Blacktail Deer Plateau I deserved that one.

Unaware of the ill fate that had befallen the young Harps, Reyes had tried to hunt her down. She had not seemed very invested in the pack prior to his mission and he hoped to find her somewhere among the pines. Perhaps he could have built a friendship with her, trained her so she felt more comfortable, but it was not fated to occur. Nobody had told him of her death - but the absence of her scent made him scowl, even reconsider his desires, figuring she had passed on for some place safer.

Disgruntled by the absence of the girl, Reyes finished hunting for her for the time being. He was nearby where Erzulie stored many of her goods, and thought that maybe she would know where the girl had gone - so he hunted for his mother's scent, trailed it until it mingled with @Rosalyn's -- and on a whim, veered after her path where they diverged. He stalked after Rosalyn for a bit, and when the plateau opened up to the softly falling snow and he could spot her ruddy red silhouette among the white, he boofed and drew close.

LOL I WAS JUST GONNA MAKE ONE

Her son did not weigh heavily on her mind, but he did reside there often.  She recognized something in him, and while there was no way to know for sure, she was not unfamiliar with the sort of struggles he might have faced.  Pirates.

She'd considered what might be done, dithered between a mother's desire to know and the usual desire to keep her nose where it belonged.  The latter had won so far... but only by a sliver.  She teetered all the time.

She turned as she heard his greeting and smiled, giving a soft huff back and slowing to a stop.  She imagined he wanted something.

For a split-second he felt like a little cub again, rushing across the sand and in to the waiting embrace of his mother. Except he did not tread on sand now, but snow. His mother waited for him but knew not to expect contact nor comfort; and as he drew up alongside her, he did tentitavely reach for her, but fell short and then withdrew, as if remembering something that tugged him back. 

To clear the air from that odd moment, he rumbled a soft note of welcome to her instead. Then he asked, Have you seen Harps?

Before she could answer, Reyes word-vomited a little more of an explanation: She expressed unease about the violence of this place before I left. I hoped to find her and train her a little bit, or at least help her find some comfort... Somehow. But her scent is practically gone. There was a tone to his voice as he spoke, as if he were afraid. Maybe she had been chased out like the sisters had? That would not have been fair; but it would have been on-par with the girl's own observations, that she was not family and thus not a true Rusalkan.

At first, when he approached, she thought he might embrace her as he had when he was young.  It was hard, every time, a surprise that led into painful realization when without fail he pulled away.  With others it was so easy to temper expectations.  Children were another story, a fact she'd learn a thousand times over before she finally left this life behind.

She hid it with a smile, but the expression didn't last long before fading into somberness.  Erzulie had given her the news.

She was killed by a coyote near the borders.  Raleska and Rosencrantz tried to save her, but it was already too late.  She said, choosing the route of blunt honesty.  He was an adult now; there was no softening it.

Harps had not been there long enough to leave the crater others would, but Rosalyn had liked the girl. It made sense, if she was uneasy... she'd been timid, and in the end hadn't managed to defend that final blow.  

She didn't really know what to say after, and lapsed into quiet, gauging his reaction to the news.

Having been entertaining a low-level ire towards Harps, believing she had chickened out of living among them and vanished on her own free will, the knowledge that Rosalyn so bluntly imparted gave a new angle to everything. He felt the barest sense of guilt over his initial thoughts - and then nothingness. A blanking of his brain. He had not known the girl very well or for very long, but to hear that she was gone and dead shook him in ways Reyes could not put words to.

He was briefly slack-jawed, but then he shut his mouth with a click and looked away, in to the distance. Rosalyn had done the same; she was quiet, seemingly more interested in her son now that she'd given him the news. He did not know how to react and so he didn't react at all. And when the silence grew too heavy, he broke that with something that veered tremendously off-topic.

Why are we still here? He asks, yet still is unable to look at his mother. He feels sick to his stomach as he looks around at the pine trees and the snow. His voice is a touch more exasperated. Winter is almost over. The quakes stopped ages ago. We could go back home.

