Ankyra Sound now I wish to piss on his parade.

maybe an @Illidan? <3

the harlot moved in blackpine.
her sides evidenced what she and firefly had wrought together, but rosalyn too was swelling with the fruit of her own entanglement. he had taken them both, then set about ousting the fierce old wolf who had founded rusalka, elevating rosalyn beside him. 
small paws, low breaths; erzulie controlled her stalk as the small head of a stoat lifted, searching both for her and the scent trail of the rabbit it had stalked into their claim. and while the latter would make better eating, she felt strongly the urge to prove herself.
if only to herself.
the harlot moved in blackpine, soon swallowed by the fragrant shadows.

he had taken a strong liking to the blackpine in the sound. it was a place that he felt most at ease. while he did not believe that his mother would appreciate such feelings toward the ocean, illidan missed the world that existed inland. he remained in the sound because it was his mother’s home, and it was the place of his birth. somewhere inside of him, illidan believed that he should have felt some sort of kinship with the tumbling waves and the winding caverns in the stone.
 
the ghost followed after the scent of rabbit until it had led him to a familiar figure. he recalled his last conversation with erzulie and grimaced at the thought of revisiting their disagreements. instead of avoiding her, the dark-hooded young man chuffed to catch her attention. his lean limbs were quick to clear the space between them, and he approached her side at a steady trot.

the young beta soon made his presence known, joining her with a smooth churn of his young limbs. briefly envious of illidan's grace superimposed against her own heavier step, erzulie put aside these thoughts, offering the male a welcoming curve of her lips. "de prince of rusalka," she teased gently, but surely that was one of his titles, even over the butterscotch svalinn.
illidan knew she was with child, and erzulie saw little reason to dwell upon it at this time. if the boy wanted to know about it, he would ask, in his low and direct way. "how have you been?" the harlot chose instead, settling her eyes upon the intelligent hardness of his own.

prince of rusalka...

he should have felt pride for such a title. instead, the boy lowered his head to her and turned his sights away. he did not feel like royalty on their land. he had so much swimming about in his mind that he was certain it was going to spill over. he only hoped that he could avoid shedding that weight onto erzulie.

unfortunately for him, the woman asked him how he had been. this was when his sharp glance was returned to her features. he breathed a small sigh before canting his head just slightly to the left. “did rosalyn discuss the meeting with you?” illidan inquired. he wanted to know where to start, if he was going to bare his soul and share his mistakes with her.

illidan spoke again, and his tones carried a gravity that erzulie felt in her very marrow. "rosalyn and i have not spoken of it," she rejoined somberly, settling herself before the boy, hunt forgotten for now. no one had told her anything; that was a great portion of her distaste and anger these days. to be wife, to be important one day, then cast aside when her lover was elevated above her and conspired in whispers with the man whose children she carried — it was all cumbersome for erzulie.
"what has happened, illidan?" she asked quietly. let him speak now; he could not add to her burdens, not with the weight she already carried, and the woman lifted her dark muzzle somewhat, waiting for whatever the young beta would say.

the answer was surprising to him. he had never been mated before, of course. illidan was too young to know what it looked like to attempt to pledge himself to another soul for any extended periods of time. still, he believed it was odd that rosalyn kept erzulie out of the details on their meeting. after all, wasn’t it the pregnant women who were so important to both her and firefly? hadn’t that been the primary concern and their biggest reason for relocation? if erzulie didn’t know what had happened…
 
the young man realized that he had just placed himself in a very challenging position. he held his tongue for a long moment, searching her features with his sharp gaze. it burned him to think that he was going to have to be the one to break the news to her. in spite of all of this, illidan did not want to keep secrets from the woman. he had grown to care for her, and he valued her opinion and her level head.
 
“there was a meeting between firefly and erzulie that i caught the tail end of… they were discussing plans to move the pack, or only move the pregnant women to try to keep them away from drageda,” he confessed to her in a level tone. “i fought them on it. i tried telling them that the entire pack would not move with them if they made that choice – that they would weaken us by splitting us up, but all that i could feel was that i was a child to both of them,” the young man then stated. he gritted his teeth together and clenched his jaw tightly against the memory of it and how frustrated he had been to stand there and be ignored.
 
“firefly finally compromised and told me to speak with my mother before any final plans were made. god, in that time they’ve both jumped in and out of the leadership rank like it was a cool tidepool on a hot summer day…”

the woman's lips thinned into a cold line as illidan spoke, but truly she was unsurprised. of course she would now be seen as something other than an individual, chattel to be moved about, a vessel for growing seed. the bitterness over not being consulted ate at erzulie, but it was not illidan's fault that they had seen only his youth and not his sheer intelligence.
"dey will not order me to leave rusalka," she said finally, her voice a steel note of finality. mintglow eyes flicked to the young wolf. "i only bowed to your mot'er. if dese two wish my loyalty, den dey will need to earn it." for merely taking a rank, or assuming the one given, did not make a leader make, and erzulie still felt the mortal wound to her pride that rosalyn was elevated above her and now saw fit to make decisions on her behalf.

he watched her features transform into a look of disapproval so cold, he could feel it in his bones. he wondered if he had been the right person to deliver that news. in the end, he must have thought that if rosalyn hadn’t shared the details about their meeting with erzulie, she probably wasn’t going to. as much as it might have frustrated him, he could not even imagine how the woman beside him must have felt. in the end, he opted not to speak on the matter for fear of overstepping.
 
