Blackwater Islands Nevermind an SMS.

sobeille stood where the crashing sea lapped at open sand, staring at the island in the distance. her maman had made this journey once, when she was about sobeille’s age.

it was a pilgrimage sobeille must complete.

an hour later, sobeille sat on the island’s shore, drenched and exhausted but alive. she brushed the saltwater from her eyes and kicked her hind legs out in front of her, listening to the buzz of insects and the squall of birds as she caught her breath.

somewhere here, was something profoundly important. only, sobeille had no idea what — or who — it was.

A beach was crawling with plants that Haizel would love to collect and take back to his Pharaoh and bestest friend head priest Senmut (at least, he was fairly sure they were friends and that it was his title). The man who could be mistaken for a deer in both pelt and personality frolicked along at a happy pace, one long leg splaying out in time to a hind one's extension. 

His tail wagged, sunrise eyes looking for the pink and orange petals he was after. 

have a Haizel :>

as she rested, something massive moved along the tree line. sobeille’s gaze sharpened and she stood, not bothering to shake the sand from her pelt.

she moved towards the reedy dark that punctuated the beach’s end and the forest’s range. she could see from here an understory of bright flowers. tracking their bobbing heads, she saw a man bent inspecting each floral face.

sobeille watched him for a moment, silent.

A delicate sniff of each petal small, barely a whisp of air to disturb the flowers. Careful steps brushed between each bloom, taking caution not to flatten a single one. Giant the man may be, but a gentle soul and a heart full of gold.

A big friendly giant, if one would.

His great head lifted with a little yellow friend, dangling limply from white teeth stained with age. The permanent smile on his face grew with the discovery of a wolf laying nearby, one the flower would pair well with. But she seemed almost still, a statue to Haizel's sunrise eyes, and therefore he stepped forward exactly once, again not daring to squash flower nor grass. His paw landed in sand, the granules compacting between the pads with his weight. 

Gentle head tilt, a friendly wuff and matching wag of a feathery tail. Hi there. My name's Haizel. I'm looking for flowers. Wanna help?

as she stood there studying the man who moved delicately, for some stupid reason val sprung to her mind. how the perfect opportunity had been there, and she had just --

her gaze flickered up, climbing the man's great length until at last, somewhere at the zenith of his mighty height, were a pair of eyes warm enough to match the soft stroke of sun. he took exactly one step - and in that step communicated all sobeille needed to know.

what kind of flowers? sobeille turned her head, sniffing the area. she was not generous enough to help for no reason, but if another opportunity presented itself...

val was curious: when sobeille went off for long stretches of time, where did she run off to?

he found her tracks leading to the island where once, sobeille’s mother had bartered for sibling life. strange that she would come here, but val got the sense she preferred to be alone.

only today, she had company. val lingered close, a protective urge rising in his belly as he saw a man many years sobeille’s age close to her.

they bent over a brush of flowers. the man spoke of their uses, his tone gentle. yet for all his harmless affect val’s hair stood on end.

sobeille, he said as he came close, his normally soft gaze drained of its warmth as he stared at the man standing a little to close to sapphique’s daughter for his liking. your maman would like your help with something. a white lie to get her home — he knew no amount of beseeching on his request would move the stubborn girl.

all the while he held back the lifting of fur on his nape.

there existed in sobeille an urge to take this man’s understandings and undo him. as she followed and he bent about their task, she took on the role of practiced pupil — a wide eyed exclamation of awe here, an inquisitive sniff of a flower there — he showed her yarrow and fieldspice, detailing the uses of each of them as they went. he collected sprigs of lavender and pointed out the bitter woundwort; the gaultheria and the winter ivy, the sleeping baneberry and Jack in the pulpits — all these she drank in with a neophyte’s thirsty draughts, inching ever close to the man who had no possible way of understanding his pupil planned to be his executioner —

if she could just get him close to the cliff! what dis be? she called out over the storming wind, motioning a patch of pale lichen growing at the cliff’s lip. as he made his way towards her the most unwelcome noises spilled into the air — followed by an equally unwelcome presence.

