Stavanger Bay as i climb into the skies

"je te vois," the harlot purled to whatever loa were at her shoulder that cool evening, settling her haunches upon the sun-dappled earth and observing the details of what lay before her. a lair, moated partially by a small pool of currently frozen water beneath a light dusting of newfallen snow. entry the den itself was barred by heavy stones, piled eons ago, erzulie suspected; wolves who approached must diverge to the right or the left and climb to the platform above.
presently, the she-wolf gathered herself and with long strides, ascended to the stone-bridge that overlooked the basin. to her back, an impenetrable wall of rock. here her jaws parted in a smile; any who drew close would be seen, and that was as the woman preferred. slipping her tawny shoulders beneath the pale arch of the denmouth, erzulie breathed in only the stale scents of beasts that had long gone, the ivoried bits of bone along the cold floor evidence of their one-time presence.
yes — she padded its depth and back, noting not without a wry delight that two wolves would able to occupy the space pleasantly enough. and was that not her purpose.
erzulie reemerged, lifting her velveteen muzzle into the air and searching for traces of a specific scent. it was not upon the wind, not here. a smirk curved her lips, and in the next moment, she had descended, arcing in a quick leap over the pond, and set off at a paced lope.
a hunt to hone her knowledge of the bay, and for her efforts, @Smokestep at its end.

He had grown sensitive to the fact that he did not know what was happening in Raptor’s life. Smokestep had spent nights pacing his den, fretful, knowing that he had damaged a relationship that he felt was necessary to his life and unable to fix it. The corsair had been wrought with his own inability to cope with the actions and reactions that had turned his life unexpectedly. Try as he might, the pirate was not always that quick on his feet, and he had a preference of lazy afternoons to bustling weekdays, so the flood of stressful emotions had done very little good to the hot-headed youth. The numbers of his crew were strong, and he had a good relationship with most of the members within it. Still, there were those that he cared very specifically for.
 
Feeling as though he was at a loss, the marauder made his way out of the caves in the stone and onto the sandy beaches. The sound of water meeting shore offered him a sense of calm, and he breathed deep the saline breeze that drifted across the bay. There was weight to the yearling’s shoulders. He did not know how to relieve himself of it, so he slung it there like a well-worn pack and toted it everywhere he wandered. Frustration overtook him and with a snort, Smokestep set off with lengthy strides. There was little direction to his trot, but he found himself chest deep in the waves; his mismatched gaze rested on the setting sun.  

the forest thinned, giving way to glimmering sands that led to the flickering sound of the brine's tongue against the shoreline. erzulie emerged into the glow of dying sunlight. allowing her eyes to adjust, the wanton blinked rapidly a handful of times, letting out her breath as the trail of the pale marauder's scent lifted to her senses.
he stood with his proud back to her into the darkly lapping brine, watching the great orb fall behind the edge of the distant sea. the woman stole down the sand, peering with a vaguely feline distaste at the foam-edged waves. however, if this was to be her home, the ocean must become her spine. 
not a sea-wolf, erzulie chided herself, lowering haunches to the shoreline and draping her cinnamon-stippled plume across her forepaws. the woman turned her own eyes toward the rich glow, watching the sky darken as it faded.

Troubled, but surrounded by what made him whole, Smokestep basked in the refreshing lull of the ocean water until it had grown too frigid for him to stand it. When he pulled himself from the wading pool and onto the shore, his mismatched gaze found a delicate frame. Narrowing his brow, the pallid corsair shook his coat to shed droplets into the sand and stretched his limbs out so that he could close the space between them. His wild pelt stood rigidly along his neck and shoulders, quill-like in appearance so that it jutted fiercely from his spine. The length of his frame appeared to stretch further with the shadows that fell across the bay. He loomed toward her like a dancing spectral, dripping salt onto the earth.
 