“good,” was what he decided to say in a solemn tone. “i really didn’t want you to leave.” there was an earnestness there that hadn’t been there before. in his time building himself up within his mother’s pack, he had grown very fond of the woman erzulie. he was not certain how she might have felt, but her steadfast loyalty to his mother was something that he admired.
 
“not that it matters what i want because… it’s your decision. no one has the right to make that choice for you.”

he was a good leader, a strong son. would that her own children would have half his resolve, erzulie pledged to herself, whispering it down into the marrow of her, into her core where they lay between her bones waiting to be born. rosalyn meant well, she knew, but her wounded pride would not allow her to conceptualize that now. "t'ank you for telling me, illidan," she murmured softly. "if dere was evah a need for a coup," erzulie added wryly, "i would be your quartermaster." 
the brief language of pirates stirred her heart, the passage of her soul; she sighed and a weariness crossed her face. "i will not run from drageda again." and surely he felt the same, true as the old earth beneath their feet.

she should not have wished such things for her own children. illidan had endured worse than most to achieve what others would have considered his indomitable strengths. even still, he was not as level-headed as he would have liked. the wildling was still very much influenced by the powerful waves of emotion that crashed beneath his flesh like waves in a tsunami. there were many things he did not understand, and many more that he wished he didn't. that was life, and he had accepted this was how the world was meant to be. he only hoped it would be kinder on her own children.

“i could ask for nothing more,” the ghost remarked to her, his tone taking on a somber and genuine reflection of how he felt. “i would protect you and your children with my life, if it ever came to such things,” he then admitted to her quietly, turning his sights away from the woman. how sweet it would have been to see the other side of life. he had not given much thought to how he would leave that world, but in the place of someone he loved.... well, it seemed a good way to go.

"an' i would do de same for your own, though i hope it does not come to dat," the jezebel murmured. one day, erzulie hoped to hear of the darker things lurking in illidan, the words and events he kept locked in the reticent column of his throat. what manner of pain had shaped him; had the young leader ever known joy? for all his youthful appearance, he wore the countenance of one far older.
"would you like to know a funny t'ing?" erzulie purled after a moment of solemnity had passed. turning her gaze to the sea, a sigh whispered through her. "you would have been my first choice for de fat'er of dese children," the chai-tea wolfess murmured softly, for in truth, she had always respected illidan a great deal more than the other males of the pack.

he understood such wishes. if given the choice, illidan would have ensured that no harm ever came to the wolves of rusalka. he would have given his life and soul to make that a certainty. that was not how the world worked, though. there was no telling what the future would hold, or how it would shape their lives. the young ghost could only hope that it was in a positive light. he would have liked to see erzulie's children grow up happily. he would have liked to see them live the life that he had been intended to have before everything had been taken from him...

her next comment took him by surprise. the dark-hooded man turned his sights on her swiftly. a lump had formed in the back of his throat that he could not swallow. he had carried a childish crush on the woman next to him. those feelings had followed him into his adult life, but he had never spoken of such things. he did not dare to admit something so close to his heart. erzulie's statement did not inspire happiness in him – as it should have – but a heavy feeling of sadness.

“your children...” he gritted his teeth, clenching his jaw tightly against the pricking of tears at the back of his eyes, “will be better off with the father they have. he will be good to them – for them – and that is what they deserve, erzulie.” his chest ached as the words left his mouth. he would never have been a fitting father. he could not even be half the man his own father was. the ghost believed that erzulie and her children deserved all good things. he was not as good as he seemed.

she watched illidan's countenance change, the grief that seemed to sunder the boy to his bones. perhaps it was sorrow over what could not come to pass; perhaps it was something else. "my children will grow with you in dere lives," she commented, searching his stricken features with a gaze that sought knowingness. "dat is what dey deserve." 
regardless of whether or not she too would ever be honest about such things, illidan had grown upon her heart. despite his youth, despite the fact she knew little about the young man. it was the tragedy in him to which she was drawn, that which was reflected in her own heart, a fickle foundation for anything lasting. and so for both of their sakes it would remain silent.
"i must rest," she said at length, standing to her feet gingerly with a sigh. it had been a draining day already; the babes moved restlessly within her, and suddenly all erzulie wished was the comforting silence of her den.

if only that he could tell her how wrong she was. her children deserved so much more. they deserved to grow knowing that nothing could stop them. they deserved to exist in a world that would never hurt them the way that it had others. for every bad thing that had happened to illidan, he would have taken a million more if it meant that they would never need to endure the hardship that he had known. it would have only been childish – foolish – to admit these things to erzulie. so, the ghost held his tongue with gritted teeth.
 
the woman told him that she needed to rest. illidan bowed his head to her with a soft sigh and watched as she turned away from him. he did not stop her from leaving. part of him was certain that she had grown tired of his grief. he knew that she was dealing with more than he could imagine. when she had disappeared from his sight, illidan turned toward the ocean waters and set out at a swift canter until his feet touched the lapping waves and the sea breeze tousled his fur.