Dragoncrest Cliffs some of footsoldiers, some of ships,

solaire had gone.
unlike the ragged unfinished way it had felt with regin, who was younger, solaire's departure was not unlike how earlythe wives' first brood had begun to leave their nest. wanderers, all of them, explorers with a pirate's travel-lust woven tightly into all of them. 
and yet she tilted back her head, calling for the sungold girl with a mother's love and sadness carried out across the water.
perhaps the flash of star-careening light would lead her back to their cliffs. the harlot passed through the stoneway toward the beachline, where she began to idly collect cold shells half uncovered by the surf, thinking of the bones left by whales she had once shown @Njord here.

It had been a nice day. The weather calm and the forest quiet. Njord had tracked game with @Haunt earlier that morning, and they had found a small party of does preferred to forage on their eastern border near the Tangle. After they had gone separate ways Njord had returned to his hollow for a nap, but when the wistful howl of Erzulie echoed through the chasm of rock, he stirred.

Passing through the tunnel, he found the queen moving about the whitewater. He approached her with a mellow posture and friendly wag of his fire red tail. Recently, they had spending more time together. In many ways, Njord found comfort in her empathetic personality. She was easy to get to know, talk to, be vulnerable around. On the other hand, he found himself concerned with her state of happiness… she was a strong woman, but he had witness her sorrows. That was something he wished to never see again, if he could help it.

“I heard ya howl,” he said as his gaze trailed to the wet sand. “Findin’ anythin’ pretty?” he asked.

as if summoned by thought, their red-tailed pirate prince came up near her. erzulie's melancholy lightened into something more wan. a small hard paw lifted; she pushed the pile about to reveal a gently whorled shell. "dis be pretty enough, but i know dere are more t'ings on dis beach."
she smirked at njord, extended the trinket if he chose to look at it further, and then breezed brisk along the waterfront. "sometimes, de wind be uncoverin' a large stone. inside de stone is an animal that no longer lives. it be in many loops," the harlot sought to explain with an amused look.

It was nice to see Erzulie’s spirits brighten. Njord could tell she had been calling for her daughter, @Solaire, who had departed shortly after Regin’s disappearance. The fiery girl was full of vim. They frequently patrolled Dragoncrest together and she often expressed her desire to become a guardian like Rosalyn. Though it had been a difficult season to leave the nest, Njord hoped that she was safe and thriving.

“Oh!” Njord chirped when Erzulie revealed the shell she had found. “Look at that there treasure!” He bowed town to inspect its polished surface and exotic shape. The usual fare of blue mussel or razor clams shells looked positively dull by comparison. She went onto describe something Njord had trouble parsing. His imagination ran wild, not exactly knowing the size of what she described. He imagined a large stone prison with a skeletal wolf jailed inside, looped ‘round itself like an ouroboros. “Ya don’t say…” his voice trailed with a quizzical look.

Next he imagined a sea monster - part whale, part crab. “You know tha sea like tha back of yer paw,” he remarked, impressed. “Ya ever seen on of those cre’tures… alive?” he asked, wondering if Erzulie had never found a living specimen of what she described.

"dere be no ot'er existence i would rat'er have," she declared of the sea and its knowledge, collected to her bosom. and yet a thousand more things existed beyond her comprehension. but beneath njord's admiration, it felt as though she knew them all. "i have not," erzulie admitted, searching for the telltale matte of the stone that might house the thing.
"i t'ink it used to live long ago. how it came to be encased in rock i do not know." voice fell away; there one was, and the woman approached with a delighted step. she set her paws to dig, knowing she need not bid the young pirate to lend his aid. njord did not need such reminding.
when two corners had been excavated, revealing a rather large boulder, erzulie began to angle her cuts deeper, sweeping sand out to expose one side of the rock. 
she did not speak as she worked, only cast a joyous glance or two toward njord until at last she paused to step back and to look. 
a little cry widened her mouth. "how magnificent!"

It was as if Erzulie spoke in riddles. Njord felt more confused and tried to imagine such a creature encased in rock, though he pretended he wasn’t by nodding astutely. Erzulie began to dig and dig. Njord moved besides her, excited to see what the goldspun captain was digging up. Instinctively he joined her excavation until a piece of hard stone showed itself.

“Oh!” he exclaimed. The fossil revealed itself in a way Njord’s brain could have never imagined. The spiral was so perfectly fractioned and designed. Had nature really made such a geometric thing? “Erzulie, wha a treasure!” he said to her as he inspected the stone, sniffing it vigorously. “My, is there anythin’ ya don’t know?” he commented, admiring her vast knowledge.

erzulie watched him as he admired the thing caught in its bed of stone. his praise warmed her spirit. a tempting thought rushed her mind and the obsidian gave into it. "i know very few t'ings; it is just dat i know dem well." 
she wanted njord, and she allowed herself the sensation. enjoyment was a part of the proceeding; her heart and the ability to wake her flesh with a word was solely the domain of rosalyn. this glissade was a corporeal one, confined to her body and the coming swells of that not so distant fire that was soon to consume her. 
and consume whom she wished.
the lines of her body softened; she leant forward to nose along the edge of his cheek. "i could show you how well i know dem, if you like."
only if he flushed with confusion would she pull away, otherwise erzulie remained as she was, snake-glittering and still.

Njord’s cerulean gaze locked upon his captain as the air between them shifted. He felt it deep in his bones – an instinct, a closeness…. The hair on his neck prickled with goosebumps while he held his breath as if they were underwater. The sensation reminded him of Valmua; drowning in her presence.

He admired Erzulie, and maybe even desired her, but she was the partner of Rosalyn. Njord had never permitted himself to entertain the thought of being this way with his captain. Her gentle touch caressed his cheek and the seafarer practically melted, disarmed. I could show you how well I know dem, if you like, she whispered.

He was thirsty for the intimacy he had been denied; for a tender, wanting touch. He brushed away the nay-saying voices in his mind. Njord leaned into her easy presence, putty in her hands. “Is tha’ so…?” he asked, a glimmer of challenge for her to escalate first. He became very still, bowing his head to better bask in her attentions.

"aye." she had become bolder, more aware of his virility; the pending season whittled her hungers into needlepoint. njord did not pull away, nor did he become bolder; he held himself enthralled to her, and she reached to nip against the roundness of one ear, folding her sea-honed figure close with a sinewy reach. "come wid me."
she would not have fumbling when the time came, though a deepened part of her suspected that njord would respond with a heated eagerness that would drive away all experience or lack thereof. she mouthed the fur of his throat, motioned toward the silent watchful trees along the beach-head.
the young seafarer, hers for a time as she taught him the powerful and pleasurable things she had learned during her time upon the pearled wheel.

Like a seafarer enchanted by a siren, Njord was under the spell of Erzulie’s song. She beckoned him towards the private copse of coastal pines, tugging at the fur of his mane. Njord found his body aflame, wanting to know the goldspun captain intimately — the loving warmth of her touch. 

His cerulean gaze regarded her with new heat, burying his muzzle into her blonde locks to better breathe her in. Njord was at her heels as she led, red tail waving like a flag behind him. Then, he was hers.