Ankyra Sound straight down out of the world with my fingers

one mistake was all it took for loko to slip. with an icy crack his footing gave away, and he was now faced with treacherous stairs leading down from dragoncrest to the sound. an hour or two went by, with the boy maneuvering from rock to rock with mountain-goat grunts.

bit by bit he made his way down. he landed on sand and never felt so grateful. so sore. so tired. his mind buzzed with dying adrenaline as he laid down in a sploot with his tongue lolled in loud pants.

the movements of wolves in the sound.
she had seen them from drageda but only though them passerby. 
the obsidian ignored the flutter of movement within her body and followed loko's trail. he had been reticent, and now his maman would have no more of it. what did he think of njord and meerkat?
she found him panting in the cold sand. erzulie stepped lightly beyond her son and began to explore the new marks. footsteps. urine. 
"yon moun ap eseye reklame ankyra." she was not certain how to feel, and so she turned her eyes toward loko, asking silently after his intentions.

loko's jaw slapped shut as he heard something. footsteps. his shoulders stiffened, his head raised -- just maman. the thump of his tail sounded behind him, but he did not yet rise. so tired.

her cinnamon silhouette paced ahead of him, nose to the sand. loko had noticed the way his nose curled at the burn of urine. every facet of his life now seemed invaded - called into question as if its very existence was an insult.

loko was watchful of his maman. he rose and shook the sand from his pelt. soreness lingered in his lean frame. loko loved his maman's voice most of all. it was lovely, cherished like a rare gemstone. in her tongue, he returned: "friend or foe?"

"i do not know." she lifted her head. "mireille came from those islands." she gestured beyond where either of them might be able to see beyond the black water. "and you followed sobo to fin' her." erzulie sniffed again at the tint of wolf against these haunted shores.
"is de scent familiar?"
she did not think so, but she knew only the salt which had clung to mireille. different. a dark part of the ocean.
again, the inner shifting. erzulie's eyes were back upon her son, warm. how strong he was growing! "did you come down here to hunt?"

they peered at the island in the distance. to loko, it reminded him of the low shoulders of a half-submerged beast. lurking.

he'd stayed in the water when he followed sobo. something about having the seafloor beneath him secured his fraying nerves; as if he walked on the island, his soul would be claimed the same as mireille's. "no. i did not smell them." should he have? had he let maman and sapphique down?

"i fell. de cliffs be slippery." he was standing now, owning a sheepish grin to assure maman he was okay. "do you think de island wolves be responsible?"

he had fallen. erzulie moved back to check over him with a gentle brush. he was her child but she was also a medic by trade. assuring herself there was naught wrong save for a boy's potentially bruised ego. the obsidian smiled at loko and turned back to their waters.
her two-toned eyes searched the sound for any sign of the interlopers.
"i am not sure. but dis place be plagued by ghosts." caiaphas.
"did we ever tell you about de seawitch who lived here?" her grin was animated. there were few wolves who could mov erzulie so. even the memory of the woman was powerful.

loko allowed himself to be combed over; erzulie's two-bit gaze passing through him like roaming fingers. "i be fine, maman." loko insisted, inwardly delighting in the attention all the same.

"ghosts?" loko's ears turned forward in interest. sobo would love to hear of this. loko wasn't sure he believed in ghosts - not yet - but he remembered fragmentary stories of his childhood in which a witch had been present. "de seawitch?" his brow crumpled. "who?"

"when i knew her best, dis place was rusalka. and caiaphas was at de helm. she had a dark head an' eyes that burned t'rough you. she was t'ere when your oldest siblings were born." and firefly had run away. "dey called her a witch because she knew de places she loved an' she knew de sea. oh. an' perhaps de fac' dat she was said to steal children."
she laughed lightly.
"she was a fierce fighter. she was fearless as well. i followed her to war. i would do it again if she be here now."
erzulie inhaled, closing her eyes.
she sent a small thought moving up and up to the spirit of the woman.

The Daywalker watched from a place of shadows in the trees as a boy fell into the Sound from a different place.
He was soon followed by another, but no more wolves came after the female, so far anyway.

Fury held her ears forward to catch what was being said. Murmurs, from where she was, but just from sight alone she could tell that the scent markers were noticed. 

