Dragoncrest Cliffs and just measure the beat on

there was a time val was a little thing and his mamans laughed as he wrestled against a large stick. the sun to their back, a calm wind rifling through their fur.

when he was older and he was lost — she was the first to see him there at the border. he was tired, hungry. her one eye softened in fondness he wished to cradle forever.

val’s form slouched before the still body of rosalyn. the joy from hours before withered to bitterness; his tongue stung as grief sorrowed his blood.

new life ushered in, old life taken away. he thought of the sea as it rose and then pulled out to the deeps. each of them were an inconsequential grain of sand, a thousand souls pulled in and out by the tides of unforgiving time.

rosalyn’s expression was one of deep peace. he hoped the last thing she saw was erzulie. all pantherine of gait, sundappled, a smile so warm it hit like furnace blast. let this be her last memory — the two of them fading to the sea together.

i’ll miss you forever. val’s voice cracked as he placed a kiss to her forehead. beneath her paws he tucked the small golden pearl. for a long while he hung by, but rosalyn’s spirit had long since fled and there was no warmth to be had for her passing.

Following her hunt, Chacal returned to Bluepeace Meadows where her own children had been kept, only to find Suzu pacing anxiously. She’d heard something- a wail or a scream or something- and it had come from the Roja den. Étienne had been headed that way not long ago, and Suzu feared for her brother. Chacal reassured her daughter, before she set out to see what it was that had frightened her son.

A half-smile came to her lips. Perhaps her mother was feeling in better spirits, and had simply told her sweet boy a story of ghosts. 

She saw Val, but no joy came to her when she saw the way he was bent with grief. She shook her head and swept closer, finding only grief would take the place of dread. ”No, no nonononono!” She begged, whispered and pleaded before she came to Val’s side, and saw their mother, there.

A woman fierce for many ages- now resting peacefully, her spirit gone to dance with her most beautiful dreams, it seemed. Chacal sank to the ground, weeping as the gap in her heart had found its second half, leaving behind a crevasse twice as deep. 

It hadn’t eased the pain, knowing that this day would com, but she was grateful at least that Rosalyn’s final moments had not been spent in battle, or in pain. The pain had dogged her for too long- this, now, was a relief, though it would leave pieces of pain for them each to carry at the touch of her memory. 

Rosalyn did not feel herself anymore- she was cold, and still. Chacal smoothed the fur of her cheek, tasting what was either sea salt or tears from her brother, who she then rose toward, with a small cry of his name before she began to weep again.

chacal arrived, and the chasm marking val’s heartbreak widened.

he stepped away so that she could embrace the still form of her mother. for all the fading warmth on her features, val was subdued by how cold and still rosalyn’s body seemed.

chacal’s saltwater tears joined that of her brother, of the sea; joining ranks with the endless blue which thundered before them and would still do so long after they were gone.

when chacal cried his name val hugged her fiercely, a wellspring of tears darling his face as he pulled away. his heart was laden with the gravity of their loss. she is with erzulie now. it was all she wanted. he murmured softly. we should howl for them, for sapphique.

She sighed. She tied to see that this was what was best for Rosalyn, and the mention of Maman was the easiest way for her to accept her Mama's death. She nodded, grateful that Val could point that out for her; it helped the hurt, a little bit. "She 'asn't been de same since Maman passed away....But I am sure...Oh, she looks so peaceful. She is wid 'er today." Her eyes filled with tears again to look upon a face simultaneously both so pleasant, and so still. She pressed her forehead into Val's shoulder for a moment, while she allowed herself a moment to send all her wishes out into the world- pleading with the lwa that Val was right, and that Rosalyn and Erzulie had at last been reunited. She would see Sobo once more, too; and Raleska, and all the others who had drifted away before them. They would know no more pain- only togetherness. 