This silence didn't bode well.  Rosalyn's look grew more concerned as he seemed to flatten before her, disconnecting in a way that was foreign.  She did not hide herself the way he did; she did not like to be blind like this, and she took a step forward almost unthinking before she froze and caught herself.  There was a wall being built between them that she didn't know how to surmount, and she felt the frustration of it set her teeth on edge.

His question when it finally came was so out of left field that she took a moment to even hear it.  She looked at him sharply; his tone did not sit well, nor did the way this meeting was going.  Much about him lately, as much as she loved him unconditionally.  And what is home? she asked, with a small amount of challenge to it.  She thought she knew... but she wanted to hear why.

Didn't they miss the sand, the sea, and all that the coast encompassed? The freedom of the open air, the familiarity where they had begun their family? Judging by the look that passed over Rosalyn's face - it was Reyes who was the odd man out. He shifted his weight and glanced away from her, a flinch, and then frowned softly when he heard the question. 

He snorts, not sure how to answer immediately, but he tries. I don't know, but its not here. Back on the beach maybe. Being in Tortuga had been hard on him, filled with all sorts of lessons, but he had found comfort in the familiar aspects: the screaming gulls, the brine in the wind. Didn't she miss it too? Reyes had always hoped their relocation would be temporary; he had gone off to hunt down the missing pieces of their family as a byproduct of this belief, and now that they were together again (for the most part) he was struggling to see why they stayed. Their numbers dwindled - people were dead.

The boy cannot help but bristle as he tried to compose his thoughts, wading through them slowly, but he shot Rosalyn a firm look as he voiced: Who else has to die? He was being overdramatic - but he didn't see that, it was as if he was speaking of something else entirely which was too intimate to share.

She'd been expecting the sound, and already been prepared to question it.  There were few things she was adamant about, but she was dead set against returning there.  Let the grotto rot.

It isn't so simple, just moving.  She said, softening a little.  One had died here, only one.  In Ironsea, we lost at least four, just to the waves one fall.  If we move, we might meet worse than what we've found here.  Was it four, or was it more?  She couldn't recall... she was losing some of their names as well.  But it didn't matter, the point was still there.  

If we go, we have to make sure everyone is able to come, and that the place we are going has enough to offer.  She finished, but she knew what he was feeling, and he wasn't alone.  Just recently she'd pressed Erzulie to leave with her... and she hadn't liked the answer she'd gotten, much as she'd given in to it.

He was frowning, looking very much like his father - not that he would know that.

Fine. Tell them to come, but if they don't want to, we don't want them anyway. He was speaking quickly, not thinking through any piece that he offered. His voice was tinged in annoyance but more than that, a sense of authority that didn't suit him. He shrugged his shoulders and stared at the distant undulation of the trees where they split from the hillside, but glanced to the ground after a moment, bothered by the mess of green-on-black that hazed his vision. 

It was so contained here. Didn't anyone else feel stifled by these trees? By the sameness everywhere?

Why are you so afraid? He judged her openly, harshly, with a jab of his voice - because that's how he perceived her disinterest in their home, as fear of the sea and all that the lifestyle entailed. He was reminded suddenly of what Erzulie had said to him -- ask your mother -- and blurted witih more tenderness than he meant to, what did the sea ever do to you?

She didn't like the way his words rang, or how callous they were towards the rest of their band.  Her priorities were their family, but that didn't mean she wanted her children to disregard sense.  She held her tongue, though, and let him finish.  Finally, finally, at least they were getting somewhere.  

Rosalyn appraised her son for a moment after he'd finished.  The tone he ended on was not the one he started with, and she sensed the question was twofold.  The sea had hurt him... and he wanted to know if he was free to speak.  There were things about her past she had shared with none, not even Erzulie, though her wife knew more than anyone else.  Some things didn't bear speaking, and since she'd left that pain behind her, she saw no point giving it more time than what she already had.  There were things she didn't necessarily want her children to know, but now he was asking.  

