Dragoncrest Cliffs Brilliance

@Erzulie 

It had been all around good day for Merlin. His head had not bothered him the least, he had scouted the area, he had hunted, he had found comfortable den that was sheltered from the winds to sleep in during the day and now as the dusk settled in, he was roaming the shores of Sapphique. He had failed at hunting birds with Rosalyn on his first go, but an empty stomach does not mix well with learning. Now, however, fed and content, he entertained himself stalking the sea-birds and attempting to catch them. The not-so-dumb birds were quicker than him, but every such failure gave him an opportunity to come up with a different tactic. 

So, he played around for a while, until he got bored and the birds flew off to settle for the night. He, on the other hand, was in no hurry to leave just yet, because he had noticed that the water in the ocean had changed. There were clumps of greenish-blue ice floating on the surface. This prompted him to get to his feet and venture closer to explore.

she had bathed in the salt again recently, and it twined into the spiced chai-tea of her pelt. twilight had come, matching the eternal sunset that seemed to never have left her heart.
dead —
and the bear had been the same.
a swallow bobbed her throat. erzulie stared off across the turquoise baubles upon the night-darkened waters. a familiar scent coming to her; the mismatched gaze alit upon merlin, who looked curiously at the ice. the harlot sidled to his flank, followed the line of his eyes, but said nothing.

Erzulie startled Merlin, when she seemed to materialize herself out of nowhere, though we may argue that had he not been so lost in thoughts and been more aware of his surroundings, her appearance might not have come as such a surprise. The first feeling that flooded him was embarrassment and uneasiness in her presence. He knew he liked her a great deal. Still, while his mind had a tendency to forget bits and pieces of recent past, he recalled the events of their last meeting in vivid detail. He would have felt a tad bit justified in his awkwardness, had she at least made fun of him or laughed, but she had not. And therefore he could not figure out, how and why should she like him at all. 

But then he caught a glimpse of vulnerability in the woman's demeanor, which made him momentarily forget his self-confidence issues and see a miniscule opportunity to be useful to her. "Is something wrong?" he asked her, looking down, feeling both curious and genuinely concerned.

"i wanted dis to be a safe place," the harlot chose to say after letting a silence pass between she and merlin. it traveled and tapered until at last she must say something, and honesty was the bitter balm her tongue chose. and then a brief shame, that she should unload such woes onto the shoulders of someone so youthful.
she drew herself sharply out of it, tightened her posture, looked at at merlin with a wry tilt to her mouth. "so we must make it dat way." njord; she must seek out njord, and speak to him about the archangel.
a salted breeze rose; erzulie inhaled the tendrils of it and felt the ocean led its strength to her spirit.

Merlin had heard about the bear attack and that two of Sapphique members had lost their lives, but at the time he had been cooped up in a remote den, suffering from migraines and at their worst hoping to die himself too. For this reason he had missed not only an opportunity to prove himself useful in a fight, but also not attended the funeral. It did not seem though that Erzulie minded and he was glad that her focus laid elsewhere and she did not ask all the uncomfortable questions, which began with a "why did you...?". It was bad enough that she knew, he was a fumbling mess in her presence. She did not have to know that he was not right in the head too.

"I promise to do my best," he told her and honestly there was very little else he could offer. "You were close?" he asked, giving her an opportunity to talk in a compassionate audience.

"raleska was a daughter to me, even if she did not come from my body. rosencrantz was one of de mos' loyal wolves i have ever known. an' kaertok was not here for long, but he had already begun to become part of us. of sapphique."
the tears were desperate to fall, and so at last erzulie surrendered to them. saltwater traced a twin pair of silent silvered tracks down the roundness of her face, and she sighed out over the dark water.
"have you ever wanted somet'ing so very much but it did not come to pass," the harlot whispered, shifting into a reverie of her own making.

Erzulie went on to list all of the people that Sappique had lost and unlike that time with Coon Merlin really made an attempt to listen and remember. Even if descriptions alone made it hard to do it. He needed an image. Even if not knowing any of the three personally made it hard to fully understand the extent of loss that the leader did. He watched her cry and did not know, what to do, other than staying put and watching her with a sympathetic gaze. It occurred to him that maybe he could offer a hug or let her lean against him, or kiss the tears away from her cheeks, but he did not act on any of those options. He was almost two years old, but his level of people skills was low. 

Then she posed a question to him, for a moment there Merlin wondered, if it was one of those that you did not have to answer, but he figured that instead of feeling torn about, what he should be doing to make Erzulie feel better or at least less sad, keeping the conversation going was a way to snake out and away from the clutches of awkwardness. "I... have always wanted to belong," he replied. Somehow this sentence summarized all his life - both the part he remembered and the part he had no memory off.

erzulie was reminded of the way that merlin had come among them. something sparked the memory of how haunt had been as well, and her shrewd healer's mind linked the two softly. it was a pleasant thought, that perhaps the younger wolves in her pack might not be so far removed from one another.
merlin's youth reminded erzulie of her own mortality; she would not have known what to do had the boy reached toward her. a tensing of her spine, a proud lift of her slender head into the saltbreeze.
the mismatched eyes settling throughtfully on her sanguine comrade.
"you could belong here."

"I will try," Merlin promised and for Erzulie's and Njord's sake he would do his best. He was aware that Sapphique now or the Bachelor pack before that had not been the first packs he had run with. While the memory of, where he had once lived and who he had known, had faded, the feeling, the movement through familiar motions had not disappeared. He knew instinctively canine etiquette and customs, and he knew the first steps he needed to take to fit in. But he had learned that it was not quite enough. His band of rogues had been fun to be around, but he had also learned, what it meant to feel very lonely in a crowd.

