Seaside Moors Cause back where I come from, man, we're laughing at you

Change had come to Raleska's form, and first she spent her nights in disbelief, then disillusionment. More than once she had bit back the urge to call for him, but each time she grit her teeth and allowed her stubborn pride to get the better of her.

It wasn't his fault any more than it was hers. She had been stupid, juvenile. Raleska had always thought herself someone who wouldn't be tempted in that way, but now that the deed was done.. she was just as weak as the rest of them.

She searched the strand for @Erzulie with dread fizzling inside. Later, she might tell @Rosalyn after she had made sense of it all, but for now she stared at the moors in quiet disbelief, searching absently for a familiar face the way a ghost might pass through old haunts once lived in.

raleska.
there had been no doubt within her mind that the girl would return. she had come to think of the younger woman as one of her daughter's, and so fancied she had the same sort of attachment to raleska.
she did worry for the girl's well-being, and how she would find rusalka again, but it was calmed by the sight of the she-wolf's shape in the distance.
erzulie trudged out to meet her, plume waving softly. it was the look upon the girl's face that made her wonder, though the harlot refused to assuke until confirmed.

Raleska lowered her head as she approached Erzulie, tail swaying and muzzle brushing along the matron's gildwoven fur. She had missed her family, but had needed the space -- now that she was back, she wondered if things would start to make sense again.

But first.. "I messed up." She confided in the maven, avoiding the warmth of Erzulie's dual gaze. "I think.." Biting her lip, Raleska frowned and furrowed her brow. "I think I'm pregnant. I'm so sorry." Her voice was shaky as she navigated sharing the news - it was the last thing she had wanted, and she had been so, so, so, so stupid.. In that moment she wanted to curl into a ball and cry. She wasn't ready for motherhood, or having children -- she barely felt like more than a child herself.

in some part of her, erzulie knew. yet when raleska spoke, the she-wolf blinked. she had only prepared for the possibilities of her own children, and that of rosalyn. both were ageing, and she did not expect her second litter would be half so large as the last.
but now raleska stood holding too a brood, and erzulie thought of how precarious their position here was indeed. her eyes fell to the flanks of the shaken young woman, and she returned the embrace quietly. raleska could not be faulted for what had happened. it was the first time nature had echoed in her body.
"i do not know if anyt'ing can be done now, mon cherie," the woman admitted, for she was no midwife. "we will make it work. do you know de name of de fat'er?"

Defeat flushed the Eyjolfur's countenance as she read Erzulie's look, and then processed what had been said. Nothing to be done -- damn her for being so stupid, for acting without thinking.. For being a young, idiotic teenager.

Her lip trembled, but she disguised it by looking away -- at anything but Erzulie's concerned features. "Yes. His name is Dacio." She wanted to share everything with Erzulie, but shame held her back. "I didn't think it through." And now Rusalka was placed with the burden of her idiocy. "I'm so sorry." Raleska fumbled, repeating her apology anew. "I'm stupid, stupid."

dacio.
a cold glint in her eyes knifed suddenly toward raleska, and cinnamon hackles flared as her heart began to pound.
"tell me how you met dis man," erzulie commanded. 
let her not have heard that name before. let it be forgotten. let the sickening roil in her gut be incorrect.

A new hardness stole over the matriarch. Raleska glanced briefly into that steelbit furor, and then looked away. 

Her own features set in a similar fashion; her lips firm and eyes tracing the inconsolable lash of the sea. 

Her own answer was that of silence. Erzulie’s reaction was enough for the Eyjolfur to feel her skin crawl and her heart close harshly shut.

She regretted it all, but not so much that she would debase herself further.

raleska's silence was all that erzulie needed to confirm.
she did not recoil from the younger woman, merely drew away and set her somber gaze first upon raleska's profile, then the sea.
a long silence prevailed thereafter, seemingly endless, until the matriarch drew a breath and cleared her throat. 
"i do not find fault wid you for being wid child, raleska. dat is de lot of any woman. but i will nevah understand de choice you made for fat'er. not after all that has gone on."
erzulie looked back to raleska.
"i will have no child of drageda raised here. you will strike de name of dat man from your min', and you will tell me where he can be found."
there was no other choice, save for that which the harlot refused to consider.

Out of her periphery Raleska could see Erzulie had looked away. She waited for the biting words - the scorn - that would punctuate the air soon after.

Instead came something unexpected; she felt her face flush first with confusion, and then a sense of indignation.

It’s not like that. She pressed, ears flat against her skull. She’d enjoyed her time with him, but it had been a fling. She hadn’t expected him to be a permanent fixture in her life anymore than she had expected to become pregnant. In hindsight... extremely dumb.

I’m going to tell him. In her voice was an edge of unshakable determination. What did Erzulie plan to do when she found him? Raleska hung back on answering. What are you going to do if you find him?

What he did thereafter, well, that was up to him.

"you are making dis very difficult, raleska," erzulie growled rounding on the girl. "any decision i make now is for your own good, dat of dese little ones, an' rusalka itself."
an ear flicked. "you do not get to be privy to everyt'ing." she was frustrated now, for though drageda had fallen, now that blood would spring up amid them.
"he does not need to know," the harlot warned. "if he comes here looking for dem, he is more likely to have his throat torn out."
she could not salvage the choice raleska had made, but erzulie meant to preserve the future. "i expect your cooperation. children in rusalka belong to rusalka and to de mot'er." that was how it had always been.
at length her gaze grew less hard and more concerned. "please eat somet'ing, an' know dat while all dis frustrates me, you are my concern."
what would rosalyn make of this? or aningan?

