Seaside Moors Maybe I should get to church on Sunday...

They worked together for a bit in silence. Stryx tried to let the momentary apprehension pass through her, the frigidity that she often could not control, but it lingered. The sound of the earth giving way beneath her claws swarmed around her. When there was a shallow pit she began to wedge the crab in there, but it was too broad a creature and the pit too small, so she tugged it back out again and continued to dig.

Erzulie's question did not slow her efforts. Stryx felt the stirrings of tension in her shoulders from the work, and once she was satisfied she sank back for a breather, and took the time to mull over a response. The question was innocuous enough. I have been to many places, the seaside included, but it has never been my home. She knew the basics when it came to seaside survival.

The crab was inserted in to the deeper hole and covered, with the curled chitin of its intact limbs sprouting like alien flora from the sand. With the work done, Stryx could have removed herself from this conversation — and she had the tendency to drop away from social requirements even if she was in the middle of a conversation — but she chose to linger with Erzulie a little longer. Sour as she felt towards this woman who reminded her strongly of a previous life, it was unfair of Stryx to be so cold, and she knew that.

She thought of the newborns, and Raleska's predicament.

Do the children fare well? As she had been present while Raleska relinquished her care of the twins, it had given rise to some queer thoughts within Stryx. She wondered if that was how these moorlands functioned — to throw their women out and wait for them to return like the spawning salmon, gathering up the fruit of their loins. Stryx was being imaginative, but she had travelled much and seen much darker things than this.