Ravensblood Forest letter of marque

backdated to ~March 25th

Muddied ferns and filthy brambles tugged tufts of greasy fur as the Captain nipped material from the undercarriage of the forest and made his way to the mother's rendezvous. He'd left a trail of mess in his wake, and by the time he arrived his offering was a measly bundle of putrid-smelling plant-matter.

"Fer th' nests," he grumbled, in the sourest of moods following the disappearance of Crowell's thrall. If anyone knew where she'd fled, it would be them, and Nox thought himself a kind man to tend to the women this way.

Kind enough that @Mireille or @Chacal may offer him an explanation.

mireille had not recovered.
weak from an ordeal of bloodloss and stress, her days were spent prone, nursing the pups and experiencing a sense of emptiness so vast that it threatened to break mireille from her moorings.
the captain's appearance was met with a blank look. surely he did not expect her to bundle the young among such a disgusting offer.
she indicated a space not far with her red muzzle, watching nox. a wrong move toward she and her cubs would bring a stark, heavy, challenging growl.

cameo!

meredith lingered in the shadows behind him, half-shrouded by the thick fronds of fern and dripping moss. a flick of golden eye, the faint rustle of her dark coat against bark. silent, save for the slow curl of her tail. she did not speak—only watched, poised like a storm held barely at bay.

The presence of the First Mate was barely acknowledged by the Captain beyond a swift glance behind as he moved to place his gift where the wench instructed. Flecks of muck scattered across the formless blobs of sleeping babes - so tiny they were! He wondered, just for a moment, how it would feel to clasp one in his jaws. 

To distract himself, he turned to the pressing matter at hand. "Where is she," he hissed, crouching some distance away though his eyes never left the children at her breast. "Gave 'er good grub, y'know. An' a place t'stay. Reckon she can't have made it far with that big belly o' hers."

He'd traced the cliffs, checked the coast as far as he'd dared. "So tell me somethin'," lamplike eyes narrow dangerously, "where is she."

chani.
mireille was tempted to feign ignorance, to ask nox who he meant. but that would only incense the rash young leader and the mindless girl who stood at hand.
"back home, i expect," mireille murmured, lowering her head toward one of the pups in a show of checking them that hid the relief and pleasure in her eyes.
she did not trust in his mercy, and did not address his spurious offer.
"isnae a mystery." she crossed her paws. "did you go an' look t'ere, captain?" were they brave enough to retrieve their cargo who had apparently ran and disappeared quite effectively?
good, chani. good. chacal should be relieved also.

assuming some things bts

Nox did not reply at first. Instead, he watched coolly her tend to her babies as an ugly feeling swelled in his chest. Jealousy, perhaps? From the dredges of his memory, he could only picture the gaunt and lifeless faces of milkmaids and knew then what it was he felt.

Anger. Disgust for those fragile lives held with a love he'd never received. "There ain't no need fo' that." Crowell - Crowell! - had made sure. Those dreaded cliffs belonged to no one but the sea now. In his growing idealisation for the horrid man, the Captain turned his frustration to the red woman at his feet.

"Her tracks stopped at the seafront. S'pose she fed herself to tha fishes if ye ain't squirrelin' her away elsewhere." In the back of his mind, he knew. He knew the girl Erzulie was gone. And he wanted her to know it too.

chani.
mireille drew on the rein of control she had cultivated, first as daughter, then as leader, and now as mother.
she could not hold quorum with what nox insinuated. her mind rejected it, and what had to pass for rationalization now must come hard on its heels.
"sapphique's women be strong swimmers," she said, nosing a tiny paw with its miniscule claws. "if she knew no one would brave de waters, she wouldnae have hesitated."
another dig at the pirates, too cowardly to enter the salt. "i myself used to jump from de cliffs into de ocean."
chani! no! all earlier feelings of relief were gone as mireille grappled with a hurting grief and reeling sense of dread. but what would it do to scream and cry? if the sea had taken chani, then she had died free in its grasp.
free from her.
hatred and loathing threatened to choke mireille. she watched nox with a smoothed expression. "it would not do well for murkwood if a daughter of de shores died tryin' an escape."

His lip curled. "We ain't called pirates for nothing," snapping back, internalising her comment far more than he should have. "The sea's in our blood. If she seen weakness in one o' my crew, that don't speak for all of us."

It certainly didn't for him. His heels dug into soil. Something must have held Crowell back from pursuit; he refused to believe the man had simply given up. Especially when it concerned the salt whore that likely gew his progeny within.

"I ain't stupid." It would not send a good message if news of the escapee gave his men any funny ideas. "If she's alive, it would benefit us both. Which is why- which is why I need yer help." Bile rose in his throat. Nox quickly spat it in the space between them.

first crowell had seemed to have been given chani. now the captain trailed along mireille's parry, confirming the potential presence of doubt in murkwood. at least with this pirate.
but now she wanted to laugh, and looked down again to control the curl of her lip.
what help could he possibly want? what was there to even be done?
she did not answer, but inclined her head in a way that said she listened.
nox felt — desperate, reacting one way and then another. asking a captive for help. and so she opened her ears, waiting.

And desperate he was. Murkwood had been built on a tightrope - a thinly balanced line where his power and respect hung heavily in the hands of his crew. Some saw through him already, others he was sure would follow. "Y'know the coast well," he began, feeling all the more conflicted. "Search the shore with me. She may have washed up."

Dead or alive. In truth, he almost wished for the latter. Crowell's failure was apparent, and despite the circumstances, someone must pay for the pirate's lost bounty. Let it be her to find the body, he thought cruelly. Let her see that defiance only means death. And his grip began to tighten around those who remained.

To @Meredith he turned now, leaving Mireille to ruminate the offer as he slunk to her in hushed tones. "Speak with Crowell. Make 'im spill exactly what happened, or he'll have it comin'."

even if mireille had wished, she was not in a state to be away from the pups, or even on her feet, for any stretch of time. another mark against the young male inexperienced in the state of gravid women. 
and she did not wish to find chani's body.
gaze veiled, she turned it away from the captain and his pirate, and back to the life at her side.
in her mind, she begged the lwa for chani's life.

meredith didn’t flinch. didn’t waver. her eyes, storm-wrought and steady, slid to nox with a look that said she already understood more than he’d spoken aloud. she’d known this ship long enough to see the cracks forming before others did. knew what happened when a man like crowell started slipping.

aye, she murmured, the word carrying the weight of iron in its quiet.

then she turned, already moving, already plotting the course to corner a man like crowell and make him talk. she didn’t need to like the order—she just needed it done.