Time would tell, whether this pack would prove to be something better. But with his friend out there and the object of his affection right next to him, he was off to a good start. "Have you always lived here?" he asked her, hoping that, perhaps, she too had been a vagabond at some point in her life. That they would have something in common to hopefully bond over.

merlin searched after her beginnings, and erzulie smiled somewhat. "not here. i have lived up an' down de coas'line all my life, however." ironsea. rusalka. sapphique. she supposed in that number could be counted caiaphas' first claim, and so motioned in its direction to the young wolf.
"down dat way be ankyra sound. dat is where rusalka began. an' dat way," — toward the bay where she and rosalyn had once run their crew — "was ironsea. our first. den came rusalka," she corrected into a linear fashion. "we moved back and fort', from de sea to a plateau inland, den to de moors beside de sea. a fores', and now de cliffs by de ocean. we have seen it all."

Merlin was soon lost to details, but he had perfected the look that did not give away him drowning in the oblivion. Instead he kept his expression pleasantly engaged and smiled even at the end of the tale. She had been to many places and the only conclusion he could draw out of this was that she was way older than him. No, it did not come as a surprise, part of Erzulie's appeal was that she was out of his league in many ways, age included, but still. He wished he had just as impressive story to tell in a nonchalant way, but suddenly his run with the bachelor pack did not seem half as exciting as it had been, when he had told about them to Njord. Quite the opposite - he thought that some of the customs he had obeyed would not sit well with this fair lady.

"You found to like this place best," he concluded. "How's this mate thing work between you and Rosalyn? No... in fact... in general. Mateship. How does it work?" he blurted out the next thing that came to his mind and turned his gaze to stare at his paws in embarrassment.

merlin's question was not one that erzulie expected, and the earlier wetness of her face begin to fade beneath the surprise that churned suddenly in her cheeks. chiding herself for such girlishness, the obsidian searched for words best to explain the dynamic between herself and the pirate to whom she had long been mated.
"it works de same as between a man an' a woman," she said teasingly, "but i would say rosalyn an' i have always had a very direct communication. dat be de right foundation for a marriage, knowing how to talk to de one you have married."
"mateship in general is choosing to be direct an' to never harbor resentment. rosalyn knows my head. i know hers. it means you build t'ings toge'ter. like a home. like a family. be consistent. but be ready to change if time demands it."

Merlin was not sure, if he wanted anyone to know his head. He got lost inside of it frequently enough not to invite other people along through the dark and messy labyrinth his mind was. Njord probably suspected that not everything was right with him, but was polite enough not to say it out loud. The boy feared that, if he gave more details, his friend would get scared, worse even - apalled.

"What do you mean by "works between like a man and woman"? What is the works?" he asked next. "And do... is there a norm for it? Do all have to find a pair?" he added.

"i be meaning dat rosalyn an' i, our relationship, be seen as different den de usual man an' wife. an' different sometimes be meanin' 'bad' to ot'ers." she paused, sensing merlin was careful with his musings, for his questions seemed to seek a precise answer. "when really, it is de same sort of partnership. we talk. we share a home. we have a family."
"dere be no norm," the harlot went on, letting out her breath. a grin spun over her face. "be wid who you want. be wid no one. it is your life, cher."

Merlin did not understand the first part of Erzulie's speech, but her final words made it all easy. In a nutshell, he could do anything he wanted and there were no social norms to adher. He had an inkling that just maybe this would not be answer to all inquiries - both curious and hostile - in the future, but at least he could move on through life having the comfort in knowledge that there was nothing wrong with him. At least in one plane of his life. 

"It's hard though," he remarked, looking down at his paws, then turning his gaze to look in the distance. "The my life part," he added. "I try to figure it out, but it's like..." he sought for the best comparison, "... like bird-hunting. You see them, you think they are within your reach and they just fly away. Like that." He fell silent, before finally adding: "Have you all figured it out? Does it get easier at some point?"

erzulie listened quietly. she was reminded that merlin had come to them rather mysteriously on the word of njord. but she had not often wondered about his origins for he had fit so well into sapphique, and she thought of him as one of theirs rather than one who had come to join them. 
both the young men, the courtesan thought, had arranged themselves flush with the vision of the coastal pack. 
"yes an' no," she said, with an apologetic smile meant to convey her pending explanation. "de small t'ings, de act of living: dat gets easier. but de t'ings dat life be handin' you to deal wid as you move t'rough de years: not all such events are easy." waxing poetic; she reached to nudge merlin's shoulder with a reassuring brush.

Erzulie's answer did not comfort Merlin much. If it was up to him, he would choose life that was easy and uncomplicated. Funnily enough... he realized that it was just that, when he had been on his own. He had been and felt completely normal in his tiny universe. And all the problems began, when his world collided with another one. He often did not read people correctly, he was unable to tell apart, whether what they said was literal or figurative. People were difficult and yet he had felt very lonely and craved for companionship any time he had been on his own. 

"I don't want to deal with anything," he said eventually. "It's hard already as it is." 

"you dealt wid de sea well enough," she commented lightly. "many who do not know de water never go into de water. but you did." the goldmint eyes studied him for an everlasting moment, and then erzulie shook out her cinnamon ruff, tail switching at hindquarters.
"let us take a walk up among de pines, if you be wantin' to join. i saw a very red squirrel dere one day." she smiled at merlin, rising and turning in that direction with a lingering expression of invite.

"Why was it sad?" Merlin asked genuinely curious and missing the fact that the aforementioned squirrel had been just an excuse to have him join Erzulie for her walk. Regardless of whether he got a satisfying answer or not, he followed his leader/crush into the forest and spent a rather pleasant afternoon there. 

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