The Sentinels shipwrecked

She felt it as soon she entered the line of fallen sentinels— an ache in her heart that grew sharper as she moved toward the forest's center. This had always been a sacred place, an instinct told her, and vague memories filtered through her mind like reflections on water. It was maddening, to be unable to fully grasp them. Walking here felt like walking with ghosts, and her ears swiveled as she caught the whispers of wind through the hollowed and burned trees.

Emaleth turned her head sharply, nostrils flaring to taste the air, as a low creaking sounded out in the distance. After a few moments' breath, she braced herself against the earth as it moved beneath her feet; the crash of the giant hitting the forest floor causing shockwaves. It was dangerous to stay here, she knew. But she thought, more dangerous not to.

Altering her course, she walked through the forest with a sort of reverence, until she came upon a clearing ringed with a circle of flowers. At this, a wave of memories flickered through her mind— too rapid to truly follow— and she fell to her haunches, overcome with grief.

The sentinels had once stood as a shadowed and mystic place. Smokestep had been drawn to the forest since his birth. The pale woman Deirdre and his own father had stated that the wood was rife with the spirits of all things wild and gentle, and tormented. The young pirate had been fearful of word getting back to the forest witch. He wondered how she would have felt to know that there were only small buds forming beneath snow and ash, and that the great trees were only guardians to the dead. Surely, her heart would have been broken. The ghost trekked up from the bay and into the depths of the forgotten pack. His steps were calculated, and his gaze darted warily from one end of the wood to the next. A tree fell and rattled his frame, but the fallen giant had also cast a light on a dark shadow in the thick of it all.
 
The mismatched colors of his eyes locked to her dark figure – hunched and distraught in appearance – but he did not move at first. He thought that she might have been a spirit of the former pack. The pale mate to Skellige had said that spirits were frequent visitors within the forest, but he had never thought he would see one. With a soft chuff that hung in the air, he waited to see if the shadow would turn or if she would vanish entirely.

She did not hear the other approach over the roar of rage-tinted sorrow that flooded her mind and body; but like the small buds of foliage fighting their way through the ash in the forest around her, there was relief and joy there beneath her surface, too. She felt the shadowy presence here, stronger than she ever had before, as her mismatched eyes took in the minute details of each flower in the fairy ring. A memory was there, just on the edge, I th... I think...

A chuff startled her, and the dark witch turned, white teeth flashing as the guard-hairs rose along her spine. Emaleth was prepared to attack, but the white fur stalled her— A white wolf, like in my dreams... and her posture began to relax ever so slightly. Except— no, it was too large, its eyes not green like the earth. She redoubled on her aggressive stance, rage now building and threatening to overtake her grief.

How dare he, how dare anyone deign to walk here amongst the sacred ring.

The dark girl turned to him – her own two eyes were a startling contrast to each other – and she bristled at his figure. Smokestep did not step back. He watched her with a calculating stare, glued to the points in her body that were tense and prepared. In a moment, she seemed to soften some, but it was replaced with a swift rage. The young Captain was mesmerized by her. She embodied the wild fire that had ravaged the forest; she stood as the darkest decimated point in the sentinels, and he was entranced. Foolishly, he held his ground and drew his head upward to show that her sharp manners would not offend him or frighten him into running away. The forest was still a neighbor to him, even though the residents had long since vanished from the grounds. He was brash and cocksure, not knowing how sacred the forest was to the wolves who had once called it home.
 
“Yer alright,” he spoke in a soft voice and his tail waved gently at his rear. “Ye lived here?” the pale young man then inquired with a swing of his muzzle to the forest. It was a guess, but she seemed possessive enough of the land that he would have wagered all his treasure on a deeper connection between the shadow and the woodland. With her wild gaze and the sharpness of her features, he took a risk in stepping one pace closer, but he paused with enough distance between them that she might scent the brine against his coat and know he belonged near to her home.

He did not stand down and Emaleth growled low in warning. Her mismatched eyes held his, the sea's fury churning within the ocean blue, the memory of the once-great forest burning in the emerald green. Once, the dark she-wolf might have disappeared between the trunks, wraithlike— a shadow playing tricks on the eye— but for all her self-imposed isolation, this place was hers, and the Morrighan had taken residence in her spirit. If she had not learned to become hard, resolute, she would not have survived all that time on her own.

I am not, she assured him with a bitter snarl. Emaleth Claudette Mayfair was far from alright. She had lost everything, including herself, and the only thing she was sure of was that this decimated forest meant something of great import to her— and this fairy ring, something greater still. More softly, she answered, I think I was born here.

He moved a pace closer, and the dark witch reacted instantly. With the swift elegance of a dancer, her jaws were at his throat, tantalizingly close the the warm beat of his heart, breath tickling the fur there— but she tasted the sea on her tongue just before contact, and Emaleth abruptly froze.

The shadow silenced his initial few words. Smokestep could not help but to smirk wildly at the swift snapping of her word. The dark ink of his lips curled upward, and he squinted at her. She looked alright from where he stood, save for her initial hunched frame and the inclement edge in her eyes. The young Captain thought, for a moment, that he had crossed paths with a siren who had lost her way. She was close enough to the edge of the sea that she could have called it home, but there were things about her that were so distinctly earthy. Smokestep knew that she had to have belonged to the wood.
 
As he had drawn closer, she moved to close her fangs around his throat. He did not budge, or flinch, but steadied himself in preparation for her to find purchase in the tender flesh around his neck. Something in her froze and he watched with a glint in his crimson optic. She had been held back by something, though he would not have been able to estimate what it was. “Wot’s yer name, lass?”

