Dragoncrest Cliffs First thing I did was climb in to a rum bottle.

The seal hadn't meant to be caught between currents, but it had been, and as it was too young to be strong enough against the pull, it had been swept down in to the depths to suffocate; upon surfacing its body collided with the lowest range of beaches beneath the cliffs, and that was where Raimo had found it.

Bobbing, bloated and stiff, the tide slammed it against a henge of stonework as it tried to force it on to an embankment. Raimo worked his way along the beach quickly so that he would not be caught by the sweeping, frothing lip of the ocean; he grabbed for the creature's snout as it was the closest, and then worked to pull it up and away.

By the time he'd drawn it on to the dirt edge of the beach, the water was seeping in close. He could leave it there and hope the tide would carrying further while risking the loss of it, should the ocean draw it out instead, and decided to keep working alone. Inch by inch, the water rose. Inch by inch, the seal's soggy body moved.

It took Raimo a number of hours to pull the thing up to high ground, and at that point the water had begun to recede again. He was drenched and cold. The body sagged against the ridge where he'd propped it, with the sun beginning to dry its top line.

got carried away ok

erzulie had forgotten the demands of so many children.
she had been lucky to receive only two doted-upon daughters last season, both of which occupied her mind as one newborn or another crammed against her teats. golden nieve and golden solaire, gone. she imagined the same for coraline.
in those faces she had seen herself.
and two of them had already gone away, early, to escape the first face that had made them.
she imagined this, and soon fell into a mournful mien. she had been so much younger, it felt, with her first. body more robust and prepared for the endless drain.
erzulie was not recovering well, but she found this to be a source of irritation. bleeding she could staunch; sickness she could quell. this she could not stop.
this year, rosalyn would not nurse her own litter alongside erzulie's. it was the first year for it that they had been together, and she did not at all enjoy the new and specific loneliness.
she seized upon the first opportunity that came to leave her children, racked with guilt but needing the touch of the guiding sea to explore the new sensation. she went at once to the salt, neither searching for raimo nor expecting him to be there when she glided silkenly from the sea, streaming and gasping in an open and orgiastic sort of release. eyes narrowed coldly to find herself having stumbled upon a man no less, though it was tempered as she looked to the swathes cut into the sand, and the way raimo seemed consumed by the ocean in a way that she would never be. "an impressive job," she commented, proceeding to swing her chai-tea pelt until it settled in spikes along the body still holding the curve of where her cubs had been carried.

Raimo was breathing hard and fast. He felt aches in his shoulders and his back from the work of pulling the fat, wet creature free of the rocks. The cooling ocean wind was not as welcome as one might have thought, as it chilled his soggy body too much and too quickly; but he could not complain, he had not the breath nor the want.

The dead seal was free of the surf. It was bloated beyond what was normal for its kind, fish-bitten along its belly, missing an eye should anyone check. Raimo did not know if it would be a suitable meal or if it was too far gone for such — he was not a seawolf, and everything along the shore smelled like death to him.

So when Erzulie made her way along the rocks to where he was, Raimo took no notice. If she had remained upon her patch of wet sand he likely would not have looked over to see her, but she spoke, and Raimo was surprised to find he was no longer alone. It was a passing sensation.

The sound of his teeth clicking as he hoisted the anchor of his tongue and closed his mouth was likely lost among the pulse of the waves, but her words were not. Raimo was unable to reply immediately; he was catching his breath, his sides undulating to a different rhythm.

as the man called raimo caught his breath from the time within the ocean, erzulie sniffed delicately over the carcass. no sign of rot, though she trusted he would not have expended such energy if he did not think it was a fine meal. therefore her once-over was cursory, and she nosed beneath one limp flipper for the blubber along the side of the still body.
had he eaten the rich warm seal fat before? she looked to raimo, quelling her hunger. she would wait to sup with him, and for now only folded plume around her paws and watched the ocean move against the shoreline.
she thought of the new children she had left in the den, far too early — the mintglow eyes shut.

Pleased as he felt for surviving the tumult, he did not see the victory of hauling an already dead porpoise (corpus porpoise - ?) to land as narrowed as this. It had been a dire venture that had nearly killed him multiple times. For that it was impressive, maybe. Not the quality of the meat. Not to him, anyway.

When he finally caught his breath he wasn't sure what to do with himself.

The thing must'a dashed itself on the rocks. Maybe it got caught at the wrong time. He put the true ownership of the kill with the sea. Swallowing a mouthful of salted air lined with the vaguest taste of bloated fatty flesh, and Raimo was tempted to roll it back out there again. Nasty sweet-sour flavors hit the back of his throat.

Was a helluva time getting at it. Whatever it is. This would be his cue to pat it across its rotund belly like some kind of used car salesmen. The depression of his palm left an obvious indent.

it was a good lot of meat, and erzulie saw the merit of masculine musculature. it had given them resources in a time of children, however, and it was for this she praised him quietly. pride would not allow the word to pass her lips; the harlot had learned her lesson in adulating men.
it would taste high, but she did not care. layers of fat to such a thing. and she saw how raimo put aside her words for the dark water. "she gives an' takes."
scarab.
hiding the brief solemn moment behind glancing toward the ocean herself.
"a seal. i t'ought dey be wolves, de firs' time i saw dem in de water. wolves wid no ears an' odd legs." she chuckled to think of her fully foolish younger self. "dey live in de sea, but sometimes de sea be takin' one along. we all give som'tin to her in de end."

A seal.

He had heard tales of them from travelers, after egging them on for stories as a boy. At a time when the concept of pirates was new and wonderful to him. They spoke of various beasts found only in the sea; the sea itself was a concept he had no understanding of until much later in life.

Erzulie spoke of deeper things. Loss, from the tone of her voice. A relationship with the sea that Raimo found intriguing. Had he been in a better mood he might have engaged more; sought answers to many questions left unasked.

The only one that comes to mind now is the subtle reiteration of something Erzulie had said: She? Surprised to hear the woman speak of the sea as a living thing. Perhaps it was — fickle as any woman.

"aye. she," the harlot smiled. "de sailors, ones who have always lived an' died by de whims of de sea: we call her fickle. we call her fair. like a mot'er she gives an' gives of herself. endless bounty for de takin'. an' like a woman she cannot be held, an' t'ose who seek to pin her receive a lesson in her wrath."
grief and reverence passing over the spice-hue face.
"have you not heard talk of de ocean as a woman, raimo?" erzulie asked, a foray into the unsaid beneath the coat of their new hunter.