Dragoncrest Cliffs Filled with Catastrophe

Many were gone. And here was Fabienne. With each passing day she grew more feral in her solitary. She chattered to herself in creole, in french. She ignored any gatherings of large groups. And she hunted. She was not  well built anymore. She held the frame of a child growing too fast with little nourishment. Oh her auntie cousin tried, but she was also nursing her own. 

So Fabienne hunted on her own. She did what she could. Today she dove again and again. Throwing herself into the mercy of the waves for the fish that littered the front edges of the coast. She buried them nearby in the sand. Far enough way from the sea, so she did not take them back. Yet close enough that Fabienne could chase any birds away.

It had started with the pup. Or maybe the skull. Or perhaps his crime had been to leave the Witchwood in the first place. Whatever the case, the brash and confident Sam that had entered the wilds with big ideas about the stories that would be written about his exploits was long gone.

This Sam was afraid.

His conscience had pushed him east in search of @Lilimar. @Kirain and @Visala had not been keen to let him go, not trusting that he would not transform into a gay pirate en route, but Sam had insisted.

He had to make things right. The Huldra had sensed his crimes, and she had shown her displeasure.

It was not Lilimar that he found on the beaches, but a pup painted similar reds and browns. Sam crept behind a boulder and watched it fling itself into the ocean time and time again, burying anything it caught in the sand. It looked thin. And alone. Was he about to become a father of two?

Sam poked his head out from behind the boulder. "Pup!" he called from a dozen meters away, trying to arrange his face in a way that said Not A Threat. "Where's mama?"

Lilimar was content to remain in place, until the food stopped coming. That had forced fat legs to wriggle from where they had been hidden and search for a familiar face.

They didn't find mama, didn't find Leonore, no siblings, but they had found coyotes, rabbits, and plenty more to snack on. How healthy that was, well that was up for debate. Some of those animals certainly had not been prey to anything but disease. Nonetheless, they tracked on.

They spotted the other pup first, but then they spotted Sam. The weird guy! They were quick to begin howling, yapping, barking, anything to grab his attention. They really should be talking more by now.

Fabienne heard the call. She only recognized one word of the language he spoke and looked around. Her mama? She was gone long time now, gone and dead. The sea took her back. Fabienne was about to answer when another pup came on the scene. This one was noisy and annoying. She slicked her ears back. 

She stared at the girl. Ou fè anpil bri. Pe bouch ou.

She huffed and moved closer to the two. Glaring at them. A soft little growl in her throat. But she didn't attack them yet. She was more curious than nervous.

That was the thing with babies - suddenly, you were swarmed. The strange little creature that he had last seen between @Sobeille's forepaws was not only alive, but had grown. It was loud, too, which  – judging by her tone, since the words were nonsense to Sam - seemed to displease the pint-sized fisherwoman.

"Shhh," Sam cautioned Lilimar, beckoning them closer with a tilt of his head. "Come here, you! Monster in the woods. I'll protect you. Just need to figure out if-ff-f.." Sam fell away. The brown eyes that turned on Fabienne belonged to the pirate. "Arrr, be ye alone, wee lass?" It wasn't meant maliciously, but it was a difficult sequence of words to say in any other way.

Dead. It was all dead. 

Even now, Lafayette was gone. Shadess could only assume an idea stirred up by his twin. He had been so constant until she arrived and now? Likely a plan to run away together, start a new, just the two of them. 

Sobeille had more time in the Sound then the dragon cliffs of home lately, Yura clung to her side. Shadess remained reluctant. Stubborn. The spirits of the Iwa and her family, silent. 

She was not. 

Not alone! A roaring growl from jaws, snapping at the air in warning. She trots swift into the direction of Fabienne. She gives aggression, despite the size of the other wolf. These cliffs are Sapphique - leave!

So much was happening here; the other pup barked words they did not know, Sam ushered them closer, and then a stranger appeared with snapping jaws.

Watching raised jowls and sharp teeth Lilimar's curiosity was peaked, slipping behind Sam they waited to see what was next. They had recognised a name; Sapphique. Is that where they were now?

The words the man spoke stroked a primal fear in her. Her hackles rose higher. She would not know why, but the tone and the leer made her take pause. They say you can hear in the womb. And his tone and accent spoke volumes and danger was the forefront.

Though she was wild and reckless, feral. She sided closer to Shadess. Mistrust coloring her gaze.

Men and pirates – mortal enemies of Sapphique both. Sam would have been mortified, but his spirit was somewhere else, moving with the tides as the soul of a long-departed swashbuckler steered his meat.

A fierce creature appeared then, claiming the fish-girl as her own. Lilimar chose Sam.

"Aye, be dat so?" the pirate asked, stretching the s to show off his canines. He was bigger, but the she-wolf was mad – they were evenly matched. "An' wha' be ye goin' t' do if I say I be claimin' 'em both for me crew?"

Fire and smoke. The feral little shit at her side. The other half-blood wolf at their elder's side just the same. 

Then, the man spoke. claimin', his crew... 

Red. All she would see would be red, as deep as the hue of her auburn fur. A pirate! A filthy fucking pirate! Shadess did not think. She only reacted, charging in with her body low and jaws wide.  

Damned these pirates, they would take no more!

The she-wolf charged for Sam, and by an instinct engraved in Lilimar's brain they knew to move.

Moving furthest from the water they prepared for the possibility of blood and ripped fur, a thought that Lilimar found themselves keenly interested in. They had seen others bleed; prey brought back home by Leonore, gulls after a fight, but never a wolf. More than that, they wanted to now just how it was done,
a wolf was no prey. They couldn't expect either to run like a rabbit, and neither had the ability to flap into the sky like a gull.

Fabienne did not know what she was doing. Had never fought another. But she charged woth Shadess. A roar in her chest a fire in her eyes. They were sirens, queens. They had fought and lost and a primal urge to stop losing colored her entire being.

She lunged. Unsure if she could hurt but trying all the same.

The pirate very much wanted to fight - there were three wenches (two and a half..? Scent unclear) for the taking, after all. What kind of stinking landlubber would he be if he didn’t seize them?

Sam, however, was not a fighter. He had no interest in wenches or whatever Lilimar was, and kidnapping had turned out not to be his cup of tea after all.

Sam came back to himself as Shadess launched at him. He screamed. He ran. He took the pirate with him.

Up to you if you want to roll to get some hits in,  I'll take 'em! Otherwise archive