Dragoncrest Cliffs la sirene

the sadness he felt curled around his heart like a vise, but lafayette’s interest was the shining light in those dark corridors, chasing the shadows away.

he managed a smile, though his eyes misted ever so slightly. she was — he paused. the most perfect soul i ever knew.

lafayette curled around lucette, two sleeping parts of a yin and yang. val sat besides them. he told them of rosalyn - of her hard stare and scarred features. of how much she knew about everything; from picking the right kelp for wound poultice, to measuring the strength of an enemy. he told them about how she’d survived a kidnapping, fought a bear, raised and saw more children than most would see in a lifetime. he told them of how she loved fiercely and proudly; of her wife, erzulie — the beautiful blade of the sea. of how erzulie was measured and dynamic at once, a stormy port with high seas and yet beautiful, calm waters. of the intelligent bite of her stare; of how etienne looked so much like her it hurt his heart. of how she’d stormed the fort when her wife had been kidnapped — how she looked as she descended upon her enemy camp like a loosened djinn. of her ultimate sacrifice to end the torment of the bear; and in that moment she’d been so breathtakingly whole and wolven.

he told them of raleska - his sibling turned mother. of how she’d, alongside the matriarchs of sapphique, had endured insolvency. through her persevering nature rusalka had become sapphique. he told them what little he knew of her life before that point.

he told them about their ties to the sea witch, the ghost that could not let the ancient halls of ankyra go. whose soul still roamed those damp and forgotten halls, and at night, how you could hear her breath rattle through the tunnels.

and he told them of their male predecessors too; of sobo, the aspiring man whose life had been tragically cut short by the fangs of the bear. of kaertok, who laid his life down to see sapphique thrive. of vercingtorix, whose spine was made of steel cables. of njord, and rosencrantz, and all the other faceless men that had help form the backbone of this proud and small nation.

and in the end he told them sapphique’s oldest and most powerful incantation:

sapphique will see you thrive.