"But I don't want them!" Raleska blurted, outcry wheedling in her heightening voice. Her ears splayed and yet, along her nape pinpricks of fur rose like quills to see the matron round upon her in frustration. She was frustrated too -- didn't Erzulie get it?

Even the softening of Erzulie's countenance did little to assuage Raleska, who now was biting her lip as her mind spun. "It isn't -- he isn't like that," Did she sound like a lovelorn, stupid fool? A teenage idiot? "He's not Drageda anymore. We're not what we were anymore, either." Not like they'd been in that hour Rosalyn had been ferried off. Not like they'd been when Eurycrates had his throat torn from him.

"I don't want them." She repeated, a cold fatigue seeping into her voice.

"it does not matter!" erzulie hissed. "he is one of dem! his name is all dat matters. dey have a belief in dem dat once you are drageda, you always be drageda," the harlot intoned gravely, ignoring the repeated words for a moment. "dat is why dey came for rosalyn. dat is why we had to fight a war, and dat is why drageda will come for any child dey believe belongs to dem."
as to the second, she shook her head. "i am not a midwife, raleska. how long has it been? you are already far enough along to be sick in de dirt, oui?" lips thinned. "i t'ink it is too late. any attempt upon dem is is not one you may survive."

Raleska flinched at Erzulie's hissed report, her ears flat to her skull once more. An old sulkiness returned to her features - it was that abstract sullenness that had often adorned her countenance when Caiaphas childed her. Only now, she was being childed by someone else.

I'm not a child! She wanted to scream -- how she hated being treated like one! Yet in that moment, that's exactly what she was, and she was bitterly cognizant of it. She had acted childishly, stupidly -- and now she and all of Rusalka would pay the price.

If only she could transform the lives in her stomach to stone.

"Drageda is dead." Raleska rejoined stubbornly. God willing, if these brats in her guts ever saw the light of day, they would not know of Drageda. "It's been fourish weeks." Maybe more, maybe less. All she knew was it had been long enough for change to come to her body, and for mornings to be uneasy and sleep full of discomfort. Was this what motherhood was like, punishing and uncomfortable? Was that the cost of the new life that stirred in her body?

Well, it was a shit trade. A shit trade for a shit situation. None of it was fair - why couldn't men undergo this unfavorable transition? Why was the yokel of reproduction noosed sharply around women, and so tightly too?

"What do I do?"

tears finally threatened her own gaze as she looked toward raleska, heart aching with a thousand shards of pain for the young woman. how frightening. how sorrowful.
inclining her head, she invited the girl into her embrace.
"you become a woman, raleska. women make de hardes' choices anyone could ever make." there was no false reassurance to be given. erzulie could not lie to raleska, tell her there was a way after four weeks to be delivered of these unwanted children.
"you must plan for dere fate when dey have come into de world."

She hated it. When she expounded on all the reasons she hated it, she hated it more.

Reaching into Erzulie's embrace, Raleska unleashed a shaky breath that scarcely communicated how threadbare her composure was. Erzulie's matter-of-fact delivery was exactly what the young Eyjolfur needed, despite the fact she hadn't wanted to hear any of it. As always, the maven was right.

Pulling away and hiding the glittering of her gaze, Raleska glanced out to the sea with another heavy sigh. There was no use lamenting things weren't fair: she had been stupid, and this was the price. "Plan how? Like where they're born, or... do you mean something else?"

"if you want dem to live after dey are born," erzulie murmured after a moment. "if you do not wish it, perhaps i can help." there was no reason to be hushed, and yet the harlot found she was. "but consider dat dey will be raised here. dey will know our faces. an' if i still have milk den, i will help to suckle dem."
a wan smile curved her lips; she tightened her wolven embrace around the younger woman, then stepped back to seek the aggrieved gaze. "you are not alone, raleska, even if it feels dat you are. i must tell aningan and rosalyn, but rusalka belongs to you as much as anyone else." her two-toned gaze glinted. "any part of you is a part of dis pack."
to them.
to no other.

Was Erzulie....? Raleska pulled from the woman's embrace a moment, a shudder crawling down her spine. She was many things, but she wasn't a child killer.. if they were born and they were alive, could she really take their lives?

A breath hitched in her throat, and despite the darkness of Erzulie's former words Raleska was incredibly grateful for the woman's grounding. A flutter of apprehension stirred in her heart as Erzulie mentioned she must tell the others; what would Rosalyn think.. that her adopted daughter was a dumb childling whore? Her ears fell, but she understood what must be done.

You are not alone. She repeated this mentally, over and over, as buzzing apprehension stole over her body.

erzulie knew the sentiment was more than grim, bordering upon evil. it went against the creed of the mother's instinct, against the nuturing ways of their kind. she herself had never done it, but the harlot was a woman who had never known her own strength until she arrived in the teekon. any choice raleska made in this would be supported, but she must know all of what she might decide.
she said nothing more, only gave the girl an encouraging look and breathed with her for a long moment.
stepping back, she quietly invited raleska to her side for the rest of the entry into rusalka, but without intentions of pressuring the younger she-wolf, who might certainly wish by now to be alone.

For a spell, the two glanced over the choppy coast in silence. Raleska was lost in thought; some of them inspired by Erzulie, some of them inspired by the darkness of her own selfish heart.

After a time she felt Erzulie's body shift away from her - when she glanced up questioningly she saw invitation in the matriarch's eyes. Wordless and willing to do anything to keep her thoughts at bay, Raleska followed after the maven -- happy for a time to have company in such perilous times.