Dragoncrest Cliffs vwa sab

random event! participation optional, no posting order <3 @Chacal @Val @Chani Sobeille @Judith @Svalinn @Saint @Cheri @Jadou @Lafayette @Lucette @Èlosie @Jean-Heron @Roux @Shadess

thunderheads had beaten against the sea-cliffs for the night entire, sending rain to soak sapphique for several hours. the keening wind might have been reason for younger ones to fear, though they would quickly come realize that storms over the sea were beautiful.
in the morning, a call would rise, one of surprise and delight. an entire shoal of blue-jeweled flying fish lay on the sands of siren's bay, glittering with weak light. here and there one still moved, but the sheer magnitude of the gift was reason to celebrate and fill their caches.
"perhaps kheviel sent this to us. perhaps cayetano is with her." the remark was for no one in particular, though her smile was gentle as she heard it.

here and there chani dashed, trying to find the fish with the prettiest wings for her baby cousins. determination was bright upon her brow, and from time to time she glanced toward the sea, wondering if more would come.
it was a moment for the changing girl, and for a longer once chani paused, staring out to the ocean as if hearing a voice which had rumbled through the thunderstorms all night.
a voice which compelled.

waaaoow!
jadou had dragged @Sobeille along with him, peddling his elder sibling through the muck which battered the rest of sapphique. he arrived at the site covered in mud, rocky sand sticking to his toes.
being the boy that he was, jadou sought not to eat the fish readily available to him, but instead began to sniff out ones closest to the sea, ones which still breathed. he clumsily steps over and around them, almost tripping once or twice, crawling toward the shore in order to snap his jaws at the waves like a crocodile.

cheri had woken up on the wrong side of the bed today. it took work to get her up, and even still she was horribly cranky; complaining loudly of the hot, wet sand burning her feet and the bugs which swarmed the feast upon the shore. the humidity made her fur prickle, and tiny flecks of dead leaf and debri clung to her in every which way.
but by the time she reached the shore and felt the cool brush of seafoam at her feet, she was decidedly content. rather lazily, she plucks a small fish from the edge of the endless pile and tries to suck it down her throat like a pelican.

unenthused with her charge of the day, sobeille trundled after jadou. her pelt was already brown, so the muck that dripped from it did not seem so offensive -- but the sand that clung thereafter made sobeille look like riff-raff.

mireille's call brought them to the sea, where the hardened winds of the day before breathed their last defiant breath. along the rocky shore were the corpses of thousands of fish -- sobeille saw some still struggled, their gills expanding so one could see the internal patchwork inside; so red -- so private.

jadou had sprinted to the surf, biting at the waves in a way that elicited an eyeroll from his older sibling. chani was dashing through their bodies, in search of the fish with the most bejeweled pectoral fins. unbeknownst to sobeille, a voice called for her -- had sobeille heard it, she would have felt compelled too.

cheri stormed on the scene, a dark stormcloud that forbade approach. the antagonist in sobeille drifted close, flicking cheri on the haunches with a spray of sand as she gulped down a rather large fish.

what about this one, chani? val trowled the bounty behind the sprinting girl, pulling a cerulean fish from the pile whose right wing was a mosiac of color. unfortunately, its left was destroyed: val frowned and murmured ah never mind, as the girl sped off.

he came to stand besides mireille, noting the gentle -- but almost wistful -- smile that occupied her soft features. val was troubled by cayetano's sudden death, and kheviel's seeming suicide. he could not help but feel something refused to shift into place.

i hope they have found peace. he found himself saying, to no one in particular as mireille had done. it was hard to lose two packmates to death, and sapphique was steeped in the cruel tradition of loss. he wanted just one summer without strife; one summer without heartbreak.

Svalinn had taken on the task of wrangling the four youngest Dahomey-Rivaini children to the shore at Mireille’s call, giving @Chacal a breather (perhaps a chance to piss in peace) before joining them. Cheri was the most reluctant to rise, though her lack of enthusiasm felt more like a boon to the old guard, and neither @Roux nor @Èlosie presented their father with more than he could handle. But as usual, it was Jean-Heron who proved the most troublesome to guide.

