The Sentinels She plays a thrilling violin, painful and sweet

Leaving the Depths— and to a further extent, her ashen fawn— had been a surprisingly tall hurdle for the pining Furiosa. She was more than used to following her whims before anything else, except on the rare occasion she avowed herself to something, which suddenly meant that her wants could no longer be a part of the equation. This wasn't typically an issue, as generally her given word and underlying desires were mutually exclusive, but that wasn't the case this time around. In the end, parting had been a challenge if she'd ever faced one, and she thought about it as she skirted along the borders of Donnelaith, keeping an eye out for an emissary of the pack. She might've called for attention before, but her mind was clouded still from the previous evening; a day that had bled marvelously into night, eventually into morning.

Her attention turned ahead, resolving to focus on the tasks at hand instead of the pleasure she had needed to abandon. With a glance to the overcast autumn sky, Furiosa tossed her head back and called shortly for an audience.

Patrolling the borders was not habitual for the soot-stockinged rogue. She was a creature of subterfuge and shadow and preferred to range far outside of Donnelaith or deep within it; it was distasteful to her to be perceived as the ensimmäinen kasvot to visitors or wanderers who had business with the witches of the wood. Still, when general summonses struck the air as this one did, she made herself available — and when faithful @Castiel did not immediately appear, she took it upon herself to see to the stranger’s needs. Her athletic musculature was loose with readiness as she approached the rough-looking female; there was an unsettling, restless air about her that could not be completely attributed to her battle-hardened appearance but was linked to something within that glinted insidiously from inkwell eyes. Lotte watched her warily, not entirely intimidated but certainly on edge, her coal-plumed tail held in a neutral position and her small, bearlike ears pushed interestedly forward upon her skull. What a villain this one would make!

Questing nostrils flared to draw the female deep into her lungs; Lotte smelled the salt of the sea and the spice of Doe and was instantaneously jealous. This envy was only exacerbated by the sap-sticky odor of Arturo’s forest. It seemed that this stranger had touched and been touched by the territories and wolves Lotte herself held dear, but she was not one to hold a grudge and had composure enough to keep a placid expression. “Rakeet, comrade,” she said simply. “What do you require from the wolves of Donnelaith?” Her low, rich alto offered no guarantee of succor; although Deirdre was nearly recovered of her injuries, she was still regularly attending Skellige of the Blackrock and her energies were already being employed leading her father’s wolves. Still, unless the scarred female gave her reason, Lotte had no incentive to drive her away.

Furiosa perked up, watching carefully as a coal and silver knight approached, her trot light and confident in a mindful approach of the tarnished wraith lingering just beyond the Sentinels. Despite finding that this was a woman— and consequentially of no use to her breeding wise— she felt no less impressed by the she-wolf's full-figured build and the luster of thick, healthy fur. A sentry of shadow and moon dust; a feminine, argent-eyed Brienne of Tarth.

"Nothing today," the stranger proclaimed; "I'm only here to familiarize myself with the leadership here, on behalf of Teaghlaigh— my Family settling in the forest down the coast." She motioned in the direction of Ravensblood, but unabashedly refused to take her eyes away from the comely creature. "I'm Furiosa."

feel free to skip/ignore or acknowledge her, this is more of a cameo and i don't want to hold things up. :)

she was the watcher of the wood, one with its shadows— and though her place in donnelaith's leadership continued to feel fragile, emaleth believed with all her heart that deirdre was meant to be the forest's queen, and knew she belonged near her sister. and that made it easier, though dark doubts continued to flutter in her mind. she struggled to feel connection with any but the white queen, for even eilidh had become withdrawn and distant from her. the mayfairs were dwindling, an unspoken fact that haunted the young witch.

emaleth paused in her solitary walk when she could make out the voices of two women. she peered around the trunk of a sentinel, mismatched eyes taking in the pair— one of donnelaith's own, and a stranger. although it was her right to interfere, the dark child remained there to observe and listen. she would show faith and trust in her pack mate's ability to protect their sacred wood; and yet she wished to understand the other, perhaps even learn from her.

if lotte noticed her, emaleth would give a nod of acknowledgement and still keep her place in the darkness of the wood— but she was here, should the woman have need of her.

I wrote replies to all of Lotte and Coelacanth’s threads this morning and my computer ate every single one of them.
Hence, this will suck and I have no will to make it better. I am sorry. ♥

There was an unquestionable allure to the patchwork female that stretched beyond her apparent closeness to Doe and Arturo, and Lotte found herself hard-pressed to keep her fascination and curiosity in check. “Furiosa,” repeated the rogue, rolling the syllables slowly over her tongue. Mindful of the fact that Doe yet knew her as Kitku, “My name is Ansbjørn,” she murmured in her warm, rich alto. “How fares Teaghlaigh?” She spoke the word with the reverence it was due, her mouth producing the foreign syllables with a bard’s graceful fluency — had she not said it to herself night after night, wondering whether one day she would trade witchcraft for ravens? Though she was loathe to divert her attention from the dark-eyed wolf, the approach of another did not go unnoticed; Lotte turned her head, keeping her ears cupped attentively toward Furiosa, and spotted the telltale mismatched eyes within the shadows of the sentinels. In return to Emaleth’s nod, the argent-eyed female swept a bow, one leg curling beneath her breast as the other splayed before her. To Furiosa, “I am no leader,” the younger wolf confessed, “but the metsä tarkkailija — ah, the forest watcher — herself is in your presence. She and her sister are our leaders. If you wish, I can call for the witch queen.” Her tone was no less conciliatory for its wistfulness.

