Ankyra Sound kouri dèyè

@Reverie @Blossom @Everett @Slavuj, mireille is unhappy about the gathering D: 

wolves, beneath sapphique.
mireille's sense of territoriality had sharpened, become a sword from which a zealous light glinted, and the voices in the sound irritated her.
a call to @Chacal and to @Val before mireille descended silently in the small dark hours of early morning, snarling a loud and reverberating warning to any of the interlopers within earshot, terrible and scarlet and possessive.

Big eyes, making some assumptions but lmk if I should edit

Reverie was walking along the beach with Blossom when she heard the echoing snarl, long before she saw or scented the wolf it came from. Fear rippled the fur along her spine with immediacy. She gathered her daughter close and prepared to retreat back to the cave they'd chosen to occupy — but it was too late for that.
She saw the red woman approaching, and could do nothing but tuck her daughter underneath her protectively. If either of her companions, Everett or @Riordan, were coming to her rescue, she did not know. Nor did she count on it. Reverie took a breath and braced herself. She had faced the witch alone; she could do this, too.

he was late! not only late, but eternally so! yet lestan felt as though he might have found a place, despite misjudging the depth and length of the shore when it came to travel.
he had overextended his hindleg, and now he limped pathetically, swathed in seaweed and reeking of brine.
"rev —!" lestan began to call, when a horrid sound chilled his blood and drove him with great instinct faster into the sound, grunting with pain even as his heart began to race.

it was only the slight frame of a woman with a child that quelled the brunt of mireille's approach. but others had been about, or would return.
"you be far too close to sapphique," mireille intoned coldly. "are you in need of help?" perhaps she meant to seek shelter with her babe.
but it was not; a man appeared then, hesitant and wide-eyed, and mireille's wrath returned. "dis place is not for settlin'."

Some of the fire went out of the woman's approach, but Reverie was still hyper-aware of the harshness to her tone. Lestan appeared then, and thoughtlessly she grasped Blossom and fled to his side. We're going to leave! She cried frantically to the woman as she went, thinking not of being protected then but of protecting Lestan. She could not lose him, not to this. She put herself firmly between them, pressing Blossom into Lestan's grasp and leaving him no option but to accept.
We'll - we'll leave right now, Reverie said a little more calmly, looking to Lestan briefly for confirmation, then back to the red wolf. She took a step toward her. We were only staying for a little while. To look for a home.

a madwoman! another witch — lestan frantically took hold of reverie and nodded at the apparition. "please, we're going now." why was the baby in his arms!
his turn to push forward, to put himself between reverie and the angered wolf with an exhale of breath as he turned blossom back toward his mate. "we'll go, right now."

a man. a woman. they asked for mercy, and for their children mireille gave it. not only for theirs, but for her own, which the daily changes to her body seemed to announce if only to the obsidian for now.
she jerked her head outward, eyes settled like cold gems on the trio.

Reverie was frustrated with Lestan's unspoken defiance of her wish to protect him, but there was no time for it. The woman wanted them gone, and now. She nodded numbly to the silent demand, accepting Blossom back. Lestan, She said, soft but urgent, seeking now to lead him away. Lestan, there are others - we have to wait for them - my brother, Everett, he found me here. And -
She cut herself off with an anxious glance toward the angry woman. Well, I'll tell you about it soon. Reverie took a breath and called briefly to them, to tell them that she was leaving, that they would need to follow to find her. She knew that they would.

PPing mireille away

nervously he stared over his shoulder, not quite registering her words. "what do you mean, your brother?" he asked sharply, thinking of tybault. and then he shook his head and cleared his throat. everett. "ah, come on. i found a bay called saltshore, and i think we can stay there. it's just a husband and wife for now, i-i told them about us."
others? he looked curiously at her.
the red woman did not follow, only watched them from a distance until they had faded from the view and the sound.

Her ears flattened to hear the sharpness in his words, but Reverie tried not to take it personally. She remembered telling him about Tybault, after all; she wasn't certain what else she might have told him since. Certainly she never imagined what had actually happened, and never would if she was not reminded.
She told herself to focus on his words. Saltshore. A husband and wife. It seemed well suited to them, though there was shame in her now; to be unmarried with a child was already a great source of guilt and insecurity for Reverie, and now she felt it would be put on display next to the stability and propriety and prestige of a pair of married alphas. Still, she nodded. And at his questioning look, she paused.
Everett isn't anything like Tybault, Reverie assured him first. He's wonderful, really. I think you'll like him. And - I met someone else. Well, I knew him before, but I don't remember. His name is Riordan. He... he knows a lot of things about me. Her eyes darkened a little. I don't think I like it, but he was my friend once. I want to give him a chance.

"if he attempts anything i shall strangle him with a length of kelp," lestan decided in a crisp voice, pushing on.
at last he decided they could stop, and having not spoken in many minutes, he turned to reverie. "will they come with us? everett and this — riordan."
a name, familiar in its tonality. he did not care for it.

What is kelp? Reverie questioned immediately, childlike in her wonder. Then she remembered that they were having a serious discussion, and tried to refocus. Everett might, I think, if I asked. I'd like to. And - Riordan - well, I don't know. She frowned.
There's something else we should talk about... She mumbled rather abruptly, and looked away. Thinking of Riordan had reminded her. They had found a place, and she could no longer avoid this conversation. Reverie only hoped that Lestan would be able to handle it.

he did not answer. something else, like blood on the denfloor or reverie running to arric or — he was being unfair! so very unfair! but lestan was smeared and blurred by days of no sleep, waterlogged, and now they had been run out of their temporary lodgings.
"let's get there first," he suggested in a salt-hoarse and vaguely pleading voice. "i — won't be able to focus, not truly, until we are far from here."

Reverie looked back to him then, really looked, and softened to see how tired and stressed he seemed. Alright, She agreed, and kissed his cheek softly. I missed you. I was worried, she almost added, but decided against it. He didn't need to know that.
I - I want you to know that I appreciate everything you do for us. For our family, She said instead. For the first time she felt strange to think of it that way; they weren't properly married, so they weren't a proper family, so — Reverie recognized the spiral and cut it short. They loved one another, and that was all that mattered, wasn't it? She didn't need to live by the rules of The Gilded Sea anymore. But neither could she shake the feeling of being... undesirable. Undesired. Why else would they still be unwed? They had spoken of it once, at the very beginning of all this. But that day by the lake had changed everything, she felt. Lestan would never marry her.

in his masculinity, lestan had only come to think of reverie as his mate, the formality of a proposal dumped beneath the chaos and the wearying travel, the fear, the worry. *i missed you also."
he paused to press his muzzle against her cheek in wordless answer, eyes holding her own resolutely.
perhaps saltshore could be something new. lestan smiled down at little blossom before he turned back to trail-discovery across the ridges of shell-studded sand.
he must be better.

Reverie tried to take comfort in the knowledge that Lestan loved her, tried to put aside the insecurity welling up inside of her. But the events of the past days had stirred this topic to the front of her mind; first stumbling over what to call Lestan when speaking to Slavuj, then being forced by Everett's sudden appearance to confront the reality of her sins. She had never wanted her brother to see her this way. Disgraced; soiled; irredeemable. Now he had, and now she would be forced to live alongside a perfect example of everything she'd been raised to aspire to. She didn't even know the names of this married couple, the leaders of Saltshore, but already she resented them.
She was lost in thought as Lestan dedicated himself to finding a path for them. She kept Blossom close, and tried not to think of the horrible things they would have called her and her daughter in The Gilded Sea. After awhile it occurred to her that she could not think of a single thing they might have said against Lestan.