Ankyra Sound There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon

Maybe if they had all been a bit more like Caiaphas, and a bit less like their father, things would be different. But Raleska was tired of thinking of how things could be different: none of it mattered in the face of reality, which was, truly, the only thing that mattered.

And nothing would change what had come to pass. Nothing would change her mother, dead -- and everything else.

She looked to the sand bitterly as Ephraim spoke, his words offering some small gleam of consolation amidst a pool of deep resentment. Not for him, nor for her mother -- but for herself. For being so .. traitorous to the family.

She realized she was now looking at her family from the same side Ephraim had, that day Rusalka had come to Drageda long ago. Looking at the gap from his vantage, she couldn't say she loved her view: all it did was harden the fact she had turned her back to her mother.. when merely a year ago, she had been her mother's most steadfast supporter.

What had changed?

Well, life had. Life had a peculiar way of doing that with or without the consent of those that lived within it. It was either adapt and change, or be lost to the shores of time. How her views had changed, her hopes, her needs -- all in some period as short as a fickle year.

She tried a threadbare smile, and it hung off of her lips limp and useless. Maybe Ephraim was right -- her mother had been sick inside all along. Maybe that was the reason she had met the end she had -- for if she hadn't been bent on revenge to the point of mental illness, would she have ever fallen ill at all?

"Maybe you're right." Raleska conceded at length, feeling a dogged exhaustion seep into her shoulders. Stealing a short glance back to the grotto, Raleska's eyes found Ephraim's with quiet dread: "what.. do we do now?"

Maybe you're right. Maybe he wasn't and everything had been Raleska's fault or his fault or Drageda's fault. Ephraim would never know the right answer. All he knew was that it didn't really matter now. They were speculating on what would've been if Raleska hadn't banded with Rosalyn and turned Caiaphas away. Maybe she was sick before that or maybe she wasn't. It didn't matter.

I was trying to decide that before you showed up, Ephraim said, letting all his breath out in a resigned sigh. I don't know if she'd want to stay in the grotto, float out to sea, be buried... He could only give his sister a hopeless look while he trailed off. He just didn't know Caiaphas well enough to know how she'd want her body dealt with when she died. If Ephraim had to guess then he assumed she would want to stay in the grotto forever, for that was where he'd found her, but he wasn't sure if that was the best idea.

Her body would eventually rot away and ooze black poison and crawl with maggots. It would taint the grotto and its water sources long after her body was gone, leaving only bones. It seemed fitting for a woman so hellbent on revenge and ownership of the Sound, but was it what she would've truly wanted, or only what he assumed?

A long sigh was drawn besides her - Raleska tried to mimic the ease of breath, but found her chest tight. Constricted. The more she thought of everything the worse it became. Stop, she ordered herself internally -- breathe.

Closing her eyes, Raleska saw no peace -- instead, the contorted face of her mother reared from the black behind her eyes, and her eyes flew open rapidly.

What to do? What did she want?  Raleska pondered the question, cursing the fact she ever had to think at all about her mother's burial. Was this some rite of passage all children went through? It horrified her to think of the future -- what if someday, it was Rosalyn's turn?

She blanched visibly and looked away, down the stormy coastline. The place where so much of her mother's life had been spent. "She was obsessed with this place." Raleska answered unevenly, rounding her rough shoulders in a shrug. "And.. the grotto.. " But how -- and where -- could they possibly put her? Would the grotto serve as the siren's crypt then?

A sudden jealousy that was entirely untoward flared in Raleska then, as she thought of others down the line coming to her mother's home. Her mother's final resting place.

Ephraim's champagne eyes traced the rise and fall of the dirty surf across the wet sand of the sound while he sunk silently into his mind. Raleska's voice was heard as though she was speaking through the thin bole of a reed, far off and faint. His dark ears flickered once in acknowledgement, but it was a long time before he returned to himself. He needed that moment of composure, lest the madness of Caiaphas' demise overwhelm his fragile defenses.

We can't leave her there, said Ephraim. He didn't particularly care what happened to Ankyra Sound anymore, but he imagined Rusalka would one day return here. Her body would poison the water. Their mother would like that, her last act in the mortal coil being to claim the Sound forevermore as her own... but Ephraim didn't know her, and didn't know that likely would be her preference.

Maybe we can set her out to sea, he suggested, more firmly now than his first mention of it. She would be leagues away from shore by the time her body rotted, then.

Ephraim was silent for a while, and that was okay.

Raleska's gaze traced the surf - the cold, windy surf. Had this place always looked so unforgiving, so remote?

She orchestrated her own thoughts in the meantime, tenderly collecting them the way one might stroll through a meadow for a specific flower -- she was laborious and slow, but Ephraim was here in silence besides her and somehow, it seemed alright.

Even if their world was falling to pieces around them.

When he finally spoke about how she would blacken the water, Raleska couldn't help the bitter laugh that pressed her throat. "She'd like that." Raleska accused, somewhat unkindly -- but would not Caiaphas had done exactly that, poison the water so no one could ever take her Sound from her? It seemed uniquely, perfectly Caiaphas. Raleska's gaze fell in shame: it was too soon to speak so poorly of her, no matter where they stood today.

