Dragoncrest Cliffs Blue Skies Over Our Land

Set after Haunt's passing.

Njord and @Erzulie had managed to extract @Haunt from the Tangle and haul her limp body back to the healer's den. By the time they reached the cavern Njord could feel damp sweat under his fur as steam rose from their bodies -- moving dead weight was more arduous than it first seemed. Brambles clung to the white girl's fur, debris streaking her side. They had tried to be careful as possible, but it had been a challenge. 

The pair made the yearling as comfortable as possible. While Erzulie attended to her herbs, Njord plucked Haunt's pelt clean. His heart felt a hollow dread -- but so much adrenaline set in that it was difficult to feel any true emotion at all. The seafarer was reduce to base programming: Survive. Food, water, care, and rest was what Haunt needed.... and all they could provide for their friend. 

"I'll find 'er somethin' ta eat," Njord told Erzulie though he wasn't even sure that she could eat. It was all he could do to busy himself: act like Haunt was going to pull through this. It was the only mode of thinking Njord was capable of. "An' I'll look fer @Rosalyn, too," he added. Njord bent down to wash Haunt's ear and temple. "You'll be a'right, mo leannan," he said.

He turned away into the autumnal forest. Not even the world's bright colors could lighten his spirits. First, he looked for their captain, and after some time Njord managed to land a pheasant. Prize in tow, he doubled back to the den.

edited!

Njord found her near the water, and when he explained what had happened, Rosalyn immediately began to make her way towards the den. She arrived not long before he did, but had not intruded yet.

She had her own thoughts on the situation, and silently, she felt bringing the girl back here at all was futile. Haunt could not move - the pirate had once wondered if allowing a blind child to continue on was cruelty. A paralyzed wolf she would have dispatched on the spot.

Haunt would have no life here. If she was nothing but a burden, Rosalyn would see their needs filled first.

This cruelty wasn't something Njord seemed open to or in need of. So she'd kept silent as he told her, stoically so, with only a flicker of emotion breaking past. Silently she had already prepared for an inevitability that had, unknowingly, been carried out regardless.

njord had gone.
haunt had begged.
erzulie had given.
she had not ceased holding the girl. erzulie was not considering how she might admit what she had done — not even to rosalyn. if there were ever a pair of ears which might understand, they belonged to her wife.
but the obsidian was beyond words. her throat had hoarsened. her eyes had run dry.
the sound of pawsteps outside the den forced erzulie to recollect herself swiftly.
but she was not ready to let go of haunt, not yet, and so she did not call or answer. she scarcely breathed.

Rosalyn stood outside the den and Njord could see the solemn expression on her face. He eyed her cautiously, trying to get a read, not knowing how severe his captain could be.

It was eerily quiet in the den. Erzulie was on the floor, cradling Haunt, but from the back Njord could not see either of their faces.

He placed the pheasant on the floor. “Ow is she?” he asked with a gulp, rounding the side of the den to get a better look – but he did not need it. He could sense the stillness of her body, the lack of breath. A wave of cold dread seized him. “She canna be…” Njord blubbered, unaware that Erzulie had given the girl a merciful, quiet death

Rosalyn was quiet, following Njord. The den housed an eerie stillness, only Erzulie and Haunt within, but Rosalyn saw what she expected. And a part of her was grateful, because from what she had heard, this was the most merciful outcome.

Had it been her, she would have asked it. But she had no way of knowing how closely that thought echoed recent reality.

She was when you found her, Rosalyn said quietly. She couldn't help it, even as her eyes sought her wife. Doubtless she'd tried, and Rosalyn worried how heavily this might sit. There was nothing else. She added, moving in, to draw her gaze (if not her entirety) from this morbid embrace.

erzulie drew a shuddering breath and turned her swollen eyes toward njord's stricken face. behind him she could see rosalyn, pragmatic in her observation, and somehow knowing. "she went to sleep an' stopped her breath. it was peaceful," she said on the end of a sob, reaching to the red-tail, seeking to offer him comfort.
there would be none for her.
"i need —" erzulie slithered from the den, begging silently that one or both of them take up her vigil beside haunt.
"i am going to choose a place."
she turned away from them and walked away, gait loose with anguish; she felt a thousand years old and nameless in the same sensation.
haunt's proclamation had been true. sapphique's graveyard would grow by one.

Njord expression slackened, deflated and blank as his gaze remained fixated on Haunt’s lifeless face. He almost didn’t hear Rosalyn or Erzulie’s words, but her touch snapped him to. The seafarer blinked, and saw the wetness of his queen dark face and the redness of her eyes that reflected a broken heart. He pressed against her briefly, but the healer slipped from his embrace and out of the den.

He did not follow. He sat besides his friend listlessly, head hung low. There was barely any grief left in him to give. The tank ran empty after Raleska, Kaertok, Rosencrantz, and Merlin… not to mention the disappearance of Chacal and Valravn.

Njord set his jaw, teeth grinding together. Was this anger? “Oh, Haunt…” he said shakily, “Why’d ya ‘av ta go…”

She wanted to follow Erzulie more than remain here, but it was unlikely anything she could do could change the desolation on either of them. Rosalyn felt uncomfortable with their grief, as if she were a trespasser on it. She should not be - she should feel more. But she found, as she watched Njord, that no tears would come. There was only the hollow absence.

She should comfort him, say something. But she could think of no words, nor summon any feeling that wouldn't ring false. Instead she turned and, silently, departed into the daylight. She did not follow Erzulie but remained outside, still struck with the sensation that the scene within somehow did not belong to her.