Otter Creek with love so sudden and so sweet,

maybe a @Vaati? <3

listener.
link between the ephemeral and the mortal; she who hears the mother.
it was a blessing, for in this moment relmyna was able to look back upon all that which she had sacrificed, both known and yet forgotten to her, and know that the gods had been weighing her for their service. and a relief, for there was another realization here. the woman in the confines of her spirit knew her service and adoration was to blackfeather wood, beyond all, regardless of who had been seated at its helm. kove she loved for his humility, his ardor; for seeing in relmyna something that had finally gathered its power. for guarding her children, at their birth and from then thereon.
but it was the eldritch place that commanded the ragged woman, and now as listener, she knew she must take part in guiding its next steps. 
it was mid-morning when the woman arrived at the point along the creek recently visited by vaati and astara; the young meloniis ran their intriguing ways through the forest, but relmyna knew well the paths they took. it was no surprise that her more daring nightcub had found her way across the border. and it was here that the woman settled herself, and lay her peace offering of a mourning dove upon the ground before her relaxed stance. the seafoam gaze was calm; relmyna did not call for him, wanting to first see if he would will himself into existence. 
on her right shoulder, a brush of crimson, her homage to the pawmarking cicero had once worn in his life.

oouu yes please!

 

Vaati lingers on the banks of the water where the violet-eyed child had found him, for just a while longer, before he made plans to make his way down to the lake. He was in no rush, and yet he was impatient, unable to make progress on the tasks he was assigned without straying too far for his uncle's plan to come to fruition. The screeching one, at the behest of Hydra, and the one who had split his sister's face, at the demand of herself. No doubt he would embark on the latter as soon as it became convenient, but Hydra's was a different kind of request that would undoubtedly tether him more strongly to her. Perhaps that was a good thing, perhaps it wasn't -- there was no way of knowing just yet. 

In the distance, Vaati watched as a petite patchwork woman laid down a bloody dove at the water's edge, striking him as out of the ordinary. His eyes wandered to the familiar red mark adorned upon her shoulder, stirring an unwanted sentimental feeling within him. Yet, he head tilted a fraction, quizzically, knowing who she was but unable to place a name. His tyrannical self had found no issue with the woman when she joined, and found that to somewhat ease the attention that course through his body. And so, he picked himself off the ground and trotted silently towards her, admittedly quite intrigued by what she was doing. "What is that you're doing?" Vaati nods softly in the direction of the bird. He had forgotten she does not speak, and had never known of her relationship with Cicero -- neither was that something he would have cared about if he had known. While unknowing of his death, the man was still blackballed in Vaati's books, unable to get past what the strange man had done to his own sister. It had broken her, and consequently, robbed Vaati of his mother. And that was something that irrevocably broken him too.

:D!

the boy who attended her could not hide the curiosity of his hard eyes. relmyna looked into the scarred young face, the melded hues of vaati that bespoke windsurf and sand; she straightened beneath the yearling's gaze. despite the melonii's time as dark master, the two of them did not know one another. relmyna felt rather that this was her fault, but given her previously delicate nature, had decided to be kind to herself.
thus with a small paw she pushed the limp fowl in vaati's direction. "Ooo," the woman murmured, seeking the icy handsomeness of his features with a searching look. a gesture that he sit before her, if he so chose; the listener gathered her plume about her forepaws and regarded the boy in silence.
the nephew of cicero and damien, she knew his mother had been potema. and his adjacency to her own brood made him their blood as well. relmyna wondered if vaati was aware of this, that he was not alone save for the dark prince who had allied with him. yes — she remembered the bitterness of his defeat, the war, the threat of redhawk that followed even then. but what the woman did not understand was the seethe of rage beneath the yearling's pallid coat, the leap of what she fancied was anger in eyes the colour of storm-lashed seas.
"w'y 'ate Ove?" relmyna murmured in the next breath. if he was patient, her message was easy to parse: what great evil had the powerful northerner done to vaati, that he should not return home? why did damien seek to sunder the wood? she had already determined she would not leave — family or otherwise, blackfeather was the home of her daughters' birth, rich with caches, blessed with the spiderwebbing beneath the forest. it would be foolhardly to depart that so close to winter for territories unknown; she would not let astara and averna struggle if she did not have to do so. 
quietly, relmyna waited, her gaze soft upon the vengeful seraphim that was vaati, while her hope that he would sup and speak with her went unchallenged for now.

