Barrow Fields and though half-blind with ravening

aw but esp @Caiaphas also what's a timeline hashtag staying hella vague

redhawks. drageda. scum. 
erzulie did not like the change they had wrought in her — weeks of wandering up and down the coastline, to be rebuffed from one end and threatened at the other, had begun to make the harlot bitter. her rage was impotent, erzulie knew, but she churned with it all the same. 
the fields beyond the sound were straddled with odd mounds, perhaps placed by monsters. or maybe their architects had merely been more creative than most. caiaphas' scent was strong here, as was that of her returned son, and while she did not yet know what to make of the seawitch, her stride lengthened all the same, hoping to find the somber woman.

caiaphas too was strung along by a slowly building rage, and while she had yet to find an outlet, she fastidiously was biding her time until whatever unsure moment rose and called for her wrath. the events north -- in the sound she had only ever been a claimant of -- c,aused her heart to boil. and yet.. age had tempered her reactivity, and experience had taught her when to stay her hand.

she was muttering to herself, likely the utterance of some old crone's adage, when erzulie found her. looking up from the shallow trench she had placed into earth's frozen mantle, the sylph cast an inquiring glance to the sharp-tongued maven, yet otherwise remained silent as she ruminated through tumbles of icy soil.

she came upon caiaphas in a half-excavated ditch, and paused not a single moment before she joined the older woman, nosing through the cold earth in a show of willingess to help. her two-toned eyes, however, could not keep from their curious burn; after a moment, erzulie lifted her muzzle. 
"what is de soun' to you, caiaphas?" it had been the witch's home, yes, but wolves left their homes all the time, departed their families. and if it was merely an assumption that ankyra meant more to the woman than she had thus announced, the harlot wished to know. silently she fell to her task again, awaiting the response of the other.

joined in her toils by the chai-spice female, caiaphas fell to picking through the soil with rough concentration. the willingness of the wych was noted, though not commented on - and for a while they ruminated in silence before erzulie spoke. 

it was a question charged with laborious answer; there was little she could say to explain her inexplicable pull to the sound, that would not sound hysteric or neurotic. she contemplated her words carefully, but in the end offered an indifferent (and counterfeit) shrug. it is habit. ive lived here nearly four years now. it is safe. even with the wolves above, it is isolated. wolves have to claw through forest to come here. the shores are full even in the height of lean winter - and the grotto is the perfect place for whelping. she fell quiet, shifting bits of earth back into the shallow depression she has gouged. do they worry you? i have settled here four times now. they are newer than they’d like you to believe - and last time, their bark was far more annoying than their bite.

four times. erzulie's dark ears twitched somewhat at that, but otherwise she did not comment for a moment. "dey do not worry me. men nevah do," she added dryly, remembering the meeting she had shared with her fellows and the drageda males upon the beach. "dere is much history for you here, den. i can see why you would be loat' to give it up."
presently, the harlot rocked back upon her haunches, regarding caipahas with a shade more warmth than before evinced. "your son is a strong man already. you should be proud of dat." even if the fierce crone had little to do with how he had grown, her indomitable spirit was clear upon the stamp of illidan, and if the wolves of caiaphas' line were all such a way, erzulie was pleased to run among them.

it was good to have a shared kinship between them - the mutual disdain of men (and In caiaphas’ case, individuals in general) caused a ripple of something akin to approval in the coywolf. there was little she liked; even less in men — and long ago they had proved to her they were of little use to her, save for the bit that hung between their legs. 

that thought made her think of Kierkegaard, and a pained expression stole across her narrow muzzle. he had been more— and he too was gone. 

quickly the siren chased away the ghost of thoughts that threatened to upend her composure, smiling an indulgent smile at the mention of illidan. of course as his mother she believed him flawless - the same went for svalinn and Raleska - but to hear another utter the words was validating. her little chest puffed, for she had always been susceptible to flattery. he will be something. she concurred, rising from the dirt with a rough shake. if men want to piss and stamp their feet, let’s give them something to holler about. 

already the waif was off towards ankyra, making for the edge of the cliff where she had detected a most unsavory scent earlier.

