Blacktail Deer Plateau did you really ever think I gave a damn about you

@Aningan @Erzulie @Derg @Valtari @Rosencrantz @Reyes @Clementine @Fletcher

Raleska watched the coast from the rim of the Plateau, eyes wide as another distant wave, immeasurably huge, crashed over the coast. The noise it made as it tore through the strand and sucked back into the deep could be heard even from here — from her vantage she could not help but feel the coast had taken on a dark and malevolent quality. 

Turning back with a frown, Raleska eyed the shadowed forest they had temporarily made their home. It wasn’t the Grotto, but it would have to do — particularly since the coast she had known her entire life was so hostile and inhospitable. Another rumble shook the earth as she made her way back to the rendezvous; bracing against impact, Raleska looked to the stormy skies and wondered when this endless torment of the world she knew would ever cease.

scarab was dead.
her heart was shredded.
if it was a lie, it was one she must tell herself to maintain the barest hint of sanity.
erzulie came to stand alongside raleska, mismatched stare taking in the rolling lash of the inexorable sea. 
”it has taken too much from me,” the harlot intoned bitterly. ”i will not be goin’ back to it after all dis has passed.”

she shadows her mother, absorbed in her own thoughts. her brother is gone, and the home she'd only just found again is claimed by the sea. above all, she wants only to understand—will the thundering of the earth never cease? will the sea claim more than just the sound? 

she pauses besides her mother as she too halts, made to feel small by the distant fury of the ocean. sitting, and drawing her limbs into herself, she asks, "will we stay here?" places don't matter, nowhere is safe. she cares only for the rest of her family.

When his mother spoke of his lost brother Reyes couldn't even look at her. His mind was buzzing. Images of Scarab tending to his collection merged with the memories of destruction; some of his own doing, such as when he had pulverized the boy's best trinkets without thinking of their importance. Everything had taken on a darkness, though. When he thought of Scarab he could taste the panic, smell the sea, hear the crashing of angry waves alongside the crunch of bone.

In many ways he felt he had killed his own brother. Beyond the trickery of his tired mind - Reyes thought, if only he had been more attentive, faster, more focused. If only he had been kinder. 

When his attention did rouse it was faint, a wavering glance at the shadow ranging through the trees. Raleska came upon them gathered with Erzulie. He was thankful for what they had, for the presence of those the sea had spared - but Reyes raged inside, a self contained ocean of his own. No, he would never set foot by the sea again if he could help it.

As they had moved inland, Valtari came to understand that they were by large an assorted lot. But what he did not anticipate as he too came to look upon the coast was the charging of the sea, far more violent than he had ever witnessed. It was quite the scene with currents tossing and turning whatever they could rend and tear asunder—a familiar plight in that, though it was far more and worse than he could put into words.

A relative outlier in the gathering, he was not quite out of earshot to the murmurings that stirred up. An accented tongue, a child's inquiry; he scarcely spare the attention as he rested his gaze on the incensed motion of sea spray and swell alike. But there was more to go with it than just that furious ocean, and his gaze rounded through the group to find Raleska long before he would spy out Aningan.

His voice carried over on the heels of Clementine's query: "We may be safe from the sea, but I do not like the smoke that has risen elsewhere." Were it wildfire or volcanic, he hadn't afforded himself the opportunity to find out, and the rise of the mountains to their east would hinder his discovery otherwise. They would have to keep watch of it and that was evident in his tone as much as it was the piercing gaze he cast across.

referencing the other bwp event in this post

Nieve trailed along in her mother's shadow, a small golden caboose who said nothing but trembled and hastened closer whenever the world shook. Here felt safer than the sea, but only just a little. Nieve had always felt a strong affinity for the water and never thought she could ever fear it. To see it wreaking havoc on the coastline now was something out of her wildest nightmares.

She drew up to Erzulie's flank as Raleska returned to them, followed by the arrivals of Reyes, Clementine and some new guy who'd come with them. The golden juvenile swept over to her siblings, giving Valtari a wide berth as shy girls were wont to do, and lifted her round ears and rounder eyes up to watch the sea like all the others. It was as if the water wasn't her beloved water at all, but a colossal beast thrashing in pain and torment against the land.

Oh, she sighed quietly, wilting as she willed away the ocean's fury with a futile pleading gaze.

Rusalka — or what was left of it — gathered to Raleska’s flank. She favored each of them with a worried frown; there was not much left for them, and their home had been stolen away by the swelling seas. 

