Ankyra Sound to be bold

He'd lost his nerve when faced with the forest that first time, and spent the majority of the next morning dwelling on the fact he was too afraid to step foot beyond the forest's edge. For someone who had been through so much, some trees shouldn't have been a problem. There was something dark and twisted inside of Firefly that made this so much harder — and he didn't want to admit it, but it likely started because of his attack. Even he could not ignore the significance of what he'd been noticing the past few days; flashes of memory, a rise in his anxiety level, moments that should've been easy but somehow were transformed in to the opposite.

He decided to keep to the beach for most of the afternoon. The man tried to keep thoughts of the forest — and of that brief flash of something terrible he had seen when meeting Svalin — far from his mind. In an effort to keep busy he was patrolling along the oceanside where the sound of the waves crashing drowned out most of his thoughts, until he noticed something plump roosting among some discarded beams of wood.

Firefly crept towards it across the sand, picking his way through patches of weeds and discarded shards of shell; when he got close enough to look at the creature's fat-but-smooth body, he frowned in confusion. It was a seal pup. But he'd never seen one before, and didn't know what to make of it.

patrol. hunt. cache. mark. drive out whatever stench of drageda remained.
her eyes had grown dull with sorrow; too often, erzulie paused in her tasks to look up toward the forbidding cliffs. rosalyn was there, a prisoner, and with each day, the harlot was less and less sure of her lover's fate.
swallowing, she lowered her head and strode onward. the scent of the man she had treated was here — erzulie realized belatedly she had not heard his name, and so took up his trail and followed it to his scarred frame.
in response to his lowered body, she too took up a stalk, flanking him when she had drawn near enough. a seal pup, and unguarded from the looks of it.

Any other Rusalkan would have identified this creature on sight and called out - summoning a cabal of seafarers to pull the life from it. Firefly thought of this but wanted to investigate first, and circled the creature. He watched like a raptor crouched and ready to tear apart a goat; his good eye aligned with the chubby almost-spherical shape.

His ear turned when he heard steps behind himself, but the man did not feel compelled to look away from the pup. The creature had been deposited by the sea (maybe abandoned temporarily by its mother) and they were deep enough in the Sound that Firefly need not worry about his companions motives.

"a seal pup," erzulie murmured in a low voice to her companion "rare to see one dis far up de beach." falling silent now, the woman's gaze lifted to search for any sign of the creature's mother. she knew that the seal cows could be fierce indeed when it came to protection of their pups, but the she-beast was not present.
slowly erzulie began to move, intending to catch the fat thing in a pincer of wolf-jaws. a quarry of this size would feed more than they; their kill must be swift, however, in case the mother was indeed close and returned suddenly.

He didn't know what a seal was, obviously. When she spoke, the fat thing seemed to bounce in place and try to get a look at her — unaware of the dangers that wolves posed, too new to the world and inexperienced in its cruelty. As she mentioned pup, Firefly's interest turned sharp and he frowned, creeping closer so that he could thwack its rotund shape with his nose. The little thing squalled a plaintive note like some kind of squeaky toy charmed to life.

As Erzulie drew close she seemed to be aiming her teeth at the creature's small face, and so Firefly mirrored her and went for its useless tail-end. He found it strange that the creature did not have legs as he knew them; no hooves, no paws, but fish fins webbed with skin and rubbery hide — and he realized it was some sort of marine beast, very similar to the landlocked prey but also very different. No wonder it was such an easy target. He waited for Erzulie to make the first move but as soon as she did, he dove in with his own teeth and felt their blunt tips slide across the pup's blubbery mass, then sink in to the closest hind appendage.

she lunged; her teeth pierced the pup's hide just beneath the round swell of its skull. it squealed, and then firefly was upon it, seizing its bottom half with her own fangs. she bit deeper, eyes searching warily for any sign of the mother, which might surely be drawn by its child's cries; erzulie sought the spine beneath the thick layers of blubber.
a bit deeper and the harlot might snap it, the seal's writhing controlled by her packmate's own grasp. presently, she began to thrash her jaws to and fro, hoping to cut more quickly into the fatty flesh, while blood pooled beneath her teeth and fired her hunger.

The seal protested, obviously. It writhed and called out in pain, a futile venture that amounted to nothing more than a backdrop of strange new sounds while the two wolves worked at it. Erzulie was more practiced; she knew to be quick and thorough, while Firefly was still getting used to the soft and supple fatty tissue he'd grasped between his teeth.
The blood soaked through the snow, fanning out from the creature as it was pulled at, bitten, torn ragged, until its terrified bleating became tired sobs, and one of the wolves finally put it out of its misery. Firefly sank back for a moment and examined the scene as if he hadn't been one of the perpetrators of the seal's demise—licking blood from his lips and teeth, feeling that warmth go cold.

she too, rocked back upon her haunches, tongue lolling with the effort of a kill well-made. an appreciative smile was given to her packmate; the harlot would take her watch while he partook of their travail. the flesh of a seal pup was tender, fatty; it would be almost sweet, and when it had been all but consumed, the scraps of its velveteen fur would make a fine herb-bag indeed.

Given the silent permission to eat, he dove forth and grappled at one of the still limbs, and with some shaking of his head and use of powerful shoulders, he pulled free one of the strange appendages that helped the pup glide through the water — or would have, if it had survived. With it came a section of fatty shoulder meat that dribbled yellow, but he was not disgusted by this. If anything the meat would be put to good use. He savored each bite, hastily snapping up the warm muscle tissue and finally, licking fat from his lips as he drew away.

the fat was good, would enrich their fur and strengthen their bones. she joined him a handful of moments later, hungering for the sweet flesh even as she spun mental plans for where to cache the rest. firefly of course would be given half; without him, erzulie was not sure if the pup could have been taken. it was good to have packmates once more.

Seal would probably not be one of his favorite foods, but he did appreciate the slick fat and the calories. It was a delicacy from this point on; something new to add to caches and reward those that work hard upon Rusalkan soil. Once the meal was concluded and they'd eaten their fill, the rest would be buried (if there was any) and, with a friendly brush of his nose through Erzulie's golden fur, he would be on his way again - to do patrols maybe, or find something nice to add to the caves.

i shall fade here <

she returned his gesture, smiling at him as he departed where they had buried the meat. she herself fell to the task of scraping bits of tissue and flesh from the edges of the pelt. when she had finished, it would make a fine place for her herb stores, and as she worked, the harlot found the muse to hum.