By the time they had all arrived, Jean-Heron had defiantly bitten Svalinn several times and left him intensely agitated. The sunhound was carrying the writhing chimera at this point and dropped him unceremoniously onto a pile of dead fish.

Happy to leave the boy to the watchful eyes of others, he turned to greet Val and Mireille briefly before choosing the fattest fish in proximity and trotting to a perch where he could be distant and yet remain watchful over those gathered. As he ate, he observed Cheri, feeling a swell of pride at her independence -- even as he left room for any of the girls to join him if they were so inclined.

Meanwhile, his brow twitched at the sight of Jean-Heron, who was... wait, what was that in his mou— JEAN! DROP THAT RIGHT NOW!

Unceremoniously plopped smack dab in the middle of Dead Fish City, Jean-Heron promptly forgot to be upset about the affronting minutes prior and instead went to town on the limp, scaly bodies littering the beach. He was at first content to simply abuse corpse after corpse, perhaps intending to leave his trademark teeth impressions on every fin he could find.

That was, until he noticed that some were still alive, to which he went on to maul the poor things until they were not only suffocated but poked with more holes than Grandma’s doilies.

From there he became preoccupied with chasing Chani’s movements. She was so fast! But he was determined to be faster—

Oooooohwee! Wha’ dat be?

It was shiny, translucent, gooey-looking, like a pale version of the green slime that sometimes washed up on the beach or accumulated around their freshwater ponds. Yummy!

Jean-Heron snatched it up in his mouth, but rather than break apart like normal slime, it squelched between his teeth, unbroken, and made a wet noise. It tasted awful, but it sure was fun to chew! He started to whip it back and forth, its dead tendrils flapping. He could hear Mister Bossy shouting at him -- *eyeroll* nothing new -- but that did not distract him from the sudden stinging.

He dropped the meaty goo with a yelp. Fire was lighting up his chin, his neck, and what felt like the entire left side of his body. He twisted and snapped repeatedly at his invisible attacker, but there was nothing to be found, just the terrible, terrible burning.

Jean-Heron’s yelps swiftly turned into a shriek and he thrashed on the ground in an effort to dislodge from his own skin.

awwwww! baby's first jellyfish >:D

upon the call, he emerged, and his eyes and mouth widened together at the sight of the cerulean glitter upon the shores. it smelled. . .awfully delectable.

lafayette stormed down to the beach and loped around the bounty, taking each fish in his mouth and eating—and eating—and eating. . .

soon, his tummy was full, and he was strategizing as to how to carry some other quarry up toward the caches when he heard the bellowing:

jean! drop that right now!

he picked up his pace, rushing toward the conundrum.

the seastorms thrashing outside during the entirety of the night had called to saint to, but it was not the void of a loved one that tried to cajole her out into the fierce howling winds and rumbling thunder. though she slept barely a wink, she had resisted the ugly siren call of the dark, plagued gods she spurned.

she did not desire to be their vessel nor their sacrifice; even if it was the sole purpose of her creation.

the salty tang in the air is thicker with the humidity of the vicious storms the night prior when the voice rises for the wolves of sapphique.

she is far from the first to arrive, which is a bit of a relief; her golden eye focused on studying the plethora of bejeweled fish littering the sands. though her pack mates have surged into the fray to eat their fill, she hesitates.

she had never seen such pretty fish before, and tries to center her focus on the physical world her golden eye saw, instead of the blinded eye that saint believed saw the murky grey and shadow kissed unworld.

she keeps to the edges of the group, choosing a smaller fish before she begins to fill her belly, pausing only when commotion rose: a child that appeared to have tried to eat a jellyfish.

Lucette trailed behind Lafayette, content to observe. She picked among the fish here and there, but her appetite remained ever-slim. Mostly she watched her twin. Followed him.

When he ran, so did she; a mirror always at his flank.