Dragoncrest Cliffs If you're going to run then you better run fast

They made it to the cliffs and, seeing their silhouette looming, Rosalyn had panicked. This place held no familiar comfort for her. It was another reminder of what had been ripped away, cruelly, and the reason was lost. @Val’s presence, and his familiarity, was the only thing that held her from fleeing.

The place was wrong. The scents were wrong. This was a trick and she would not fall for it.

When Val called for others she growled, low, her hackles rising as she prepared to face old ghosts. Even with the food he’d provided, she was in no state to present a real threat to anyone. Bone-thin, barely standing, and with a wildness in her eyes that bordered panic.

With each day, Chacal's heart grew less and less, as she came closer and closer to mourning her mother. Her disappearance had been one thing, but her prolonged absence had worried her. Chacal was past the point of being able to go search for her mother- her due date was drawing very near, and she knew it would only be a matter of a week or so before her children came. They were nourished by a heart which was torn between anticipation and dread. 

Valravn's call was urgent but she was fortunately nearby, and hustled along, her belly swinging, as she loped toward the borders. With each stride she hoped- and she skipped a stride when she caught sight of two figures approaching in the distance. She uttered a cry of relief as she carefully loped toward them, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. 

The sea took- but also, it returned things to them which had been lost. She would count this, too, as a blessing. 

"Oh Mama, Mama, Mama!"" She cried, her voice breaking when she saw the wild look of her expression. She approached her mother low, with keening, pleading notes in her voice. "Mama, we missed you so!" She said, desperate to have her mother's terror disappear now that she was home, and with family.

swift. desperate. tearstained.
another daughter came to join the embrace, choked and shocked and glancing gratefully to val. "mama," she managed, trying to find rosalyn's gaze with her own wet eyes. "you be safe, mama," she said in soothing tone.
they had lost sobo and erzulie. but rosalyn had come back. 
her mama was home, and something fractured inside mireille started to ease.

Nothing was right. Rosalyn recognized them both instantly, but could not understand why they were here. This place held only monsters, but it also smelled of home. Home…

But she wasn’t here.

Rosalyn shook her head mutely, but pressed forward to lean sharply in against them both, her eyes closing.

There was a fog to her, a distance she wouldn’t surmount. Her fear faded, but it wasn’t replaced by sureness. Instead it was replaced with an empty nothing, numb and cold and vast. She could wander here forever, looking for something she knew, but refused to believe, she would not find.

She could feel that her sister shared both her joy and her heartache. Rosalyn might not now get that Erzulie had passed on- and now was not the time to tell her. Not when she seemed so distant, still. Unsettled. 

There would be a time for those words, though Chacal wished it would never come. 

In chorus with Mireille’s reassurances Chacal nodded. ”You be home, Mama. You be home wid us.”

mireille kissed her mother's shoulder and tried to lead her back toward the den long occupied by she and erzulie. "i will feed you, an' den you will sleep, mama." then they could speak, then they could —
grief quieted the young leader. she would move in slow silence.

Rosalyn followed complacently, still exhausted from running herself into the ground in her desperate travels.

They would find little resistance in making her eat and shortly after she would find deep and dreamless slumber.

Some part of her still searched, flown far and away, likely not to return.

Rosalyn was wordless. Whether it was from exhaustion or the weight of grief the two daughters shared, it was impossible to tell. Still; Chacal was keen to cling to mother, to care for her and maintain her. Maman and Sobi had been lost- and Chacal could bear no other tragedies.

fading here, lmk if yall want to open it again <3

with chacal, mireille watched over their mother. one would stay with her for a time, the other would go to bring food. her fur was combed and her bed refreshed.
the obsidian watched the day change to night and cried quiet tears outside the den for both her mothers, for her sister, for them all. like a child she would at last creep to rosalyn's flank, tearstained and ready to find sleep in the presence of her mother.