Dragoncrest Cliffs watch the masses fall

dey did dis. sobeille grit between clenched teeth, pulling sweet seraphine aside as lafayette arrived to disguise the fact she'd cried.

she hated them. the pirates that raided her home. the corsairs that chased her down the coast. the black man with the scar.

sivaak.

was because she had been gone? the same divine hand plunging into lafayette's insides and pulling them from his body converted sobeille's guts into a bolt of lead.

was this her fault?

how had she not seen how sick maman was?

she stiffened, gaze flickering from lafayette on the ground to her youngest sibling. the glass look in his eyes hardened her, for it reminded her of all the suffering her family endured.

recalling aspa and her talk of gods, sobeille nearly stifled a bitter laugh. gods? what gods?  life was suffering, and her dead mother evidence of this.

we bury 'er. by the time chacal and the others arrived, sobeille would see to it a new hollow was funneled into the cliffside's uncharitable ground. another body for the graveyard growing too large for comfort.

but first.

bending down to seraphine and peering at her young sister, sobeille wondered if she understood she was now an orphan. maman would never see her babies grow, or hold their children in her arms. she would not laugh with them or cry with them ever again.

holding the liquid softness of the child's gaze, sobeille spoke: seraphine. i be needin' you to find maman a pretty shell, okay? many shells littered the gravesite, acting as headstones and totems for those departed. trusting this would preoccupy the puppy almost too young for such sober events, sobeille grimaced and turned back to lafayette.

she said nothing as she began to dig.