Dragoncrest Cliffs watch the masses fall

keeping vague considering! aw - sobeille would want to bury mireille

sapphique could not find its peace.

sobeille stared at the collapsed body at her feet, a deepsea wind playing along mireille’s coat. little auburn hairs stirred in gentle palisades, giving the illusion of breathing.

but mireille was very much dead.

sobeille turned her maman's body over and sniffed at her nose. it was macabre the way maman's lifeless lips shifted, gravity loosening the folds of skin that once held so much character.

she should cry.

a tic pulsed under her right eyelid. somewhere, the roar of the sea drowned out all sensation.

poison? the burgeoning storm of intestinal gases seeping through the obsidian’s mouth informed sobeille it was unlikely.

a long, slow thing unraveled in the emerald. she had only ever wished to see her legacy thrive! and yet -- at every turn was some new obstacle, some new loss.

where was sapphique without its obsidian?

she felt it shift and snake around her heart, twisting her gut.

she sent her howl into the world like a quivering arrow; full of so much hate and anger and grief that it scoured her throat and incinerated her voice; it scraped the sky and it reverberated through the great trees of their forest.

gulls wheeled overhead. the low groan of the slopping tide below.

a single tear arced down the face of a girl who now faced an unspeakable gauntlet: the remainder of her life, laid out without ever again seeing her maman.

Seraphine had come looking for her mother, only to find a sight she did not quite understand.

She barely seemed to see her sister, mismatched eyes fixed on the stiff body of pretty ginger fur that the girl knew to be the mother she clung to. Why was she so stiff?

Sera found that she could not move from where she stood. Things her mind did not yet know, her heart screamed at the sight of all the same. There was something wrong with this scene. Why did she feel so sad at the sight of it?

A soft bark came from her throat. Why wasn't her mother looking at her?

Could she not hear her?

the call from sobeille chilled him to his bones.

lafayette answered, limbs stiff, muscles aching in anticipation of what he'd find. another raid? another loss?

what greeted him at the end of the trail was beyond comprehension.

val's death had shaken him deeply, unleashed the idea that those he loved could live no more—a watershed moment of adulthood. and pepper's grisly demise had brought within him a raging torrent of grief; the sight of one so cherished ripped from him in an instant was an indelible scar upon his heart.

but this—this?

at the sight of his manman lying still, too still, some divine hand now plunged into his innards and scooped them out altogether;

he felt empty; was empty;

could barely see sobeille and seraphine for the utter devastation that weighed upon him, limbs crumbling, body giving way to the ground.

manman. . .

not her. not her.

lafayette was suffused with feeling and yet devoid of it; the world still turned around him, but slowly, and as if it could stop at any minute. the only thing that pierced through this veil of grief was his younger sister's bark, and he turned to her, as if trapped in fog;

li mouri, he said helplessly. she is gone.

dey did dis. sobeille grit between clenched teeth, pulling sweet seraphine aside as lafayette arrived to disguise the fact she'd cried.

she hated them. the pirates that raided her home. the corsairs that chased her down the coast. the black man with the scar.

sivaak.

was because she had been gone? the same divine hand plunging into lafayette's insides and pulling them from his body converted sobeille's guts into a bolt of lead.

was this her fault?

how had she not seen how sick maman was?

she stiffened, gaze flickering from lafayette on the ground to her youngest sibling. the glass look in his eyes hardened her, for it reminded her of all the suffering her family endured.

recalling aspa and her talk of gods, sobeille nearly stifled a bitter laugh. gods? what gods?  life was suffering, and her dead mother evidence of this.

we bury 'er. by the time chacal and the others arrived, sobeille would see to it a new hollow was funneled into the cliffside's uncharitable ground. another body for the graveyard growing too large for comfort.

but first.

bending down to seraphine and peering at her young sister, sobeille wondered if she understood she was now an orphan. maman would never see her babies grow, or hold their children in her arms. she would not laugh with them or cry with them ever again.

holding the liquid softness of the child's gaze, sobeille spoke: seraphine. i be needin' you to find maman a pretty shell, okay? many shells littered the gravesite, acting as headstones and totems for those departed. trusting this would preoccupy the puppy almost too young for such sober events, sobeille grimaced and turned back to lafayette.

she said nothing as she began to dig.

She looked to each sibling as they spoke, waiting to be able to understand.

Lafayette speaks words she does not yet know, then says that their mother is gone. Sobeille tells her to find a shell.

..Okay, if it will make 'er 'appy. Her words came out mumbled. Paws moved after a short moment to oblige.

Someone who was gone always came back. Seraphine was sure. She would find the prettiest shell, one worthy of her maman, one that each time those green eyes laid upon it, she would remember it was from her baby Séraphine and smile in the bright way that she always imagined her maman could.

Hopping over dirt and pulling shells stuck in the ground, she pushed the pain to the back of her mind to find the perfect gift for her maman.

will just be a single post from me.

Death had clung to Sapphique for far too long now. Many had left. Many had been smart to do so. She wondered if the tides of Eresta was littered with so many bodies as their cliffside was now. 

Val. Pepper. Chani. .... Before Shadess could even fully comprehend the scene she was viewing now, she was throwing up her lunch in the sand. Her body trembled there after as she made her approach. Silent tears streaming down her face. 

She didn't look to anyone. Didn't speak to anyone. She simply couldnt, for fear she might break. She began to dig the grave along the side of her siblings. 

Too late. They had been fucking too late. Shadess had meant to save herself mother, aunt and cousin and instead they dropped like flies all the same. 

By the end of it all, when Shadess toes hurt from the dig. When her mind was tired from the overwehlming grief, she would leave without a word. Any who followed would have a face of teeth. 

She would run to the edges of the land and out to sea and she would scream in agony into the heavens until she could scream no more.

how many graves had he dug?

too many, given his young age.

that potent cocktail of grief and anger overwhelmed lafayette as he nodded toward sobeille, then began to churn at the ground with his forepaws. his teeth were gritted, tears streaming silently down his face. dirt and mud flew, spattering his legs and chest.

all the while, he could not help but think of those oft-whispered words, usually given to those who would depart—

sapphique will see you thrive.

this was thriving?! 

the hole was hock-high, and growing deeper, wider;

sapphique will see you thrive.

thrive, perhaps, as food for worms and bones in the earth—or else left behind, trapped in grief, half-empty—

sapphique will see you thrive.

lafayette's paws were bloodied, nail beds damaged. with a sobbing inhale, he withdrew from the grave and began to pace, limping slightly, wishing that the sea had taken him all those moons ago so that he did not 

have to

feel this pain

each of them tilled the earth, and in short order the grave had been dug.

seraphine returned, a windworn conch that had once been peach in her jaws.

sobeille raised her voice in a mourning howl as wind cut through the pines.

a piece of her heart would be buried here, today — a piece of all of them.

it felt wrong, that first fling of dirt onto mireille’s beautiful fur. her stomach turned to think of the worms burrowing in her maman’s skin, of the rocks and dirt sullying her brilliant auburn fur. as more clods of dirt fell, sobeille’s anger and fury grew until it threatened to burble over, blackening her heart.

when they were done all of their claws were blunted and sore. sobeille took the conch found by seraphine and placed it upon the mound holding mireille’s body for the rest of eternity.

to each sibling she gave a press of her muzzle, knowing their grief was communal.

like shadess, when they were done sobeille did not look back.