Dragoncrest Cliffs if you can't feel me?

dated to april 5th. LF sapphique members, possibly murkwood if they're around.

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the sea could be heard before it could be seen. a low, endless hush like breath pulled through a hollowed chest, rising and falling in time with twitch’s weary stride. she crested a dune with paws packed full of grit and salt, and there—at last—was the ocean. vast and iron-grey, it stretched unbroken to the edge of the world, its white-lipped waves carving crescents into the shore like hungry mouths.

she didn’t look moved. her ears twitched at the wind’s cry, and her gaze lingered on the trembling line where sky met water. there was something ancient in it. old and watching.

she stepped down the ridge and left a winding trail through sand stiffened by sea mist, limbs aching with the slow drag of travel. it is quiet—eerily so. still, she was here. alone. as promised. sapphique awaited somewhere forward, she could smell it. the witches of the south. twitch scowled at the horizon. "…s' isn't creepy at all."

hope your tit balm’s worth it, ameline.

in no mood to humor interlopers, sobeille was upon the stranger in an instant.

two things stayed the reckless impulse to drive fang into her; the first was most assuredly that she was female.

the second was the familiar scent emanating from the huntress' rich pelt. even then, it did little to foster goodwill in sapphique's emerald.

you be treadin' too close to sapphique for comfort, friend. the hard glint of her gaze suggested 'friend' might not have its usual connotation.

sobeille's tail arced as she approached. state your name an' purpose.

the other woman rose like a shadow between sea and sky, twitch’s hackles gave the barest ripple, she stands firm in place, muscles tensing briefly beneath her coat, wire-tight and prepared—not for a fight, but for flight, should it come to that. the slope of her shoulder dipped slightly, cautious.

her voice landed sharp, and twitch resisted the instinct to recoil at the demand. stared hollowly into the woman's eyes instead, focusing a single point while her body warmed like she'd been lit ablaze.

"ameline sent me. said you've got allow." a beat. then, remembering manners like grit in her teeth, she added: "twitch."

in less trying circumstances, sobeille might overlook what she felt was a breach of proper etiquette: the refusal to give ground, the hollow staring straight into her gaze.

the cliff suffered tremendous loss at the hands of those who did not respect -- or fear -- sapphique.

no longer.

she responded by drawing to her full height, gaze direct and pressing. ameline held no power here, and sobeille would not stand for disrespect at her borders. she would sooner send this messenger home with newfound scars than subject sapphique to one more second of a wolf undermining the prestige that was owed to her halls. ameline said she had to allow what, specifically? sobeille’s ears swept forward with a snort. i ain't got to do shit. an' if you don't be showin' de proper respect in de next two seconds, ameline goin' to be short a messenger.

twitch’s stomach dropped like a stone in a frozen lake. twitch didn’t know what she’d done wrong, but she knew she’d done it—in near record time, too!

the second the stranger’s tone shifted, her posture followed suit: shoulders folding in, chin tucking, tail lowering in slow motion as if the weight of those words was dragging it down by the spine. her ears flicked back until they all but disappeared into the curve of her skull. a silent concession.

well, shit. "sorry. i didn’t mean—i’m not—" the words clawed out of her like something she hadn't rehearsed, because she hadn’t. she should have, but now she didn’t know what the fuck to do. her mind was already sprinting back along the trail she’d taken, calculating whether she had enough energy to make the return trip without being chased along the way.

she stared somewhere past sobeille’s legs, heart thudding loud in her ears, bloodless and locked in place. stupid. fucking stupid. one week of travel and she was going to blow it at the finish line.

"i’m just here for trade. if it’s not a good time, i can leave." the offer came low, near-whispered, already edging toward surrender.

ameline expected her to allow what exactly? sobeille’s expression hardened, gums tight over bared teeth.

all it took was the stranger’s quick course of correction; sobeille’s posture slackened, the menacing leer shifting to suspicion.

it never occurred to her that she’d simply misunderstood the woman. ‘allow’ was so close to ‘aloe’ that sobeille never considered the alternative as a possibility.

dat’s better. conceded sapphique’s would-be siren queen, tail lowering a few notches. a trade for what?

“uh… allow.”

she said it again. twitch’s eyes narrowed, as if maybe that wasn’t the word she meant but maybe if she said it more confidently it would become right. it didn’t. it hung there like a dead bird between them, limp and awkward. the silence that followed was long enough for her heart to start thudding again, real slow and heavy.

oh! “oh god, no, sorry—aloe,” she amended too quickly, voice flat with urgency, correcting herself like a kid caught cheating on a test. “i meant aloe. for soothing. not permission. sorry.”

already, she wanted to jump into the ocean and drown. what the fuck even was aloe, to most wolves? green goop from the ground, probably. and yet here she was, playing ambassador from the valley who couldn’t even articulate her trade goods without sounding like a lunatic.

a pause, her eyes flicking to the space just beside sobeille’s face, never quite meeting her eyes again. “i can offer meat. herbs. or time, if it’s that kind of trade. She didn't specify on what you would need,” she meant work. meant she’d lift rocks or clean dens or chase gulls off a tidepool for a week if that’s what it took. anything to not go home with empty handed.

realizing she'd misheard bearclaw's emissary, sobeille fell into contemplative silence.

if she felt shame at all for the poor treatment delivered, it did not show. mentally, she was retracing steps -- all the way back to the small cache kept at bluepeace.

and an idea too malicious to bear sprung to mind of ameline reaching for aloe tinctured with poison.

but allies were in short supply this day, and sobeille's needs great.

'ow many leaves?

twitch blinked. her eyes flitted up, just barely, like a deer checking the horizon for the scent of blood. oh! she'd fixed it!—.. mostly. sobeille’s voice was flatter now, stripped of its earlier venom, but it hadn’t quite gentled. twitch couldn’t read her, and the quiet that had followed her earlier correction felt like a punishment in itself.

still, she’d fixed it. barely.

[indnet]she straightened, but only a little. her ears lifted halfway, like they wanted to stand up but thought better of it. “i… don’t know how many,” she admitted it like someone wading into deep water and hoping it wasn’t hiding teeth. “she said you had a salve—something to soothe the skin after nursing. enough to last through weaning, i guess?”

“whatever you think is fair,” she said after a moment, and she meant it. her tail curled loosely at her hocks, twitching once like a ribbon caught in wind. “i’ll do whatever work you ask. no arguments.”

regaining her typical flat affect, sobeille waited until the stranger managed an answer.

without responding, she disappeared. it was bold of her to leave the borders unattended, to give this woman an excuse to traipse her territory -- perhaps she wished her to try.

perhaps she hoped for a reason-- any -- to make the serpentine emotions coiling within her justifiable.

when she returned, it was with a peltskin bulging with contents. in there, twitch would find three large leaves broken into quarters. a strip of seal fat. and finally, three dried stems of yarrow.

it had taken all of her strength to not slip some other herb in there, too.

she placed the napsack at twitch's feet. dis is what i be givin' you. de aloe -- she motioned. den, a strip of fat an' three twigs of yarrow. a sparkle of something -- perhaps resentment -- in her gaze when she spoke next. do not be eatin' de yarrow. it is poison. when de pups are weaned, mash de yarrow an' de fat together until it becomes a paste. i be usin' stones for dis. it will keep for weeks as long as de fat is mixed in well.

there it seemed sobeille was done talking, but against her more violent side, she spoke again.

oh. one more t'ing. the gleam in her eyes resurfaced. i 'ope you be knowin' dat aloe is poisonous, an' any puppy dat nurses on a tit rubbed wit' it will die.

idiots, she thought savagely as her voice faded into the wind.