He suggested that they tell the pack, and she sighed heavily. The burden of burying parents, siblings, and announcing their deaths had become a heavy burden- one she shared with many others, but dreaded nonetheless. "I t'ink dat w-we should first tell M-M-Mireille," She said, her melody faltering. It was unlikely that her sister was alone (in all likelihood, Suzu had made a beeline for Mireille's den with the kids after hearing Etienne scream) but it was still not something she wanted her sister to learn without having someone at her side. She sighed and rubbed her cheek against her shoulder. 

"I must find Eti- 'e must 'ave been 'ere moments ago.
'E will not take it well- but I do not know,
where it is 'e has gone.

Clementine is near- I will ask her to stay...
If you could go, an' tell Mireille...
I need to try an' find my son.

We will sing their souls to de sea, den." She said.

she 'asn't been de same since Maman passed away. of this val knew to be true. his head hung a moment, buffered gently as chacal pressed her forehead to him.

the only comfort val held to his chest was that she no longer suffered.

chacal's voice often carried with it a soft melody that seemed broken today. she was right -- it was mireille they should first tell. but how to break this loss to a woman who had just had the hardest day of her life? to val this seemed incredibly cruel.

he deferred with an easy nod. i will go and tell her. i hope you find eti.

val did not linger. torment clouded his eyes as he gave one last look to rosalyn -- a kiss to chacal's forehead in hope, and val was off to @Mireille with heaviness tamping every step he took.

mireille slept, in and out as that of a new mother. when they stirred, she did also, and in this time stopped.
her eyes were bleary as she heard val's tread on the hard ground of the tangle's floor; and then a smile, for though she had told him never to ask, there was nothing — surely — wrong with his presence here now.
let her babes know him now and early.
but his face was drawn, and such a pall hung around him that mireille's smile fell. "what has happened?" she implored him in a low voice, urging him closer as she was not yet ready to leave her den.

-Chacal out-

The news he would have to bear would be heavy, but he would not be the only one who would have to break the news to wolves who had loved Rosalyn. Many had loved her, and the news would leave a river of broken hearts in its wake. She at last withdrew from Valravn's side, and bid him adieu with a sad look. She would spend one more moment lingering with her mother as she smiled faintly still- and felt relieved to know she had passed peacefully, escaped at last from the prison that had separated her from her memories.

he’d bid chacal goodbye and rushed to mireille’s side. that he was the progenitor of the way her smile fell crushed him, but he quickly moved such feelings aside.

he told her of what he’d seen just then - every detail from macroscopic to minutiae. it killed him to bring such evil to her puppy’s birthdays and wondered then if a malign pall would forever sit over their head.

there was nothing he could do to piece this part of their life back together. rosalyn, like so many bits of val’s life, had crumbled from the cliff face of existence and now was lost to oblivion forever.

i think last post for me <3

maman
maman rosalyn.
ah;
the tears came then but no denial, for like them all, mireille had seen her mother fade after erzulie's death. but to know neither of her mothers would know any of her children hurt her heart so greatly.
small way; little by little, mireille pushed into the circle of val's embrace and wept there, silent, shaking above the sleeping four she had delivered.
mireille cried for so many things she no longer knew their count.
and in the end, some small taste of peace.
for maman, gone now to be with her wife; gone now to verdant fields beside heavenly seas where their laughter floated across foam-flecked waves.
where no pain nor sorrow existed; where sobo joined their number.
mireille's tears became pure.

sorrow was perhaps the oldest community on earth. it harvested from its subjects a communal burden that could not be easily unsaddled.

val wept alongside mireille, and held her all the more fiercely. if he did not ever let her go, maybe he would never lose her the way he'd lost his mothers (three yet), his siblings, his legacy. but in mireille was his legacy, he just didn't know it yet.

it was no small blade in the back to know the next generation of sapphiquians would not know the spiritual giants that had defined what it meant to be 'sapphique'. the successors would never meet their predecessors; would never know their hardships, their foibles, their laughter or joys.

his eyes closed, the rims glittered with tears. he would not let them grow without knowing the names of their forebears; of their exploits, of their stories, and of the giant, inimitable presence that ripped a hole in his heart with their passing.