I'm not afraid of the sea.  She replied, finally.  But the coast brings out the best and the worst in wolves.  This crew we have here is loyal, and that isn't something to throw away.  She couldn't let that first comment go unheard, though the latter was truly what she wanted to address.  I've run with pirates.  I've seen their kind, the worst and the best, but I won't tell unless you promise me the same.  She knew he was hiding things, things that he desperately wanted to share but didn't know how to.  This was his chance.  She wouldn't beg for it.

She wouldn't beg for it—he didn't want her to; but the apple didn't fall far from the tree. Reyes was petulant in that moment. He heard all that was said but it was filtered through his own experiences, so when Rosalyn explained she had dealt with pirates and their fickle natures before, his brain went to the worst possible thing, and he couldn't—wouldn't—let himself go there. She would not force it out of him but maybe that was what he needed, someone to fight him for it, to break the barriers he had erected to keep himself safe. No, he wouldn't talk about it.

And in the end he could only stare at her. She'd given him enough of an answer to satiate him for now (rather, to scare him off from the truth) and he would not push further—ultimately too afraid of what he might learn of himself or of his mother. Reyes looked away from her momentarily and seemed more interested in the shadows among the trees, feigning curiosity towards the sounds of the woods. The wind billowing through the pines was so much like the ocean's sigh.

He took a breath of that pine scent and shook his head softly, almost as if he were making a decision for himself, and remained silent.

Frustration and hurt.  It was a familiar sensation since becoming a mother and one that became harder and harder for the normally outward pirate to not project on her son.  As she watched him close over once more, she did growl.

If you won't speak, fine.  But I'll tell you what I learned, and maybe one day when you trust me you'll heed it. Her ire wasn't with him, but with herself.... because perhaps, if she'd been there when he'd left, he'd trust her with this now.  She'd failed him and now was reaping the consequences.

The more space you give them in your mind, the longer they win.  Learn what you must and let the rest go.  The fur on her back rose as she thought of the lessons she'd been imparted, and in some part she was glad not to need to bring her children into that.  After all, she'd not needed to voice it to move on.  In time, he would.... or he'd let them turn him as they'd been turned.

After what she'd seen, she feared the latter, a fear she and Erzulie seemed to share.

yikes i am slow

His jaw set in a firm line; in that moment he didn't look anything like his doppleganger of a mother, and not really even his lost father - but had either of them known his aunt Niamh there was a clear similarity to the haughty, yet cold, manner of his glare as he looked to the trees. To them, through them — and then slanted his gaze towards Rosalyn as she tried to impart some kind of wisdom with her frustration. 

Deep down Reyes knew she was right, but in the heat of the moment he was too busy trying to distance himself from the memory of what had happened. He didn't want to think about what had occurred with him, and as his mind began to piece together a scenario in which Rosalyn was standing in his place -- he wanted to vomit, and so had to force the sensation back down his gullet before the nauseated look could take hold of his face. He became solid and frigid, like sea ice, and it was unbecoming.

He turns an ear to a sound - or maybe he's pretending to hear someone calling for him on the wind; either way, it is a prompt to signify his disinterest with a continuation. Reyes wants an escape from this strained conversation; he doesn't leave her outright, though. A childish notion overtakes him - as if he needs to be dismissed, suddenly the obedient son despite his tied tongue. 

(Again, a wave of that same ill tide rises up within himself; he envisions Lynford—his posture tensing--)

She watched him freeze over and she tensed.  But then the fight left her, and she shook her head.

When you are ready, I'm here.  And if you are never ready, I'm still here.  She said, softly.  A little weary.  At first impulse, and a few years ago, she might have tried to force an encounter.  She might have egged him, goaded him to violence, challenged him to share.  But Reyes was her son, and she was older now.  Too tired to fight him and loving him too much to endanger the fracture that might follow.

But she could still curse men and their so called strength, as she watched him swallow his words into stony silence.

Then she turned and began to walk, slowly, in  another direction.  There was nothing telling him he could not follow... but she knew he wouldn't.  So she signaled the out he was seeking