“Don’t think I caught yer name,” he began with a slight canting of his head. The boy was keen on this one; her words had gathered inside of him like a brewing thunderstorm and he was eager to release it. Though, if he knew her type, there would be others she would seek to benefit. Selfishly, he wanted to claim her, but he knew better than to test the temper of a fiery woman. The will of them was stronger than even he could comprehend.

he emerged from the waters; the sea streamed from his flanks, his withers, his muzzle. a veritable sea serpent, pale in the fading light, hackles abristle in a proud forest of thin snowy daggers across his shoulders. the pirate closed the distance between them with unhurried stalking steps, lionish in his approach.
the harlot lifted her chin, eyes slowly tracing the last rivulets of seawater in his pale chinfur, before her two-toned gaze met the hunger of his inquiring gaze. "erzulie, captain," she murmured in tones honeyed only for his ear. "an you nevah gave me yo' own." 
here the woman let a smile curve her lips over the remainder of the words she wished to say; the newest ironsea wolf could perhaps be seen as challenging her king with the brazen burn of her stare into the sunlight haloing his proud flaxen head. how would he take it? fè atansyon, erzulie urged of herself.

When she spoke, he felt the force of her words against him and he thought for a moment he had found a match worth ending all his searches. The yearling peered at her with a curiosity that burned in the deepest pits of his stomach before making its way out in the form of a greeting. “Smokestep,” he offered in a voice that slid past his lips like salt against the stone.  Her own calling was locked away tightly within his mind; he toyed with the sounds that she had let linger against the hairs of his ears before he rattled himself so that he was present in their conversation. It was so peculiar that he should find such a stunning woman at the edges of his land; he was still convinced that she was a spy sent by his father. Skellige knew where his weaknesses were, and the young Cairn would not have put it past the inky Leviathan to do such a thing.
 
The way she looked at him with little regard for the title he held was both alluring and disrespectful. The pale marauder peeled a dark lip over his fangs and issued a low, sniping growl. “Where’d ye come from, lass?” he asked her gruffly, more as a command than a true question. Not once did his gaze leave her features. She could meet the different glint in each of his eyes and he would snap down at her for such insolence, but he would never stray from her features.

his voice scoured her, the lick of drying brine against rock. erzulie straightened beneath the burn of his gaze, passing her tonguetip along her bottom lip as she repeated his name. "smokestep," erzulie purled unhurriedly, flicking forward her spice-flecked auds. her eyes did not stray from his — the harlot welcomed whatever punishing blow the pirate might deliver.
"everywhere, captain. an' nowhere." it was not an answer she knew would satisfy the sea-drenched man. "i was born amon' monsters; dey walked on two legs an' made unholy sounds wid dey mouths." erzulie's two-toned gaze turned toward the horizon beyond smokestep's shoulder, where the sun reached feebly beyond the skyline for just minutes longer.
in the next moment, her eyes upon him, her chin lifted, and a smile spreading like slow dark honey across her lips. "my origin has no'ting to do wid what it is you be wantin' from me."

The woman answered him, and though he was wildly smitten with her, the vagueness to her response had left him lacking. His mismatched gaze roamed her features, bemused at the circumstances he found himself in. She had provided him with just enough information that his further pursuit of it could have been considered rude or pushy. Smokestep felt as though he was entitled to more than a lackadaisical quip that resulted in nothing more than another stranger to occupy his ranks. Frustration bubbling inside of him for a moment before he found himself taken off guard by her closing remark. The words settling in to him and he furrowed his brow, recoiling just enough to show his offense. It was likely that she was entirely correct in her assumption, but the young Captain did not want to believe that she could know his desires so well after only a fleeting conversation.
 
“An’ wot is it ye think I want from ye, miss?” the pirate asked her with a cocked brow. The dark tip of his nose had been lifted upward skeptically. Smokestep stood with rigid limbs and a feigned expression of polite interest in her message. He held his façade with all of his strength and waited to see what answer he would procure with such a direct query.

if she had offended him, erzulie found she enjoyed the sport — not out of cruelty, but simply because the wanton found the approach men had toward her craft amusing. in most instances. letting her mint-glow gaze drink in the tighteness of his stance, erzulie at length tilted her own muzzle, holding the pause as the low roar of the sea at smokestep's back rushed betwixt them.
"me, captain." tonguetip bloomed a tiny spot of pink between her teeth; the woman's attention was captured completely by the pale yearling, the loom of his salt-dripping figure powerful above her. and yet erzulie was brazen. she had not become some shy half-lustful thing; committed utterly to such pleasure was she. and yet even a harlot's heart saw the worth of the man before her.
confident as she was in her assumption she was desired by smokestep, equal burned erzulie's desire for him, and she did not guard its glow from her expression as she gazed up at the captain of ironsea.