That the attempted claim was noticed. 

She couldn't quite tell the immediate emotions on their faces, but now was a time as good as any to make herself known, she thought. 
Or, perhaps, she could linger in the shadows a bit longer and eavesdrop, gauge the information she would gain from such a thing...

Fury mulled over these choices carefully. 

Perhaps it would be best, right now, to be known. 
With that decided, the behemoth ran out of the trees and started toward the pair with concern carefully writ across her scarred features.

"Hail!" She called, looking quickly to the collapsing of stone and ice, then back to the female and younger man. She would slow to a trot as she got closer;
"I heard the ice break and came as soon as I could. Is everyone okay?" Fury would stop a decent two yards from them with huffing breath, assuming the female of the pair was a motherly figure in some way, and would be against the Warmaiden getting close and personal so suddenly if either of them was hurt. 

Like Blackwater, she and hers would play the part of benevolence to get to where she wanted to be.

loko's eyes widened. maman's words conjured a bright story; a dark-faced woman, seawitch and wavewatcher. a fighter.

in every respect, loko imagined she would have fit perfectly in sapphique.

he was about to ask what happened to this woman when another arrived. now, loko was no stranger to scars - he had been raised by two warriors - but nothing compared to the disfigurement borne by this warbeast.

she looked concerned. loko's gaze swung to maman, trusting she would take helm.

a large white woman with dozens of scars from nose to ankle suddenly appeared.
erzulie found her formidable. the concern she showed did not fit the appearance. and in her mind, the red wolf's words echoed: a tale of murder and vengeance.
she appreciated how the stranger stopped a good distance away. the guardian had already moved out in front of loko. he rivaled her own height if he would not have it in a month; nevertheless the obsidian lifted her chin. "hello." her mismatched eyes searched the stranger.
"we came down to hunt an' found your marks. so you will make de soun' a home den." her tone was unreadable, body poised but neutral. the next moments would be telling, erzulie felt.

The cinnamon woman had moved in front of the boy. Her posture spoke caution, but her tone wasn't as readable. 

Fury noted this, nodding once as Erzulie stated what was going on.

"That's the plan." Fury responded with a soft smile. She wouldn't offer more than that. 
They smelled of a pack, and she still needed to play things very carefully in order to obtain her goals.

in situations such as this, loko showed his inexperience. he read his maman carefully, taking note of how she moved in front of him.

he thought of the seawitch. had she been so heavily scarred? truly, this stranger's pelt was a criss-cross mosaic of interrupted fur, eruptions of raw angry skin and old injuries laid like pitfalls across a face that may as well been a sieged city.

loko said nothing. he wasn't even particularly fond of this place, but he felt protectiveness over it anyway. the stranger didn't know this, but her arrival was just another way his life was constantly being infiltrated, the balance he was accustomed to upended. change -- it came in revolutions and waves. now came another wave, and another -- calling into question every facet of his life.

the stranger responded to her own reticence. loko remained quiet and for this she was thankful. the obsidian trusted that he could read the moment's gravity. part of her wished to press for more information, and this side of erzulie might have won had her son not been with her.
almost grown or not, it mattered no whit to her. a child's presence tempered any rashness she might have exhibited.
she did not want to give anything about sapphique beside their scents. and the seawolf was not sure she wished to know.
"good luck," she said softly, moving toward loko and then away, around the scarred ivory figure. "dis place be haunted." she doubted it would dissuade a warrior from a patch of earth; it was for herself that erzulie spoke. 
she kept her posture unoffensive and her body between the stranger and loko.

Fury was still and watchful as the cinnamon woman gathered the boy and carefully went around her, softly giving words of luck and a warning of the Sound being haunted. 