dies at how perfect your writing is

As the patchwork woman beckoned him closer, he followed suit and took a place on his haunches before her, stretching out his titan form relaxedly. There was little to feel threatened of by the other, he was clearly at a physical advantage, and neither did he hold the belief that she was vengeful enough to call upon the rest of Blackfeather Woods to hunt him down. Only the deceased bird sat between them, and in the silence did he find himself staring ominously at it, before her query tone broke the dead air.

Her message was difficult to decipher at first, and he found himself staring blankly at her soul-searching optics for many minutes before it clicked in his mind. The fact returned to him that she was a mute of some sort, and he mixed around the sounds and words in his head to gather a message behind the syllables she voiced. What surfaced was an inquiry that had not been asked to him and one that he did not expect, having not truly asked himself what his true motives were behind the witch hunt. “It is not truly a hate, but a means to an end.” Kove had wronged him in Vaati’s eyes, but it was in that anger that he found fuel to continue in his consuming desire to see the dark woods fall as a whole entity, rather than aimed at the individual beings who resided there.

At first, he believed that only the one who stood at the dark wood’s helm could bring about a permanent destruction of the pack itself in the same manner Vaati had almost achieved. Only, the catalyst for said destruction would be the northerner’s death; a final blow to the hull of a sinking ship. It would be Vaati’s last salute to the place that had brought him up and ruined him all in the matter of a few short months. “It is justice.” In that belief was Vaati firmly rooted, only altering the details to fit what Damien allowed of him. The Melonii were instinctively wrathful creatures, and as Vaati believed Kove had robbed him and his family of what was rightfully theirs ... it was not something they would simply let slide.

uhh same to u tho <3

the mother listened; vaati relaxed in the priestess' presence, and relmyna favoured him with a warm expression as she mused over what he had said. his hatred was means to an end; his hatred was vengeance. vaati sought perhaps to weaponize the depths of his feeling toward kove. there was but one wolf she felt the yearling would heed, and it was damien. the dark brother was no fool; the young melonii's ire was kindled and clear. therefore, relmyna had little cause to doubt that it was the prince who drove vaati now. in the boy flared the embers that would burn blackfeather, and damien only held tinder to feed them.
why, then? "'Amien," the listener murmured, having found a way to make the syllables of the former master's name more coherent. "'ot 'ate Ove." surely he did not; the pale man at the wood's helm had done nothing to damien, that she could see. perhaps more had gone on when she was not herself, things she did not remember. there were only the things that she knew, and that was the expression of grief and quiet sharing between men when damien had rejoined them. kove had come, and they had spoken of cicero. and despite her conception that damien had only been play-acting all this time, she put aside the thought. his grief, his affection for the youngest meloniis, his passion — none of those emotions had been feigned.
"Aati, Oo 'an 'ead? Be .. 'ark Ma'ter?" her words must come, they simply must, even as the remnants of her tongue strained to make the sounds needed to convey to vaati what she meant. a pause; an ear flicked in frustration. relmyna gathered a sigh into her chest, offering the scarred boy an apologetic smile. "Aati, w'at 'o you 'ant?"
she spoke gently, not meaning the severity the sentence often implied; her gaze sought his own with soft supplication. what was his desire? did he only want to lead, or did he want the destruction of kove's influence over the wood? fervently relmyna hoped he would tell her; vaati was under no such obligation, but thus far he had shown himself amenable to the conversation. let him be blessed; soothe him, she prayed within her own heart.