Dragoncrest Cliffs Epitaph

@Jorunn @Suzu @Etienne @Theo @Val @Wing @Lilitu 
Set after they reunite back at Sapphique; Mireille would've come to Sapphique to see if it was safe, then rounded 'em up on the island to bring them home.
One-round, please allow Mireille to post after this.

Chacal awaited the return of all of her family, while bearing a heavy heart knowing that they would mourn when they found out the cost of the battle. She had greeted Mireille first, and had remained with the wounded while the rest of the pack was gathered from the island and shepherded home. 

Buried side by side beneath fresh mounds of earth were the bodies of Erzulie and Sobo. Rosalyn had disappeared and the bear's body had not been found and thus, they mourned the loss of her as well. Chacal knew in her heart that she would not see her mother again, and that she had been left motherless. All she could do now, was to keep herself pulled together for the sake of the pack...And pull the pack together in a new way. 

Once they were assembled and the tearful reunions had come to pass, Chacal cleared her voice to address the pack, with Mireille at her side. Both of them had been wounded deeply; in some ways shared, in some ways differently. But if nothing else, she felt her kinship with her sister renewed once again, knowing that they would not have the guidance of their mothers and their brother anymore. Now, they looked to each other. 

"We be gat'ered 'ere today,
in de wake of de bear's wrath.
Our mot'er, Rosalyn, 'as chased it away-
it will not escape 'er path." 

In her heart she knew that her mother would never give up on hunting the bear. She would find some peace in knowing that her mother was a hero, but oh....How she wished her Mother would come home! Her voice cracked when she spoke her mother's name...And how she could only speak of them both in past tense now. She couldn't look at the burial sites. Not when she wanted nothing more than to pull her beloved Maman and brother close. 

"Dis be our home-
Dese cliffs, dis meadow, dese graves.
Sapphique be here, we shall not roam,
like de ever wandering waves."

She decreed. It had been decided between the two leaders that the threat was gone; and that they would be safe, still in their home. 

"We live here, as Sapphique toujours,"
She chimed, and ferocity gleamed in her eyes. 
"We will reign over dese mighty shores.
We be 'ere, an de same still-
but we be changin' our will."

She said. After all, the sea changed- and so would they. 

"In de moment of crisis, we did what was best. 
Bot' to fight an' flee, to spare us of casualties.
But let it be known- dere be dose who fled.
Dere be dose who neither helped, nor bled." She said

Her fangs shone; some blood stained them still. 
"Njord ran from de battle; I saw 'im go.
Rykor an Rhaegal, dey never did show.
Men not born to dis pack forever shall be so:
ranked as Salinero, 
as Slate, Shale, Limestone an' Sandstone."

Non-familial men would never see a rank above Pearl. Not any more. 

Chacal tilted her head, to look to her sister.

her mothers, gone. her brother sobo, gone. mireille had nothing left to give in sorrow and so she must move forward into the future that she and chacal meant to write together. 
sapphique had lost its first matriarchs. now two more would grow into that role.
it would have been far easy to flee and settle elsewhere; it had been so difficult to know she would not see her mothers nor sobo again.
her eyes were swollen as she stood beside chacal. she listened to her golden-caped sister speak and found something like peace in the bardic quality of the delivered words, green eyes hardening in anger as she thought of the men who had abandoned them in their time of need.
never again.
when the tanzanite had finished her words, mireille took a breath and gave a quick, humorless smile toward her wolves but held herself poised. 
she was not unaffected but her rule must remain so.
"to begin, many of you will receive promotions. t'eo, etienne, an' suzu will become de sapphires of sapphique." she gave a truly warm look to her sister's children, seeing in them a hope she did not feel for herself.
"wing, to de rank of beryl. lilitu, to de rank of topaz."
her eyes settled toward the man who had left sweetharbor to come with her, who had fought to drive the bear away. "val. emerald of dis pack."
sobo had done a higher rank well. it was val's turn to prove he was worthy of this ascension.
"wing an' lilitu will be receivin' t'eir oysters an' t'eir pearls, for rankin' above pearl."
so much to say, and suddenly her throat burned, her eyes scorched. "maman erzulie an' sobo gave t'eir lives for dis pack." the young obsidian paused, overcome, and she was desperate enough to look for rosalyn now, though she knew her mama had gone.
"do not forget dem. t'ink often of t'eir names. dey live as ancestors now."
mireille drew a breath, and then, before she wept again, she tilted back her head and began the sonorous grieving dirge for those lost to the violence of the bear.

sapphique lived.

those within were raised for their work, their bravery. those who fled now felt dead among them — but no. not like the dead, for the dead would be honored. remembered among the cliffside residents.

how hard to know that one lover laid in the earth.

one lover roamed somewhere beyond.

a son of those two had joined in the earth too.

it did not feel real. not even as she looked upon the two roja. as she saw bits and pieces of each in them. as they spoke of all the changes. of the ways men not of the sea would never hurt them again. never pass down disappointment like an heirloom among them.

when her voice joined in, it was low and somber. a note of loss and a begging for rosalyn to come back to them too.