val! a blade of annoyance wedged its way between her ribs. she stepped back from the man as if caught with her hands in the cookie jar — scowling at her protector with deep resentment.

he could not possibly know, and yet his timing was so fortunidious that sobeille cursed him.

but her maman was not one to disobey. displeased but nevertheless I discouraged, sobeille bid haizel a reluctant goodbye and followed val back to sapphique.

tell me what that man was speaking to you about, val invited to the brooding stormcloud behind him, relieved she’d acquiesced without much fuss. he anticipated refusal, but she seemed caught off guard if anything — in a way that almost seemed to suggest she didn’t want him there.

seeing her so close to a stranger troubled val; as most things about sapphique’s children did.

he turned an ear back, hoping sobeille’s good will would continue. at least long enough until they returned to sapphique’s stony hearth.

not’ing to tell about. sobeille countered sulkily, recovering only her flat expression. as for her anticipations and hopes — ah, well. there would be other men, and other distantly apportioned cliffs neatly lined up with their passage.

reading a sense of conflict in val’s expression, sobeille relented — if only because she did not wish val to flap his mouth at maman. ’e told me about de flowers dat grow there. she hoped to pause at that, but val’s canted ear suggested he expected elaboration.

as long as he did not ask about her; as long as his focus was on the man. stupid, gullible val. sobeille saw her shot, and dug in. dere are flowers dat only grow on in certain places. on certain t’ings. like coastal flowers, dey do okay wit’ de salt and stone - but meadow flowers need higher acidity. some of this was her own learned knowledge, some of it the piecemeal education she’d received from haizel before he came along. all she wove into an earnest story. dere was yarrow dat was a different color den back home. e told me you can eat it, an’ it helps wit’ de fever. but its leaves can also be used to stop bleedin’. why one would ever want to stop the gorgeous torrent of blood flowing freely over stone, sobeille did not know.

an’ you ‘ad to chase ‘im away, sobeille added none-too-subtly, a practiced expression of surliness easing over her gestures as she flicked her gaze over him to see if he was stupid enough to take it hook, line, and sinker.

he should have known he was being diligently led away from what he was so very close to seeing. as it was, val suspected nothing as they picked through bramble and fern, sobeille's voice almost chatty behind him.

he wanted to know what possessed her to go here -- but as soon as he thought of asking this, he chided himself. he had been young once, hadn't he? how had he become so far removed from his younger self? and moreover, how could he establish a connection with sobeille if he was always poking and prodding?

with great restraint, val smiled. that's nice, sobeille. he stepped over a sunken log consumed by dark green moss. did the organisms beneath the bark know of the giants that walked among them? we are lucky then, that he was a good man. he refrained from chiding her any further - he could feel her trust ebb like the tide's tug beneath feet. not his own though.

feeling the conversation pull too, val began the long uphill climb to home. your maman and i noticed the sea lines suzu made need fixing - we'll need a good diver to drag them out so i can see what's what. someday, he might earn her trust enough to ask her what was really going on below -- but today was not that day.

sobeille finished her long-winded speech, satisfied she had given him enough fodder to keep his simple mind busy. after all, she had learned it was best to disguise lies with a half-truth -- how else would one deliver a convincing, doe-eyed stare to complement their mistruth?

val ignored her pointed comment; whether through immense fatherly patience or the lack of available cognitive function, sobeille did not know or care. she was content to be silent as she followed him home, up until he mentioned the task.

she should have known he'd come to her for something even a spring pup could do. it was no secret val was terrified of the ocean, and it was all sobeille could do to disguise the derision that flickered into her yellow eyes. this was one of many reasons why sobeille found val feeble; what good man's backbone turns in on itself at the sight of the sea?

why her maman and tante put up with him, sobeille did not understand. he was weak - hardly representative of the strong order in which her tribe sprung from. but sobeille held all of this cutting thoughts to herself, eyes resuming their serpent-like flatness. yes, val. sobeille murmured, her gaze raking the exposed tendons along each snapping hock as he walked.

like the man, there would be other cliffs and other fangs to guide to their destined throat. sobeille would simply have to wait.