Ansbjørn. A name that sounded all too fitting for the steel-clad Amazon, especially when said in her perfectly warm lilt. Furiosa's tail wagged, the void of her eyes swelling in invitation. "I couldn't say," the wretch offered vaguely, a purr in her throat and a reptile's grin curving her mouth; "I'm not there." Her blatant obscurity was meant to be taken lightly, but she was not a spirit afraid of her black humor being taken too seriously. She watched the smoky young she-wolf turn her head slightly, and her salamander smile evaporated as she too spotted a pair of mis-matched orbs, hovering in the shadows.

Furiosa did not like being spied on, and though her spine prickled lightly in distaste, she realized it was not her want to stir trouble in the name of The Family, and her expression had reverted to smooth deference when Ansbjørn returned argent eyes on her. "No need. I have nothing to share but my face, and as long as you know it, I've done my job."

"You're not a leader?" she pressed then, in polite incredulity; choosing to ignore the verbal acknowledgement that they were in the presence of someone else. "Hm," she shrugged in clear dissatisfaction. "Subordination doesn't suit you."

Kind of half-asleep writing. I apologize for the wait!

Furiosa’s evasiveness was commendable; Lotte recalled Arturo’s vision for Teaghlaigh and the events that followed his telling of it with a fond smile. “Understandable,” she acknowledged simply, seeing the crocodilian female in a new light. This must be Arturo’s red herring — and although the soot-stockinged rogue’s opinion bore no weight in the Ceannasach’s recruitment methods, she approved wholeheartedly of his choice. Being watched did not have precisely the same effect on Lotte as it did Furiosa, for the smoke-and-shadow bard never truly minded an audience. That being said, she felt the mismatched eyes at her back and wondered whether she was handling the situation at hand appropriately by Donnelaith’s standards. Constantine’s words haunted her still — “we do not linger in the shadows of Donnelaith,” he’d said, and although his reasons had been made clear to her almost immediately thereafter, it had left a bad taste in the hoyden’s mouth that resurfaced now.

“Subordination doesn’t suit you,” the scar-riddled female intimated, and Lotte’s moonbright gaze met Furiosa’s abyssal one with confusion. “No?” she replied thoughtfully, mulling it over. She had never been anything but a subordinate, save the afternoon she’d romped in the snow with Day and assumed the role of a queen. Not even the roles she played had royal connotations, and for this reason she chuckled, low and long. “I am interested in hearing what you think does suit me, comrade,” she said simply, her argent eyes bright with genuine curiosity.

"A crown, surely," Furiosa purred without thought, not needing to think further on how vividly she imagined great things for the soot-and-silver valkyrie. "You know it's the queens that bear the most worthy  children, and you will be so well-suited for motherhood that a crown is just as well as yours. I mean, from those smart enough to see it -- I'd give you one, if such a thing were up to me." The wretch wasn't aware of the tenuous relationship building between this young woman and her own superior, but it wasn't hard to tell that she thought much the same of Ansbjørn as Arturo did. "I'm not the type to hand out respect where it isn't due. Your leaders," and she said the word with thinly veiled derision, passing a glance towards the watchful raven beyond them; "would do well to recognize it in you, too."

Furiosa turned, appearing to dismiss herself as she felt she had learned enough, eager to be on to the mountain, which was next on her to-do list. "Until we meet again, Ansbjørn." The filthy wraith pressed on -- too callous and overconfident to ever think about looking back.

“Speechless” was not a word often used to describe Lotte Ansbjørn, but speechless was exactly what she was in the wake of Furiosa’s praise. One sentence stood out in particular: “You know it's the queens that bear the most worthy children, and you will be so well-suited for motherhood that a crown is just as well as yours.” The smoke-and-shadow bard had always assumed that children would be a large part of her future — having come from a large, close-knit family, she envisioned with typical optimism her children and Dagfinn’s wreaking havoc on their aunts, uncles, and cousins — but the fact that her thoughts flitted immediately to Arturo made her nervous. She barely managed to dip her muzzle in respectful farewell before she plopped unceremoniously onto her haunches to consider what Furiosa had said. If the red herring had known that Lotte’s ideal sire was none other than the Ceannasach himself, would she still have offered such high praise?