Ankyra Sound Whisper

Set before the threads with Sweetharbor, for @Merle!

He parted reluctantly from his islands, leaving his charges in the care of @Pelagius. They would be safe with his brother, his co-leader. Yet their hierarchy was incomplete. Three Speakers were needed, and so a third would be found.

His thoughts turned to his sister as he stepped onto the mainland. Taken by a sudden urge to find her, to bring her home and to her rightful role, he began to search the beach. There was no hint of her here. Yet Pel had returned, and he felt that Morgra must be soon to follow. The Listener would call her back, as she had done for the brothers.

It was time to rebuild.

It was further up the coast than Heph had intended to travel, further away from Moontide than she had intended to go. And yet she had begun walking along the line between sea and sky and land, along those liminal in between spaces, and felt the breath go in and out of her lungs like magic and simply not stopped walking. There was something comforting in the feeling of not being quite there. Instinctively she noted, in a distant manner a figure on the horizon and yet she could not bring herself to sway her path nor stop or turn around like she should.

Instead she shambled to a slowed gait until it finally slowed to a stop just a short distance away, and she blinked into awareness as if only just now fully realizing she stood before another wolf. Her lips parted in greeting but shut again when words struggled to come to the surface.

It was not Morgra who greeted him but a woman in dark furs, accented with silver and snow; a lovely thing, though not to Ptolemy's taste. He watched her drift toward him as if in a haze, his own steps halting. A slow smile crept over his features.

Lost? The Speaker inquired playfully, tail waving a few times to convey a friendly intent. No reason to terrorize the poor woman; not yet. The scents of others lingered upon her. Best to get acquainted with the neighbors, he thought, before they began their true purpose.

The wolf approaching was friendly, a wag of his tail and yet she could not fully bring herself to match it. Instead she looked up and stumbled to a halt. His words, any other day she might have taken for a kindness in the query, only startled a harsh burst of air from her lungs. "I wish. No. No, I know where I am, I always know where I am." She knew her distance from Samani's corpse, knew her proximity, knew that no matter where she went she could not run to a place closer or farther away from her spirit. Felt the weight of that.

The words took the wind out of her and she looked away, ashamed at the outburst. A broken smile on her face as she spoke again, words more even. "Sorry," A slight shift in her tone along the lines of speech a hint at her old humor. "I'm poor company today unlike yourself, my name is Heph."

What an odd thing to say. Ptolemy sensed the marrow-deep stress emanating from the woman but chose not to press it. She was alright, he thought. Scented like the sea even up close; definitely one of the neighbors. A pack wolf.

That's alright, His tone was affable, upbeat to match his unusually good mood. Ptolemy, Speaker of The Druids. We're over on the Blackwater Islands. Ptolemy gestured to his beloved islands. His eyes lingered lovingly on them for a moment, then turned back to Heph. I take it you live nearby?

Heph followed his gaze towards the island, noting them and storing the information away. Another pack on the coast, she wished Samani might have seen it, Rodyn had wanted to build trade all over the wilds and yet it felt as if more and more packs were forming right on their doorstep. Like a dream that continued even into the first moments of waking. At his query though she turned her attention back towards Ocean's breath. "Yes, just up the plateau in a pack called Moontide." Gesturing there she pointed it out, somewhat muted in the distance, but everything on the coast was east and west and even if he could not clearly see it the direction would not lead him astray.

A tired smile. "Welcome to the coast. If your wanderings ever take you towards the plateau feel free to call at our borders, we welcome trade and help where we can." She rolled over his words in his mind, and her curiosity tugged at the fatigue in her, briefly allowing her to think and speak. "What does it mean to be a Speaker of the Druids?"