Seaside Moors a roiled soul is calmed anew
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#1
All Welcome 
an hour or two of hunting in the coconut grove had netted the harlot a large crab. its pincers hung down from either side of her jaws as she bore it proudly to where @Raleska made her mother's home.
relieved to have the girl back, one whom erzulie had always considered a daughter, the woman did not think of heavier things. a chuff; she set down the meal and curiously looked around for the young mother. her little children (@Regin & @Valravn), remained with rosalyn for now.
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what's a little sweetheart like you
doing with a bloody nose?
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#2
WELL I SUCK, IM SORRY

Raleska had stayed nearby @Rosalyn's den, but had not once asked to see her children. A rift had come between her and her offspring -- she was bitter, and overwhelmingly sad.

Sad that she could not be the mother her mother had been. Bitter this mantle had ever been placed upon her.

Lifting her gaze, Raleska saw Erzulie come near -- her ears pricked as she eyed the matron, pleased yet apprehensive to have Erzulie seek her out.
all of which makes me anxious,
at times unbearably so.
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#3
do NOT also i wrote the OP before raleska's req re: babies, so edited a bit & we can set this whenever <3

since surrendering her son and daughter to the care of the red pirate, raleska had not come to the den. erzulie carried the crab to where raleska lay, perhaps tensely. nothing said as she settled near, nosing the crustacean toward the young woman.
she did not ask of what had happened, nor mention the children. instead, "reyes, nieve, and marisol have all gone. i suspect they have taken to their wandering." a brief smile. "i t'ink it was a good thing, that we came here." conversational. dull. unhurried.
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what's a little sweetheart like you
doing with a bloody nose?
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#4
<3 nw!!

It was such a small gesture, offering the crab -- but at the sight of it Raleska's stomach flipped, and grief's unpalatable bile stung her lips and tongue. She clasped the crustacean between her paws and studied it with a frown, willing the nausea away.

She felt sorry for Erzulie, in that same vein - to have your children leave, sometimes without a word. And here she was, practically throwing hers away -- was she that selfish?

She knew the answer, and so looked away. "I'm sorry. I hope wherever they are they are safe." It was such a hollow platitude, really -- but the only one she had known well was Nieve, and she certainly missed the girl, but if it was in her heart to wander, Raleska could not blame her for obeying the whims of her feet. "Good that we came to the Moors? It does seem safer." On this subject Raleska did not bother to hide her feelings - no matter where she was, it was beginning to feel less and less like home.. The Moors was just another pit-stop on the road to hell, in Raleska's sorrowed eyes.
all of which makes me anxious,
at times unbearably so.
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#5
<3

such an aura clung to the girl. erzulie did not think she was imagining the clutch of emotions that swam betwixt them. yet she had no way of speaking to it, nor did she believe raleska wished yet — if ever — to reveal the circumstances behind her delay. 
"rusalka was always meant for de sea," erzulie sighed softly. she thought of the small forms that the girl had brought, of their origins. dacio. what a curse drageda had stamped in its fall. it was no fault of the children, nor raleska; erzulie's hidden scowl was for the shade of their father, and how even a war could not keep fear alive.
how hateful her own heart. "the salt calls to rusalkans, it seems."
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what's a little sweetheart like you
doing with a bloody nose?
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#6
Erzulie was intuitive to see the weight that still hung itself around Raleska's shoulders like an invisible cowl. Rusalka had been her mother's vision -- even with Caiaphas dead now some eight months, the memory (and grief) was still fresh.

She wondered if this time next year, life would be more upside down than it was now. How things had changed. Svalinn gone, Illidan gone, Caiaphas gone.. Rusalka now belonged to the survivors -- and did they care to see its legacy ensured?

Her eyes dropped to the ground as Erzulie sighed and spoke. Raleska grunted in a half-hearted response. "Do you like the sea?" She realized, despite all the time they had spent together, she knew very little about Erzulie's heart -- and whether the jezebel truly enjoyed their locale.
all of which makes me anxious,
at times unbearably so.
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#7
"i love her," erzulie breathed with a sudden passion, looking out across the moorland toward the close-by breadth of the ocean. "she calls to me. she always did." a sweet moment passed, and then she looked to raleska. "an' i believe it called to you also, girl," she said softly, gaze pointed.
"stryx told me she foun' you in a grotto," the harlot went on, a sigh swelling her flanks. "she would not say more. a credit to her." vague smile, but the invitation rested between them. erzulie was not one who pressed; she wished to preserve her relationship with raleska, whatever that entailed.
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what's a little sweetheart like you
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#8
They shared a kindred soul, then. Raleska loved the sea as well, though there were times she watched the rising swell and swore she saw her mother's face in it.