She understood Erzulie’s grief — Scarab was still missing, and Rosalyn long gone. Her heart sank to see the collection of children remaining: Reyes, Clementine, and Nieve — Rusalka’s brimming future reduced to but a trio. Just for a little while, Clementine.. at least until we figure out what is safe. Safe. Such an elusive, accursed word.  

Valtari’s comment of the darkening horizon brought Raleska’s attention to the north. She had never seen such smoke, and instinctively felt fearful of it. What is it? Raleska ventured, brow knit — how much more could their little band take before it broke?

Where the others stood, gazes cast out to the destruction wrought by their sea, Aningan was not. He had travelled with the band of wayward souls as they relocated to the plateau but, shortly thereafter, his anguish lured him away. He feared the sea that he had once loved, yet that love was not diminished—not entirely. He mourned for those lost to it and for those that knew only the coast, especially those that were long since separated. How would they find them again, when the coast was the only thing that could unite them? That lifeline had failed them, turned spiteful and cruel. By raging on their home it had severed any hope he may have still held for reuniting with Caiaphas and bore a new pain with the forced separation from the uppik. The malevolence of their former home had driven her away, leaving him behind to endure this horror without guidance.

Aningan had wandered from the group, pushed and pulled by conflicting feelings. It was his responsibility to stay and protect everyone, to ensure that this family he’d become a part of survived these hardships. Yet, at the same time, could he not do better by them if he were to locate his sky-bound companion? Could her assistance, her knowledge, not better them? He sought her out with the latter thought in mind, convincing himself that he was doing the right thing—but the young leader had hardly gone beyond where he could no longer see his pack before turning back around and rejoining them.

This was where he belonged and his efforts would be better spent being contributed to the wellness of the pack. The uppik would have to wait.

The boy’s return was quiet, attention given fully to those that gathered. There came a comment regarding smoke—why did he recognise that word?—and he found his own gaze following Raleska’s as it turned northwards. The sky he saw was not the same sky he remembered, now slowly being smothered by clouds darker than any he’d seen before. It reminded him momentarily of a storm, only this sight carried with it something far more dreadful.

What was happening to the world around them?

“Something bad,” he answered absently, staring. The longer he watched it, the further it seemed to stretch from the north. Would it reach them? He felt what began as a tickle in the back of his throat, only to grow into something suffocating; it was as if he’d been teleported into those very skies he stared at, now choking on the substance that poisoned them.

Except, that was all in his head. Swallowing, he closed his eyes for a long second and turned his head, gaze trained on the others when he finally opened them again. “We won’t find out what it is,” he decided. “We’re going to stay here for as long as we can. And if something happens… something like at the sea… we will find safety again.” Look after your pack, he remembered Rosalyn had told him. He was ready to honour those words now, even without her there to witness it.

absently nuzzling nieve's ears, erzulie turned a sharp eye upon the pallid male who directed their attention toward the smoke, then aningan. they would remain here. there was a lawlessness welling within the harlot; she brushed her lips over the heads of the children pressed to her, cried out for their lost siblings — aningan was not her leader. caiaphas was not.
she was the protector of her own children, and her trust in others had long since died.
giving a quiet nod, the jezebel motioned her brood into the woodland; they would look for a den, dig caches close to its center. if the sea did not settle before winter arrived, the weald would provide a substitute for their ragged little band.

Nieve leaned into her mother's touch while the pack contemplated the smoke over the mountains. She wasn't interested in that. Looking at it sent a chill through her belly that reached frosted fingers for her bones, so she chose not to watch. She let her blue eyes rove across the plateau instead, over trees and browning bushes and dying grasses.

Were they safe here, safer than they would have been in Monolith Forest? Nieve didn't know. She sensed that it wasn't the right time to ask that question, but it would come up later, when the earth's shaking worsened. For now the girl fell in stride with Erzulie, following her into the woods with a long look at Raleska and Aningan.

What were they to do now but wait?

wrapping up so it counts for our relocation! <3

Raleska nodded under Aningan's orders. The Plateau was not home, but maybe for now it was a haven -- until the ocean quit its squalling. She, much like the rest of the grimfaced lot, felt dog-tired and desperate.. but for the kids, Raleska put on a brave face.

She watched as Erzulie gathered her remaining children, and for a moment (particularly as Nieve and Reyes turned) she almost made to go after them to help -- but something held her back, a sense of duty maybe.. Erzulie could easily find a den, but Raleska's skills were better put towards patrolling the borders. Turning to both Valtari and Aningan, Raleska announced she was to make her way towards the edge of the plateau, to deposit the first of their scent markings claiming Blacktail as their own.