The Sentinels hear! come! i call thee forth

@Lasher, we are overdue. And these two need to reconnect.

As twilight began to fall amongst the giant trees, pillars of the world that made even Father appear small, Emaleth's wonder had swelled into something far more energetic; and she danced beneath the canopy of the forest, staring up at the bright stars that began to wink into existence and peek through the branches above. She had been constantly learning, since birth, but today she had Learned. It was not yet time for Remembering-- that would not be so quick, and it would prove to be far more difficult-- but she had begun to Awaken to the magicks around her, though she could not quite grasp its true gravity or meaning.

Her magick was the bright, innocent magick of youth; it felt no different to her than other new things that she was only beginning to understand, like the differences between birds and ungulates, and how each of those divided further still. Her magick was effortless, and something she believed natural to all. And though she would grow powerful, and her magick more difficult to control and evoke, for now it was simple and existed in the sounds of her laughter, in the songs she sang to the night sky, in the way that luck would suddenly seem to be on her side, now and ever.

Though Deirdre remained withdrawn from all but her, Emaleth had broken herself free from the Fear that had gripped the pair in its cage; and now that she was alive and unscathed by it, she would fight alongside the white witch to ensure her freedom as well. But for now, she reveled in the her newfound and unfettered awareness-- and her tiny head lifted to the tapestry of heaven, and Emaleth sang her joy.

aye aye!

lasher did not know how he felt; he could put no word unto it, nor could he speak it into existence. beneath the dying light of day he stood, and he was silent, contemplative. much had occurred, and yet donnelaith had not lost its very character -- it stood fast-rooted among the ruddy trunks and stretching canopy overhead. his inability to please peregrine weighed upon his conscience, for it was not simply the carnal aspect he had failed -- it was the rekindling of the flame that had once burned so brightly between them.

a sort of resigned sadness had settled onto the druid's withers; he took aria from time to time, but he had seen neither ayishi nor luke. the thought had come several times to him to remove donnelaith into the thicker woodlands, but he could no more take them away from their beloved place than he could run away from his small witches.

emaleth -- her voice rose in a moving trill, one that touched the colder reaches of his heart, and lasher lifted his own voice to mingle with her own, his lower notes weaving 'neath her higher aria, supporting it as an eagle might support the unsteady wings of its chick upon its first flight through the currents of air -- they sang, and perhaps donnelaith joined them with their own tendrils of sound, but when it had ended, the spirit found his dark little witch and kissed silently her forehead.

Their song was her universe, and the sound in her throat swelled as her father lifted her melody with his own voice; if the other wolves of Donnelaith joined father and daughter, little Emaleth would be no less or more exulted. And when he came to her, the child danced her joy for having him near— raising her head to catch his kisses, and then weaving between his legs and around his body. She knew not what weighed upon him, nor what it meant; and perhaps when she settled, she would see his sadness. "Father!" the little witch cried, "The leaves speak; the stars sing!"

she danced; her voice rang out. little emaleth sang; taltos lifted his voice again, to call down the stars, to herald the winds that whipped around them, roiling the very trees into a lashing frenzy. their hearts! their hearts! they beat loudly and promised the lurking transparent spirits blood, and the druid began a low chant, suzanne's song -- he lured the powerful ghosts from their hiding places and the skies began to darken overhead.

She fell to silence and wonder, her dance slowing to a halt as her mismatched eyes gazed upward to the darkening sky. It was perhaps coincidence that her father began his chant as a storm began to gather, but to little Emaleth this was a magick he performed; weaving the clouds with his voice, willing them to congeal just so. Her breath held as she watched, captivated, the declarations she had made now forgotten.

full-throated his chant went on, gleaned from his memory and also the remnants of the first witch's song -- he sang and sang it, pausing only when the winds lashed at him and tore at his very pelt. solemnly he looked to emaleth, and there a saddened smile passed across his face -- he loved her and this place, but loved also the glen as it had been in his youth.

Last post from me. <3

Her dark form shrank against the wind, though she did not avert her ears from her father's chant, nor her eyes from the storm he had summoned. Emaleth drew near him as his chant subsided, uncertain what the look in his gaze meant-- only that she sensed a shift in him, as surely as she had felt the shifting of the weather. It felt wholly as if the joy had been stolen from her heart, and the child did not understand.

It was her first brush with empathy, and it would not be her last.

She circled around his forelegs, then bumped her head against his chest in a display of affection. "Dear father, dear heart," little Emaleth told him. "I love you, I love you, I love you."