He was unruffled by her teeth so close to his lifeline, barely flinching, and for a moment she considered clamping down and ending him rather than respond to his question— but in the unspoken language of wolves, this non-reaction was a display of trust and deference. She pulled back, closing her jaws as she did, so her teeth just barely grazed the skin of his throat. A warning, that she could and would fight him if a need were to arise, but... even she felt the intimacy of the action and shivered despite herself.

Her guard remained up, but Emaleth allowed some of her rage to ebb away, and she took a few step backwards to reintroduce a wall of space between them. She kept silent for a moment, considering how she might answer— she knew, somehow, that names held power. Such power could either be used against her, or it could be something she wielded. A different version of herself might have kept such power from strangers, but something about this place and interaction made her want to use it as a weapon.

I have most recently been known as the Morrighan, she told him, though it wasn't likely he knew of the myth, but my true name is Emaleth Claudette Mayfair. Her eyes closed as she breathed in the scent of the forest, and for a moment she was transplanted back in time, when the sequoias stood tall and she could hear the secrets they whispered to one another. She opened them again to gaze at him, then repeated more confidently, I was born here. This is my father's grave.

Only the tips of her fangs had grazed his throat, but he still felt the wrath behind them and it was astounding to him that she could feel such a way. Then, she moved to allow space to stretch between them. Smokestep did not make an effort to move forward again. He did lax his position some, already prepared for the worst of what she had to offer. It was then that she offered him a moniker to use. The nickname that she used was one that he was familiar with, though not in depth. He had heard the tale of the goddess of war from travelers that he had crossed paths with on his journey back to the Teekon Wilds. They had been a strange lot – close to the earth and fantastical in their beliefs. Smokestep had not thought much on their tales, but he had shared a few of his own and passed by them without so much as another word.
 
“Goddess o’ War, eh? Yer a sharp lass, but ye don’t look much like a crow o’ death to me,” he remarked with a small smirk and a chuckle that barely found way past his lips. It was not until she shared her true name that he took a more serious role in their conversation. Emaleth Mayfair, he though to himself and frowned swiftly at the raven-coated girl. “Do ye know Deirdre?” he asked her in a soft voice. The two colors of his eyes searched her face for a long moment, expectantly.

I set a plague of locusts upon this land, once, she responded absently, unsure of where the memory had come from. This forest is littered with my hexes and curses. Perhaps that is what set it to ruin. Perhaps that was why there was still so much she didn't remember; she didn't want to. And I could not survived alone for so long if I did not know how to fend for myself. Looks can be deceiving. What did the stranger think death— the Morrighan— looked like? Death was unwanted by most. For it to claim what it desired, it needed to beguiling and seductive.

Deirdre. Her lips curled gently into a demure frown, for the name did sound familiar; but she could not place it. For all her certainty that they stood next to her father's grave, for all the fragmented memories this broken forest evoked, there were no images of flesh and blood. I don't remember much of my life here before, she confided quietly.

The dark woman explained herself, and not once did his mind stray from her reasoning. Smokestep was fond of teasing those who took a nickname that held such heavy background. His own father had adopted the title of Leviathan, and if that wasn’t pretentious enough, had wielded the calling as though it was his destiny. The pallid marauder knew how well looks could deceive, but even his father had managed to imprint upon him the ways of the Cairn and what it truly meant to be a Leviathan of the sea. Were it not for the fact that Smokestep had warped the founding of Ironsea and had cast aside the idea of recreating Blackrock Depths, he would have been very similar to his father at that age. Life had a funny way of shaping individuals, he thought.
 
The crooked smirk remained printed on his dark lips and the pirate flagged his tail once at her. “S’pose yer right, miss,” he concluded with a small shrug of his shoulders. “Sad that ye can’t recall yer youth, but I thinks I know yer family. ‘Least… me dad’s got himself a girl called Deirdre Mayfair and they’re awful keen on each other,” the young Captain elaborated with a forced tone of nonchalance. How strange would it have been for him to know that Emaleth was Deirdre’s sister – that they had both suffered a loss of memory – and that they had both returned to their place of birth. Perhaps, fate played mysterious games.

She held her breath, waiting for some bell to ring— for the name to register in her soul and evoke a series of images, perhaps from her youth, but none came. Logic told her it was likely she was related to this mysterious Mayfair, but the dark witch relied on feeling; and there was no shiver of coincidence, no sense of foretelling. After a few miserable moments, she shrugged helplessly. This Deirdre could be her mother, sister, aunt, cousin, or— for all Emaleth knew— a complete stranger altogether.

Would you tell me about her? she queried shyly. It felt strange, to ask someone she had just met to describe her family to her— this wasn't normal, not even remotely. About them? And if they were some other Mayfairs, it hardly mattered; the stories the male told her would be stored away along the stories she told herself, and with no more merit.

There was something in the way that she softened – the way her voice seemed to echo a distant memory that she could not quite place – that caused his crooked smirk to fall. She knew nothing of her own family. She needed to know from a stranger about the people she was supposed to be closest with. Smokestep’s mismatched gaze searched her features, forcing himself to swallow the pity that had found a way to lodge within his throat. “Aye,” he agreed with a small nod. He would share all that he could about the strange fairy woman who had stolen his father’s cold heart. How peculiar it was that something so pure and good had found a way into the soul of a dark monster. The two had made it work well, despite their differences.
 
“She was a right beaut. Tall – legs fer days, if ye know wot I mean – with these eyes that look like the forest in summer. She’s as kind as she is pretty, o’ course. Said she was a witch, too, but yer lot seems to be fond o’ losin’ memory ‘cause she didn’t remember much ‘bout where she came from,” he explained to her with a small shrug. Of course, as a young boy, he had not been entirely interested in the woman’s tales or the peculiar antics that had warped her life. Smokestep was a brash young thing, but even he knew that Deirdre Mayfair was a light in a very dark place.
 
“Ringin’ any bells?”