Dragoncrest Cliffs Toujours

someone pls bonk me if i'm out of turn here!

Through most of the gathering, Coraline was swept into small talk with a child. Chacal's girl. Oh, she looked like a Rosalyn in miniature! How bittersweet to gaze upon this young face that held the image of maman, to smile and laugh along with her through the ebbing waves of inexplicable sorrow that arose.
Val is crowned Aventurine. Coraline could not help but notice the lack of men aside from him since her return. Not that Sapphique had ever been bursting at the seams with them, but this was, decidedly, different. Either way, she nods along; serenely and sweetly smiling, her own voice sprinkled in the hoots and hollers of celebration.
And then it is her turn. Her pearl; the one she never got in her youth. It was about time. And her mothers were not here to see it.
She waits for the children to finish their scramble before she noses three of her own oysters into her arms; alone, she finds a spot where no one was likely to bother her, and begins to crack them open with the crush of her palate. The first, empty; she laps at the insides with her tongue for a brief moment. The second, emptier; disappointment was now beginning to curdle in her stomach. Until the third is cracked, and as she cleans with gentle sweeps she finds the garishly obsidian pearl. When she looks at it, her eyes peer back to her in reflection.
She is not sure whether to be satisfied or afraid of what the sea now had to say about her.