Dragoncrest Cliffs vouch for the poems out of my mouth

sobeille sensed departure. the tender strings that pulled them close had been shaken loose. she reconsidered, taking a long time to build a response, piling each word carefully like a brick laid upon clay.  

it be close enough no advancing’ enemy can isolate our forces. sobeille had dreams of battles, of a rusalkan-era dystopia revisiting them. she had dreams of fortesses, of enduring empires, of foundational legacies so strong that six generations from now her bones would stand upon the mantle of her predecessors, a revered artefact of a horrible but cunning age. 

an’ separate enough we each maintain our own hierarchy. i be learnin’ that we lost some of de ways of our ancestors. some of dem were pirates, an’ some of dem sirens dat established empires around deire claim. dis would be our legacy. we can establish sister packs who each owe dere livelihood to sapphique; an’ we can send de boys borne of sapphique’s daughters to dis pack, an’ shape dem to be de servants of our future, as our ancestors intended it to be. no more trustin’ outsiders. no more forgiveness for de men dat leave.

but it doesn’t ‘ave to stop at de sound. we could seize de islands, or de coast — de sound is simply one part of our long and endless reach.