Otatso Wetlands atansyon

her search for swordfish and quennell took mireille further than she had ever been.
the only ones she had told of her trip to bring back the wayward boys was @Chacal and @Sobo, as she did not want to burden her mothers. she did not yet know of the bear, or that @Njord had found its spoor.
the girl was a ribbon of scarlet in the open and frozen wetlands. she called plaintively for her brother, shivering not with cold but with trepidation to be so far from the sea.

She left Swiftcurrent Creek for the lands of the North. Jasmine knew the way would lead to the sea, though she hasn’t decided if she would travel through sandpits or mountains first. The coastline would be less slippery, but the mountains! Well, through most of them, she’d never been.

She heard the stranger’s voice before she even entered the wetlands, and a sense of curiosity compelled her to seek the other girl out. Jasmine found her pretty quickly. If not for her howls, then for the mighty swath of colour she scored across the trees still salted with snow.

Hey girl, Jasmine sunk into a great stretch as she neared the other, who looked somewhat around her age. She noticed how she shivered more than anything else, you lookin’ for someone?

if it was not the other's beauty that momentarily stunned mireille, it was the easy and immediate familiarity.
she was caught off guard. "aye. be lookin' for my dumb little brot'er quennell an' my nephew swordfish. dey went off on an adventure from sapphique, on de coas.' but dey been gone a while."
she approached carefully, waving her tail in friendliness. "i be mireille."

Until the other girl spoke, Jasmine was ready to take her to be something akin to a puppy lost at sea. But the strength of her voice surprised her — and so did the accent that brushed her words with the flavour of shanties and salt.

She’d heard these inflexions before. Felt at home within their foreign waves.

The girl remained cautious, but her words made Jasmine smile a wry little grin. Jasmine, she offered in exchange for Mireille’s own pretty name. Damn. I remember when I went off on dumb little adventures that had my own family worryin’, funny, to be the age where no one really worried about you anymore, y’need help? I’m out scoutin’, I’d be happy to lend a paw.

mireille snickered a bit and nodded at jasmine, falling into step easily. "i have not been so far from home yet," she said quietly, looking back toward the sealine, where her mothers and siblings remained.
"trut' be told, it is probably for de bes'. de only men in my pack are relatives. an' i do not know how to talk dem outside of home." why was she babbling so much? she felt already touched by the season, as if that was possible.

sorry it's taken me so long!!

She fell into step with Mireille, glowing at the girl's little snicker. Finally, someone her age - and a girl, at that! She'd been surrounded by boys and men for so long she forgot how good it felt to be with someone young and hip again.

And she was from the sea!

Girl, boys aren't so tough to talk to! she said with a little grin, they just like to pretend they are. You hold your head high and crack a few jokes, and if they laugh you're gold, and if they don't, she shrugged, well, then you keep goin' till you find someone who does. Easy as that! for Jasmine, at least - but then, she hushed herself and leaned over, as though conspiring, but girl, they get weird this time of year, though, she thought of Swiftcurrent, and before that, the pirate boys, who'd turned into actual animals around the older girls this time last year, but they blame it on the spring.

ur good! <3

the spring. mireille chuckled. "i know how boys act in de sprin.' men too, for dat matter. idiots." she waved her tail gaily. "so i t'ink part of it is dat i — i do not want dem to laugh. i want dem to be frightened."
mireille sidled a bit and eyed the brash young woman who had melted out of the atmosphere with such familiarity. "but you seem to know more about how dey be den me. has one of dem caught your eye?" she asked, vaguely hoping to find someone as unattached as her.