Ravensblood Forest salt grounding

backdated to feb 21

as her body was put through its changes, chani found herself near despondent. she brightened for crowell, even allowed the others to see her response to him. and she did not explain herself to neither aunt nor mother, seeking to isolate herself from them more and more, an island of one woman.
but her mind could not accept the tree-filled horizon. she could not accept that it had been weeks since her feet had touched the soil of sapphique. chani was cast adrift, and in the tepid weaktea light of yet another morning, she felt tears begin to run down her face in unstaunchable rivulets.
she worked to pry clams up from the cold sand, refusing to sob.

chani had been cut from the others by the selfsame pirate who claimed her now. the isolation was repeated, but mireille had witnessed all the fighting spirit drained from the younger woman. she saw the clinging despair and how her jaw tensed when she looked upon the sea.
but chani did not seek her aunt or her mother, and she stayed farther and farther from them. 
today their detail was foraging. mireille did not brave the water so often, but on pretense of joining in the work, she inched closer to chani.
theirs was an unsaid agreement to never speak to each other in common. "se pou nou pwoteje ou. li panse ou poukont ou, nyès." how could chani share their strength if she kept herself apart?

"se fòt mwen nou nan dezòd sa a ditou." chani pried up another clam and this time she ate it, and the next as well. who cared if murkwood punished her? "mwen te konnen crowell - anvan."

"mm." a sound of knowing, a cluck low in her throat. but no scold would come. 
mireille fed chani a second bit of shellfish. "ou bezwen chape, chani."
an arm went to the swell of her belly. "
lè yo vini. chwazi moman sa a."

chani was surprised. shocked. scared. these things gave way to consideration, then awareness, then hope. 
she did not speak. 
she did not say what was forming in her mind.
their eyes met, held, and then they returned to the work in determined synchrony.