Theo, still limping from the soreness of the wounds in his sides and the bruising of his ribs that came with that, limped over to the meeting. Theo heard his and his siblings names listed as those being promoted to higher ranks and that made him happy. But when he heard the new member Rykor, never showed at the battle, and now seemed to be missing from Sapphique in general, he growled in annoyance. The new man had fled at the sight of hardship.

He was still full of shock from all the death that had happened. So many of Sapphiques ranks were gone. Erzulie one of them. That hurt. Meerkat had fled too, or at least she wasn’t around anymore. Njord, the one Etienne had said would train him was gone too. And many more. He frankly wasn’t fully sure who was dead and who fled but he knew a lot of members were gone

Cherub’s Wing of Honor arrived at Sapphique’s wake with a tender limp. Marred by the bear’s daggers and weakened by a crumb of poison on its claws, she moved like an aged wolf, one who had seen too many years and had placed thousands more miles underfoot. Long scabs glistened upon her hip; red-black beacons upon her pale coat. Her face was sunken, and her glassy eyes shone with ache and dysphoria. She was a sad sight compared to her naturally chipper expression.

And still her body demanded it go on. Through the pain. Through despondency. Through it all.

She sat gingerly among the others, wincing as she did so.

Her eyes closed as she listened to Chacal’s voice, its musical quality lulling her into a benumbed trance. She wasn’t sure she heard everything. Another girl – one untouched by the mighty sting of defeat and loss – might have worried over the newfound refusal to have unrelated males rise in Sapphique’s ranks, but Wing found the matter trivial in the grand scheme of things. This did not matter.

Nothing mattered. Not right now.

Her eyes opened and adjusted upon the sister leaders when she heard Mireille speak her name to those congregated. A promotion. Beryl. An oyster with a pearl on the horizon.

Did this matter?

Wing looked on, the flashbacks of battle in her thousand-yard stare.

The sobs that racked Etienne's body were so hard and so fast that he couldn't even lift his muzzle to howl for his granme's. The two women that he loved so much, it filled his heart to overwhelming. Everyone's emotions felt raw and ragged and they pressed on him hard and fast and painful. Njord had raced a way. one man the youth had thought he could look up too. Who would love him the way he was now.

His granme's knew the heart that beat in his breast no one else understood. No one. Not SUzu. Not Theo. Not manman. He was too different too strange and it was with the howls that he would try and join in but each try would taper as the sobs racked harder and then he would disappear into the tangle for a time.

Suzu felt a flood of both relief and sorrow when she was told by her returning aunt that there were survivors. Her mother was alive, as was Theo. Gentle Jorunn, as well as the dark man she knew only as Val, and the young one who had volunteered the idea of luring the bear away. As for her grandmothers...

Her world had been changed. They had never found Quennell, Swordfish or Stingray on the island- Meerkat and Njord had taken them somewhere else and she had pined for them, not knowing if they'd been drawn into the battle too, or not. Her friend Rykor had not shown up, neither had the stargazer, Rhaegal. Finding out about Erzulie had pained her- and to know Rosalyn was missing made her fear as well. 

The meeting felt too soon, to her. It all felt too soon. She feared the edge of the borders near the Tangle, where the mounds of fresh earth marked the graves of both Erzulie and Sobo. Tearfully, she tied to howl to commend the spirits of her uncle and Grandmaman to the skies but she found herself choking on her own grief, and sobbing. Etienne was cold, distant. Theo was wounded. 

There broken- and now, they had to gather the pieces, and try to make something new out of them.

it was strange to think of sapphique without first thinking of erzulie and rosalyn. dragoncrest was but a shell without their lives here, and he a brittle husk left behind.

there was joy in learning others survived — but what were survivors except wolves deeply rooted in a community of grief?

his sorrowed eyes swept the thinned crowd. chacal announced their new ranking system. mireille gave them promotions. theo seemed troubled by a quiet growl. etienne was wracked with sobs. wing was possessed of a disquieting thousand yard stare. jorunn seemed displaced. suzu’s howl broke on its edge and fell back to a keen.

val’s voice lifted among his kin, but he did not howl for himself today.

he howled for lives and faces he would never seen again.

Lilitu sat, shell-shocked, among the living.

She would receive. . .pearls? A blessing among these wolves, and for what? She had brought death upon them, death that struck down the two bodies that lay before the pack.

Her eyes were glassy, face blank. She watched the proceedings without discernible emotion, for she could not summon an emotion to reign supreme. All swirled within her, turbulent, vying for control. 

Grief—grief was the master here.

She looked around at these seawolves, wolves who'd lost mother, brother, sister, family. . .

Lilitu began to weep, then, chest heaving and tears rolling hard and fast down her cheeks. Mea culpa. . . And it didn't stop. She wept for Erzulie, her savior; for Sobo, unknown;

For those she'd affected (all of them!);

For herself.

For this pack.

Mea maxima culpa.