you can do nothing for a man with your belly full of babies, came marie's gently chiding voice, speaking the fluted language that had guided erzulie's earliest forays into the work. be quick, be smart, do not fall pregnant. it was not the way of harlots to give suck to children, nor life, nor love; they were a fantasy, after all, and that was what she had been. no one's daughter, belonging only to herself. 
but as she watched caiaphas swell with pride, erzulie wondered if marie had ever been mistaken.
no time to dwell upon it, as the witch was off and the harlot followed, nostrils flaring and muzzle wrinkling at the scent that soon greeted them. however, she said nothing, following the other's lead when it came to such things.

marie — whoever she was — would have found caiaphas hotly contesting her words. perhaps it was a good thing the sylph and marie remained unacquainted, for caiaphas loved nothing more than children - and no children more than her own. 

but that was discourse for another day - and today, caiaphas strode with mission outlined in each purposeful step. 

after several minutes of quiet travel they came upon a spot where a male had marked; caiaphas, without ceremony, propped over it and disregarded it with her own stream of liquid. bit by bit she would undo the pains taken to show them they were unwelcome. bit by bit, she would show them it was her ilk that owned the sound.

"piss and fuck, dat is all men do," erzulie sighed amusedly, eyes brightening as she saw what caiaphas meant for the pair of them to do. moving a few feet away, she took up the trail of drageda markings and drenched them with her own rush. chuckling darkly, she did as men for the next, lifting her leg a small height to splatter a little shrub.
"you say dey are new? is dat why dey t'ink dey own all things?" whatever drove them, she was irritated, simply buy their very existence if anything else.

the siren nodded in amused agreement, a chortle pressing from her muzzle as she baptized a sleeve of fern fronds with her own scent. let them chew on that, she thought childishly - though the humor in her features diminished at the mention of the wolves above. 

a few years or so. they came from somewhere inland. didn’t bother me any seeing them, as the cliff does a good job of making them keep their distance. she squatted again, this time with vehemence. a shame they don’t return the favor.

"de two women i met from drageda seemed honorable. blixen an' helix. it is a shame dere men are allowed to roam so freely." tongue lolled as she observed caiaphas, before moving off to continue marring the scentline. "sometimes i do wonder what it would be like to have only women in a pack." strife, yes, but not the blisteringly stupid ways of men and their infernal egos.

there had been very few pleasant encounters in caiaphas’ life, and certainly none of them from Drageda — yet she accepted the woman’s opinion, wondering if perhaps erzulie’s more likeable charm had anything to do with it. certainly, it didn’t hurt. 

at the mention of women only, caiaphas paused from her desecration of the male’s scentline. it is no better. she had little fondness of her days in nereides, though she missed terribly the wolves that once warred besides her. there must be a balance. the first time i settled here was as a neophyte with the nereides. a matriarchal pack - men no better than slaves. do you see any evidence of their claim here? she looked around them with a face full of disdain and nostalgia at once. they were not balanced. they fell. i became their matriarch, and i fell too. only the strong survive, male or female, does not matter.  but we are here long after.

the more that caiaphas spoke, the more a grudging but warm seed of admiration began to take seed in erzulie's heart. the nereides were not a name that the harlot knew, yet all she needed was the culmination of that which caiaphas revealed. if the witch spoke truth — and erzulie saw no reason to mistrust her — then there could be no better queen of ankyra than the woman at her side.
"you fell, but you returned. like de sun, or de spring." indefatigable. she went on with her own markings, overlaying those of drageda, feeling the satisfaction of it well within her. "balance den, in all t'ings."

a budding sense of comradeship was growing in caiaphas too - after all, what united two souls like spitefully pissing on the marks of your mutual enemy?

she hoisted herself up, nodding at the sage words given by the mint-eyed wych. at some point when they were not cackling over the careful demise of their adversary’s efforts, caiaphas vowed to make the effort to learn more of this compelling creature.

balance.. and lots of piss. the saltbeaten crone threw her head back in a cackle, her bladder well-emptied of its contents. they would go a little longer marking the borders this way -- and then, ever industrial, caiaphas would turn for the grotto to designate spots for their burgeoning caches.