"I'm familiar with the ways of spirits." Fury assured with soft ease, allowing the pirate room to take her kid and leave. 
The Warchief would not chase, but she would refresh the borders she wanted to solidify, once these two were in their own claim again.

loko wanted badly to cause mischief - but something cautioned him against it. his mother’s careful poise served as alarm bells.

he turned to follow, but when he glanced back to the stranger it irked him to see a pair of eyes following their progress. she had no right! childishly, loko felt something slither under his skin. he wanted to ask the woman what happened to her face — to yell or kick in defiance. it settled unpleasantly in his blood, this new sensation. why is she watching? loko hissed between gritted teeth when they were far enough away. may’b de sea witch will finish the job whoever started on her face.

erzulie stifled a chuckle. but she did not answer until she and loko had drawn a good distance from the new borders. there she relaxed and spun in a tight semi-circle. "dat place be ours, loko." she closed her eyes and tried to keep the irritation from her face.
"it be a holy place. maybe you be right; caiaphas will appear an' gut her for her insolence." the obsidian arched a brow and sent out her breath. 
"i need you to stay away from ankyra, boy." she moved to nip his cheek. "no fallin' again."

no fallin’ again. loko affirmed, scooting with a grin as he felt the nip of teeth to his thigh. he had every intention of coming back, but his expression was sweetly composed. no trace of scheming, promise.

holy place or not, the sound held the only direct access to blackwater. with mireille back, who was to stop him from investigating his new neighbors?

loko learned something valuable that day: the stern reservation erzulie held would burn in his mind for some time. do ye not trust her, then? he queried suddenly, having been enraptured by a side of erzulie he had yet to witness.

"a wolf scarred as dat seeks conflict. your mot'er an' wear our own, but always in defense of our family. we do not start dem as she meant to do wit us."
she looked at loko. "what if i had not come down? what would you have done den, eh, boy?" but a grin glimmered to life over her features. "come on. i want to catch a meal for your mot'er."
despite the new weight to her flanks, erzulie glided into a swift and racing step.

erzulie spoke of what loko had instinctively known: any wolf so latticeworked with scars must surely be an agent of violence, or at the very least unthinking chaos.

his maman bore several of her own scars, each in defense - these stories thrilled loko, who would often listen rapt as he imagined his young parents fighting against a world destined to eat them.

someday he might be so scarred; he only hoped he wore them well. i'd be givin' her another scar. loko grinned knowing full well that it'd likely be the other way around. he quickly fell to pace behind his maman, ears perked for the prospect of hunting.

fade or keep going?

with loko beside her erzulie allowed her annoyance to soften.
sapphique stood commanding.
it was filled with their family.
"she would remember dat scar forever."
she quickened her pace, searching for the step of deer.

loko's grin widened. yes!" his eyes alight with boyish glee: may'b it be a mark den, for other wolves too. a warning. he kept pace with his stilt-legged maman, but not all together easily.

he was unaware he had slipped back into their familial tongue. do you think she will cause us any trouble?

"she intends to cause trouble as long as we allow her to reside in the sound. perhaps if she had come to introduce herself it would not be so upsetting. but she did not, which means that she does not mean to be friendly."
the mark of cloven hooves. "you know it is possible to use de cliffs to hunt deer?" she asked of loko with a smile. "you chase them to the edge. you hold them there. eventually they will either slip or they will tire. it is the same for the sea. drive them into the water. keep them in the ocean until they tire and return to shore. twice as weakened each time."

not for the first time did loko marvel how ezrulie knew so much about the world.

she cautioned that nyra's lack of transparency in settling the sound indicated her ability to hold peace with her neighbors: this tidbit loko would never forget, and it would guide him in every future interaction he had with wolves.

he frowned at the prospect of trouble darkening sapphique's doorsteps, but already they were on the hunt for deer, and the topic had shifted away to something less threatening. his eyes lit up as he mentally scaled the jagged heights above them. dey can climb de cliffs? he asked in disbelief, following in step behind erzulie.

now he had learned three things, each more brutal a truth than the last: wolves who did not state their intentions were often troublesome. prey could be cornered and tired. predators could use the layout of the land against that they wished to kill.

"oh, yes. de deer dat choose to live close to de coas' be havin' all sorts of skills dat ot'ers do not. for instance," and here erzulie paused to cross over a particularly rough patch of earth, rounded sides swaying, "besides climbin', dey can swim quite well. an' running along de beach in de san' does not stop dem so fast."
like the wolves who called the sea their home, their prey too had adapted.
she found the uneven track of a young buck, and motioned for loko to check it over. "he be sick. do you smell it?" there was much to learn, and her son was eager for knowledge.