She wanted more than anything for her children -- though they were not truly hers anymore -- to grow up by the sea. To love the sea. To have the good parts of the childhood Raleska had missed. To play in the waves, chase crabs and seagulls, laugh and lounge in the sand.. A bitter smile curved her slim muzzle. Erzulie (and Rosalyn) would do them well, she knew.

"It did, for a long time." Raleska confessed. "When I was a puppy and we first went inland, I dreamed about it. I missed it. Sometimes, even though we were on a plateau miles away, I thought I smelled it on the breeze." Raleska closed her eyes softly, breathing deep of the briny air.

"Stryx found me where I was born." There was little harm in sharing the story, now that it had been said and done. Yet for all of the weeks that had passed, Raleska still could not fully say why in her fevered state she had made the voyage. A small part of her suspected that the location had been picked by the darkness which still sometimes stirred in her heart: the amoral other-will that kept her alive. She knew too that this other-soul had been the thing that had kept Caiaphas alive all those long years she should have been sleeping in the cold dirt.

When Raleska opened her eyes, she was looking plainly at Erzulie. "I was going to leave them there to die."
all of which makes me anxious,
at times unbearably so.
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#9
it was something to which the harlot had alluded, during the tense moments in which raleska had confessed her pregnancy. and with that interaction, erzulie had lived these long weeks, believing it was she who had driven the girl away. when i was a puppy, and the woman blinked to think of how long she had known raleska, how long she had watched the daughter of the seawitch grow up among them.
"i would not have blamed you if you did, raleska," she found herself responding, eyes locked to those of the younger woman. to bear children was a great and forever thing; to raise them was another. perhaps in mercy it would be best, though erzulie chilled to think of her beloved newest little ones dead before their life had a chance.
"i wish dat you were here for it," erzulie said softly, fiercely, "but you were not home. you went where you were led, an' sometimes dat is all we can do. i could not judge what you did dere."
a breath. "do you regret bringing dem back?"
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what's a little sweetheart like you
doing with a bloody nose?
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#10
No admonishment rung in Erzulie's voice, though Raleska felt her back prickle slightly as the matron reiterated she had wished Raleska had not run off. And why shouldn't she have? Raleska had been stupid -- she hated being reminded of how stupid she was.

She quashed the feeling, for it was uncharitable and undeserved. "I don't." Raleska was gradually coming to regret her expedition, regret her fling with Dacio, regret it all -- but like Erzulie, it chilled her now to think of how once, she had planned to hold both of the newborns underwater. Sickness and fever had run its course through Raleska, leaving her with little understanding of her rationality in that when. "I think they are both good." Raleska's lips twisted in a sad, conflicted smile. "Good souls, and in good care. I'm proud of how you are raising them." Fair better than I ever could went unspoken, but Raleska felt a cinch in her heart all the same.
all of which makes me anxious,
at times unbearably so.
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#11
a nod. "dey are." she saw no trace of drageda in them beyond physicality. some part of her curled to think they would one day know his name, but that was a lesson for another time. hers to teach? perhaps. she wished to press motherhood toward raleska, extend its welcoming arm back to the girl, but refrained.
surely the younger woman knew that erzulie would never stop her from reclaiming the little pair. she shifted, smiled wanly. "t'ank you. dat means a great deal." again a pause, and eventually to fill the silence, the woman rolled to scratch her back against the earth. "rosalyn has dem for de moment, an' de help of clementine. let us leave de moors for a bit?" she suggested softly, gazing toward the inland territories they had not yet visited. "hunt. or just go an' see sometin' different." a glance to the other; perhaps some time away might alleviate the pain in raleska's expression.
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what's a little sweetheart like you
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#12
Two secrets Raleska would carry to her grave.

One, from everyone else -- that it had been her brother who had killed her mother, not just rabies running its eventual course.

Two, her children -- who would never know the word Drageda or Dacio  if she could help it.

Her jaw tensed as Erzulie slid to the sand, itching a scratch along her back. No, they were better off knowing nothing at all -- better off in Erzulie and Rosalyn's care.

Raleska would never take them back.

Her gaze lifted as she realized Erzulie had invited her for a trip outside of the Moors. Raleska was surprised by how appealing this appeared -- she loved the moors, but she had felt so stifled of late. "I would enjoy that." The yearling muttered, gathering to her feet and waiting for Erzulie to do the same.

Together, they could hunt to their hearts content -- while trouble lay well behind them.
all of which makes me anxious,
at times unbearably so.