“Me, Captain…”
 
The pallid young man reeled his head back, as though she had struck him across the face. His eyes widened, and his jaw unhinged to gape at the brash woman. Her confidence was enough to rival his own, but she had the years and experience for it to be well-placed. As sure of himself as he was, Smokestep could not have helped that he needed to take a step back from her. Instinct told him that he had been pinned verbally, and the way she had spoken to him before did not suggest that she would allow him to slip very far if they were to battle it out. The young Captain was intelligent enough to know when he was fighting an uphill battle.
 
“That’s… a big assumption, lass,” he growled finally, cocking a single brow over a crimson optic. Steadying himself against the oncoming storm, the corsair drew his crown upward and frowned thoughtfully at the woman. This was a feigned expression, because she had been right. Of course, Smokestep wanted her; she was stunning and mystical in ways he had never experienced. Pride was a difficult hurdle to overcome, however.

erzulie let her eyes slip from the captain's parted jaws, regarding the sand demurely but with triumph cascading through each heartbeat — triumph, and a loosening relief that he had not seen fit to punish her isolence. confident though she was of her effect on men, erzulie nevertheless knew she was fallible, and therefore had overstepped to her own cost in times before.
but it was not so now. as the young captain stepped back, clinging to the insistence that she prove herself, the harlot lifted her small body lightly from where she sat upon the sands and shook sand from her plume. thus facing the pale corsair, the chai-tea thing let her lips curve into a bow. "if i have assumed wrongly, den let me take my leave, smokestep." if he would not admit what the pair of them knew to be true, erzulie would remove temptation. she wished not to depart his presence, but such play fired her with interest she was hard-pressed to repress from her gentle expression.

think we could do a fade, sweet Ebs? Smokestep needs to depart the game for a short while to search for Sandpiper. <3

It was when she attempted to dismiss herself that he felt a pang in his chest. Had he pushed too hard? It was difficult for someone so young to embrace the thoughts and feelings that went with sharing his body with another. As much as he enjoyed talking a big game, Smokestep was more reserved than he let on. It was challenging to be so comfortable with himself that he could merely tell her she was right. The thought of what would follow after that was almost too much for him to stomach; he became riddled with anxiety and he found himself crashing in his own mind. It was as though the waves were swallowing his feelings whole. Each sweeping pull of their arms was enough to drag him back underneath and promise not to release him.
 
“Wait… eh… ye ought to just sit n’ get to know me, lass. I’d like that a bit more than anythin’ else,” he offered to her with a small smile of encouragement. Then, the pale young pirate motioned for her to take her seat back in the sands and for them to speak with each other. “First impressions ought to be good ones, aye?” he attempted to follow with a smirk. Without waiting for her, the light-coated corsair dropped himself so that he rested on his elbows and stomach. His eyes turned to her with invitation, and he waited.

not at all, darling!

most men by now would have fallen prey to the practiced surety of erzulie's charms, but smokestep was not among their number. he was set apart in many ways; she should not have been even vaguely surprised when he continued to resist, turning his attention instead to what drove the figure of which she knew he was fond.
and so, arranging herself on the sand he had dampened with when the corsair brought with him the sea, erzulie mirrored his position and began to speak lightly of the time after she had been taken in by marie. never before; the visages of roux and octave were not faces that the chai-tea wolfess wished to unveil — not yet.
a goodly amount of time passed before they parted ways, he to his tasks and she to her den, but the pleasure of their discourse warmed her for the remainder of the day.