.

River took a slow breath, a lingering step forward. You were stolen as a child. Our mother, Thalia - did she tell you nothing? None of the tales of our people, our ways, our history? Without waiting for an answer, he went on. Did she not tell you that you belong to the sea?

His sister answered not in words but a slow shake of her head. Yet he saw the recognition in her eyes as he spoke the name of their dam; the woman whose life had amounted to nothing but a growing list of precious things stolen and then lost. Marina's name sat at the top.

Another step took him closer. He cast a single glance to Marina's husband, wondering if she would send him away now to hear these secrets of their blood in solitude. But she did not — and so he would know, too, this man whose blood undoubtedly mingled with the saltwater of their own line now.

The witchpriest sat, and the mantle of brother and son and man fell away. He was none of those; only a Sea-Snake, only a siren, only a bearer of the great history bestowed on each of them. In quiet words he made a gift of this knowledge now.

Sea-Snake; an ancient name, sea-witches and sirens once feared for their power. For countless generations they'd lived in seclusion — until the fire came for them. All of them. Not only the Sea-Snakes but the Cyanean line, the Keils, the nameless gem-dancers, the valley coyotes. The Vaels.

Together they'd fled from one coast to another, west to east in a great migration still remembered so many generations later. But a siren taken from the sea could never thrive — and so the Sea-Snakes dwindled, picked off one by one in the process of their great journey.

Then the curse: the wrath of some crazed mountain-witch, the vow that no Sea-Snake should ever find peace as long as she sang to the sea.

And their proud line fell ever further.

Only a single Sea-Snake had been among the first wolves to set foot in Viridian Sound. The first Sea-Snake to step into servitude; the first to promise her life and her magick to another for protection. Yet the price had been too high. Their name, always bowing to the Cyanean line; always melding, fading until —

I am the last, These words were mournful. It is all Cyanea now, all of it.

But that is not my purpose here, River continued. I came in search of a girl. Alara.

Instead he had found a sister.

Marina, His voice was earnest, his gaze searching. Are you truly a seal hunter? Did the knowing change anything at all? Or would she only remain lost, even with her ignorance erased?

Somewhere in the telling of the tale, Marina realized that she knew his name. Her mother had mentioned him, once. Their mother.

She felt dizzy again.

None of it truly registered now, all these strange and fantastical things spoken so softly. Yet she believed him. Somehow, she believed him. Marina pressed her temple to Chakliux's shoulder, releasing a long but quiet sigh that only he would know by the feel of it against his flank.

Sea-Snake. Cyanea.

Why should she care at all?

She met River's eyes again. I am, Marina answered in a voice far steadier than she felt. She mentioned you, once. River - that's your name, isn't it? River... Sea-Snake.

Marina Sea-Snake.

Thank you, She added finally, but her weariness was beginning to show. For telling me. But I... Chakliux is right. I'm a seal hunter now.

She could see how it hurt him. For some reason, that mattered.

And a Sea-Snake, too, maybe, Marina allowed. Her eyes found Chakliux briefly, filled with questions she would not speak until River had gone. But my life is with the seal hunters. I came here because... because I was ill. My - our mother always told me I should go to the sea if I ever needed healing.

Was this what she had meant? Marina didn't know, but maybe River would.

the man unveiled a world wherein chakliux had never existed, and apparently it was the same for the iteration of marina at his side.
but she spoke seal hunters first, and he offered her a small smile when she glanced his way. this — snake brother speaking of rivers and faraway places, he did not understand the home that marina had made here for herself.
the berrybright eyes rested too on the man, waiting.

River stilled as Marina spoke of their mother, of seal hunters and illness.

Illness.

He answered the question in her eyes with a faint incline of his head, a hesitant step forward. May I? The witchpriest murmured, and when Marina nodded her assent he stepped close enough to take in the scent of her. She smelled of the sea — tinged with something sour, something he knew as well as the blood in his veins.

Your sickness is not cured, He spoke loud enough for the seal hunter man to hear. Only dormant. It will never be cured. But it will not plague you so much if you learn to avoid what causes it to flare anew. Certain flowers and trees. Glittering mountain dust. I can show your husband... Chakliux.

River's eyes found him then, expectant. Thus far he had not addressed the man — but he could hardly bring his sister to see the very plants which would bring her to sickness again. It would have to be Chakliux.

marina would always be ill, and this clutched horribly at chakliux. he had thought the sea ice might bring her a lasting peace, but it seemed not.
but this brother, it seemed, had medicines of his own. the scarred muzzle of the seal hunter swung toward him, and he nodded, ready to travel anywhere in their wilds to find the plant, the dust, that her brother said would help. 
"tell me these things, please."