Ankyra Sound well that’s just not the same.

cayetano was a distant memory. kheviel already forgotten to the shores. etienne and suzu were gone. maman was preoccupied with lucette. sobeille found herself missing maleah.

she wandered down the familiar footpath to ankyra’s secluded beach. it was the first time she dared re-enter ankyra since her encounter with the witch. she stuck to places where there was open sight lines out of abundant caution— but the witch’s scent had long ago been laid over by salt and wind.

as she strolled deeper into the territory she wondered about ajei and arrluk. something ugly stirred in her heart as she thought of the boy - how attentive he was to her friend. she recognized she ought to be grateful ajei had someone looking out for her, but sobeille thought of what her world would look like if she stood in his place.

she kicked at a small rock and watched it spin, leaving a sprawling trace of its edges along the sand.

suddenly inspired to visit the grotto, sobeille turned towards its mouth.

I didn't see the AW tag but saw it as a lonely thread. If this was meant for someone else, lmk! <3

Inus was still nowhere to be found.

Seeking anything in the taiga was pretty much a lost cause. At least, that's what she'd come to realize this entire week -- her scent was as faint as a wind's whisp. Tekk had practically dug roads with her feet from frustration, given the the number of circles she'd went in, trails she retraced! Growing tired of it, the phoenix tried for another area instead.

Now she'd been westward. In an area that looked to be nothing but coast; sands and a field of sea. The young she-wolf had always carried a quite fondness for the ocean, even if Inus wouldn't be caught dead near one. Even so, with her missing and Tekkara in an area she wouldn't likely be in, it wouldn't hurt to try.

It wouldn't occur to her, yet, but the presence of another treaded just ahead of her direction...

it was aw! stoked to have u <33

for a time tekkara remained undetected; it was not until the winds shifted that sobeille halted, sensing her scent on the breeze.

she made for it immediately, coming to spot a wolf that was not so different from her if height was no factor. she stood against the sands as a scalding ember, her russet fur aflare with burgundy and tawny. sobeille was quite taken by this tapestry of color - it was the first non-sapphiquian she'd seen that bore such likeness to the women of her creed.

who be you? sobeille called to the stranger, noticing she was tall -- taller even, than any wolf she knew.

<3<3<3

It looks like she wasn't so alone, after all.

A smaller girl -- who's distinctively large ears and ebony mask drew a particular interest from Tekk. Other than that, she seemed to hold an uncanny resemblance to her own pelt. Growing up, the phoenix was noted to look nothing like the parents that reared her at all, but a distant relative she had never seen alive but heard whispered in tales. This was the first time she'd seen another with a fire-stricken pelt like her own. Almost as if she was staring at some distant relative.

Huh? Me? so focused was her stare on the almost-doppelgänger, her voice and question caught her off guard Name's Tekk. -- and what a strange accent she'd carry, too.

My bad. Just aint' seen someone lookin' like you before is all.

for a brief hopeful second, sobeille wondered if this was some relative discharged from eresta. that hope took its last breath when the stranger -- tekk -- took her in with equal regard and mentioned she'd never seen someone looking like her. the wolves of sapphique were steeped in red tradition; this one must be from the mainland.

she wondered if there was some distant relation there, eras upon eras ago. so distant the past that the oral tradition had died, and they had forgotten the face of their ancestors.

she noted this woman bore an accent too; it wasn't the clobbersome brogue of the mainland, but neither was it the pleasant cadence of the coast.

den you ain't be knowin' de wolves of sapphique den. sobeille quipped, sweeping her apprising gaze over the woman anew. would it be self-involved to say she found her striking?

where you be from, tekk?

once pleasantries were exchanged, sobeille found her interest wanting. the woman was too hale for her to try anything untoward, and they were too close to sapphique for sobeille to be confident nothing would come back to haunt her. at a crossroads then, and disappointed for the missed opportunity, sobeille made her goodbye and stalked stiffly for home.