Ravensblood Forest feel the ocean as it breathes, shivering teeth

tags for ref, AW!

finding @Athris should have brought her some peace — she should at least be able to get a full night's sleep, right? her mind has other plans for her, though; she can't stop thinking about @Zamael, about her father, about the tribes. she wishes they would all just die. or maybe that they'd never existed at all, and nevermind that she wouldn't exist either — that doesn't seem so bad right now.
the forest is so, so dark. she's too tired to do anything but wander clumsily, paws crunching over dead leaves and snow. tears creep down her face slowly but steadily, unrelenting though she doesn't quite feel them. oh, she feels the cold wetness trekking down her cheeks, and she feels the heat as it wells up under her eyelids — but she doesn't quite feel the grief she knows must be cutting through her now. she must be sad, right? that must be why she's crying. she just doesn't feel sad. she feels tired and numb and angry at the world, and she just wants to go home.

WC: 538

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As the curtain of darkness fell slowly across the land, so the sea-lover found herself wandering along the banks of a stream, beyond where the water faded from brine to brackish and finally to fresh, leaving the crash of waves behind her in favour for a wooded shelter. She had decided to trace the stream back to its origin which lay somewhere in the mountains which stood in a line, splitting the South from the North. Where Nike had come from, it was the opposite- the mountains had shielded the coastal West from the wooded East, keeping her kind along the shore where they belonged, and keeping the non-believers away, so that their skepticism and outlandish beliefs of equality or worse- their feelings of patriarchy at bay. Perhaps this was why the Caiaphas woman felt that the Nereides’ beliefs had no place here...Because it was a land plagued by the belief that the genders were equal, or that males were superior.

She wished the mountains would rove and move, and separate her and her sisters from the heathens as they had to the North...Though she did not feel as though mountains necessarily were the key. There had to be some other reason that the Nereides had failed to strike a stronghold here. Perhaps they had not been pure believers, and perhaps they had been susceptible to persuasion and corruption. She had initially had a good feeling about Caiaphas, but ended up believing her to be a turncoat, even though she might not have shown it. She could not take in such weak non-believers.

She was making her way along through the woodlands at a decent pace, a swift walk with a long, flowing stride, when she heard another wolf in the area. Silently, she pressed herself into the wilderness, blending her pale coat in with the snow that had managed to fall past the branches of the trees and pushing her frame up against the alabaster bark of an alder, peering through the split in its trunk where it cast out a thick frame in two directions. The woman she saw was not so much unlike she was in build, though perhaps a bit more silver than white in colour. Her eyes were darker, but full of water and originally, Nike took this as a good sign. The female had the salty liquid of tears streaming down her cheeks- a liquid not at all unlike the waters of the ocean. But aside from that, sadness also made wolves make decisions quickly- and Nike knew that this might be the best time to persuade the female to join into a much more beneficial, fulfilling life.

”My dear,” She spoke in the common tongue, tone reassuring and gentle as she stepped out of the darkness and into the light where a bit of moonlight seeped down through the trees. ”What causes you such despair?” She asked. For where Nike came from, there were few to no boundaries, and al Nereides shared their feelings and thoughts openly with one another. It might have seemed somewhat of a personal issue, to the distraught female, but in Nike’s voice there was no air of judgement, only empathy.

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she's startled by the sudden appearance of a striking pale woman, taking two stumbling steps back with hackles prickling as she takes in the other's foxlike features. the woman is beautiful, a luminous phantom under the moonlight with pearlescent green eyes. for some reason she thinks of athris. the tension leaves her body a moment later and she blinks, swallowing hard as she tries to comprehend what the woman is saying to her. i um, she swallows again and takes a tentative step forward, finally processing the words spoken. it doesn't occur to her that this probing is unacceptable, uncomfortable; she's too tired now for such observations, so her only instinct is to answer truthfully. however ugly it may be. i'm cursed. by my father — my whole family. i can't get away from it. it pours from her more easily than she might have thought, and she's too captivated to feel any sort of embarrassment. any thoughts of the consequences of such openness have already fled her mind.

WC: 374

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The petite sylph is surprised by Nike’s sudden vocalization, but after a moment or two, she recovers well. Nike stood calm and still, like a, ivory chess piece suddenly placed on a square that perhaps wasn’t expected by the opponent. She wasn’t a threat, though; merely an addition to the game, perhaps useful later on when she could make full use of her range of motion. For the moment, she simply stayed where she was, allowing the light, flighty female to choose whether she wanted to speak or hold her tongue. Regarding her with quiet stillness, she invited the younger female to confess with a neutral, warm gaze that swept over her small physique, admiring and approving of the female’s conformation. She would make an excellent Nereides, should she choose to devote herself to the sisters and their ocean-loving ways.

Had Nike not had better control over her facial features and reactions, she might have recoiled at two of the words the slender female spoke. Not only did she believe she was cursed, but she believed that her father had done it to her. A male- naturally, this was another female who was plagued by the way males seemed to believe they could control their female family members. Rather than agreeing with her companion that she was indeed cursed, Nike took a step forward, to reassure the female that she feared no contamination from her. There was no way a male could place a curse on a female if they held no sway over their actions.

”No man can truly curse you,” She assured the female. ”You are a daughter of Doris; you are blessed,” She said, referring without explanation to the female’s gender. Naturally, Nike believed that any wolf born female was blessed, and all males were cursed in their form. ”I can help you free yourself from your trials,” She offered, then, knowing that the female would still likely believe she was cursed as she’d likely been conditioned- like many others in this area- to defer to males. Once freed from that mindset, however, she would then be freed from the belief that such a lowly creature could ever place any hold over her life’s course.

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the woman's reassurance might be of more worth to her, but it sounds too much like — like being indoctrinated all over again. she's heard and believed and loved and spoken enough religious drivel to know it when she hears it. a daughter of doris, the woman says, blessed, and ashari almost wants to spit on her. but she doesn't. she smiles a weary smile that doesn't reach her eyes, and she waits a moment to be sure the woman is done speaking before she starts to respond. nothing can free me from my trials. my curse is in my blood, she tells her, smile fading quickly. and no doris can do anything about it.

WC: 353

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Denial takes the female before her in its cruel grip and forces her to confess that she does not believe. This is not something Nike hasn’t seen before, and though she didn’t necessarily win over every non-believer, she did win over a few, and those she couldn’t win were often helped, even just a bit. The female before seemed so lost in her grief that she seemed consumed by the belief that there was something wrong with her. In that particular state, simply telling her that the curse could be undone wasn’t necessarily the way to approach her. Obviously, she was so far removed from her faith that she likely held a grudge against it- and that was something Nike could see in the rueful smiled that she tried to pull across her lips. An invisible thread pulled her lips back, but nothing could out a sheen in her soft, jade eyes. Nike could tell at once that the non-believer was perhaps too far removed from any form of faith to be reached simply by telling her about her religion...So instead, she knew she had to help the female in some other way. Even if she could not turn the woman into a Nereid, she could in the very least reach out to help her sister by listening.

”Tell me,” She said softly, stepping forward just enough so that she could sit and draw her flaxen, white tail about her paws. She had plenty of patience, and an open mind. She beseeched the woman with an enticing, empathetic earnesty, her gaze slightly doleful which was unusual for the Nereid who was often more Amazon in spirit than Nymph. She had learned to soften her ways, especially when only in the presence of other females. Males, however, never saw anything but the Amazon side of her. ”Why are you cursed...And what does it do to you?” She asked, hopeful that the female might tell her of her story- and that she might be able to interpret what it was that was dogging her, and hopefully scare it off.

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