Something about setting her mother out to sea unnerved her. What if she rolled up ashore? The gulls would pick her apart - she hated gulls more than she hated Dragedans. Thinking of them, perched on her mother's snout and plucking her glassy eyes -- Raleska's stomach roiled in revolt.

What if she came back? Or what if she was gone forever, and they never saw her body again? Her grave would have no marker. There would be no legacy, no headstone left behind -- and the grieving would have no solace, no place to go where they felt the siren's spirit had been laid to rest..

But how many, truly, would ever seek the siren's grave? Raleska chewed her lip in troubled thought. None of it, in any way, felt right or appealing. "I don't want the gulls to have her." Raleska finally spoke, but her voice lacked any fire or fight - in the end, Ephraim could easily overpower her, and tell her why his idea was better and she would buckle. "I don't know."

I don't want the gulls to have her. It was sensible. Ephraim didn't truly know the source of Caiaphas' terminal sickness. The two estranged siblings could speculate all they liked that it'd come from a black soul hell bent on vengeance, fueled by hate, but the reality was that they didn't know. Who could say if the gulls pecked and plucked at her poisoned flesh, they wouldn't succumb as well?

A plague spreading all along the coastline. Another theatrical legacy that Caiaphas may or may not approve of. For Ephraim, whose soul retained some memory of the sea and whose blood occasionally sang for it, allowing that was no better.

Maybe we can just bury her? Ephraim suggested, ignoring the unwarranted stab of anguish in his chest. What right did he have to decide what became of her body? What right did he have to be dismayed and hurt that she was gone? He hadn't known her... not like Raleska. That was exactly why he felt such a poignant sense of loss, but it still felt wrong for him to suggest anything at all.

Ephraim thought of the logistics behind Raleska's wish to inter Caiaphas, but her needs were purely selfish. As much as she wanted to be noble and pragmatic, she just couldn't -- not in this moment. The enormity of her loss hung over her like crumbling pieces of the grotto's cave ceiling -- threatening to come crashing down any moment.

She felt a prick of relief (and guilt, then) Ephraim did not push. He full well could have, and she would have served as his doormat if he did. Somehow, it seemed right to do both, but Raleska knew which one she wanted for herself.

She swallowed, her sorrowed gaze turning from Ephraim back to the grotto. Its dark mouth had her reeling inwardly, as if threatening to swallow them both, the sand, the Sound, all in its yawning black gullet. "I don't want to go back down there." She confided in her brother in a whisper that was tremulous with shame.

She would do it, of course -- but to return to the shadowed pit was to return to the undeniable reality she had lost her mother. Everything. Ephraim, too. She did not fault him once for grieving, for he had so many future things stolen from him purely by Caiaphas' untimely end. "but.. I think.. I think it is what she would want. You know how much she fought to stay here." Raleska attempted a soft joke, feeling the smile that graced her features was sad and phony.

Ephraim turned his head to peer down the jagged throat of the grotto when Raleska did, and found her sentiment echoed in the chambers of his heart. Coward, he hissed at himself, but it was no use. No amount of goading could change the fact that down there was only death. He once found solace in the memories the grotto dredged up in him, but now the sight of it soured his gut and filled his mouth with sickening acidity.

Me, neither, he returned with a heavy sigh. Even just pulling himself to his feet, which he did then, was a tremendous effort. He was exhausted down to his bones. His heart was heavy, second only to the sheer weight of his guilt. He'd done the right thing, and Raleska wasn't tearing him apart for it like he expected, but it was still murder. No matter how they painted it, it was always going to be red as blood underneath it all.

He didn't want to go down there. He didn't want to face it again. He'd stayed there since her death, breathing in the fetid smell of sickness on her corpse, hammering himself with guilt and hatred and misery all at once, and the fresh air of the Sound was the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted compared to that. It was a tomb. It was death. But, like Raleska, he was resolved to do it... demons like this were best put to bed swiftly. Neither of them had any hope of moving on if they left things the way they were, or at least he reasoned that.

So on shaky limbs he began to trudge toward the grotto, head slung low with shame and grief both, a resigned exhale shuddering from his lips.

Ephraim's sentiments were much Raleska's own -- she followed his gaze back down that blackened throat, a shudder climbing her spine in unison. Had it always looked so... diabolic?

She trudged after Ephraim reluctantly as he rose, noting the way his head was slung low. Her posture was much the same -- somehow going back to that hellish pit was akin to resigning to a life in permanent despair.

She ducked her head as they went under, a cold breeze seeping into her skin as it clawed past on its way out to the sound. In some melodramatic way it made her think of her mother's soul leaving at last -- chilling all it came across as it tore from the grotto to the endless skies.

All that was left was to climb down the little precipice to where the chamber was.. Raleska froze, her eyes searching for Ephraim's gaze in the dark. Her breath came in quick little hitches, a queasiness stealing into her stomach and making permanent residence there. They'd decided tentatively that the grotto might be best.. but where? Did they just leave her there, or bury her under stones..?