Dragoncrest Cliffs he was standin' all shook, couldn't even look

some pp to set scene <3

maman, sobeille murmured when sapphique's matriarch answered her daughter's howl. standing alongside her was @Dogfish, the girl from the cavern below.

for a moment, sobeille allowed her gaze to pull from her mother to the pleasing arrangement of grey composition comprising of her accomplice's hide. dis be dogfish. i found 'er in de sound.

the walk was not so terrible.

the views were beautiful and the scents blossomed until they matched sobeille's own perfume. it was nice to be announced and introduced. it eased plenty of jitters that might have rolled in while they had traveled.

that's me, the catch of the day. a shark's grin cutting her features in boyish charm. it was the only kind of smile she really knew that did not give off worrying alarms. it's nice to be here. she tacked on a bit more respectful but not devoid of any less shine.

mireille had not forgotten the grievous slight against sobeille and against sapphique. for many days now she had remembered the last year, her time beyond the coast; how she had found the errant man. somewhere between taiga and the valley he must be.
she remembered the bypass and how she had fled to it.
swiftcurrent could not be far.
when mireille turned, however, it was with a smile for her daughter and the young woman beside her. sea-hue, summer rain over a clear bay, she intrigued the obsidian with this masculine cast. "in de soun', you say?" a prophetic place to be discovered. "i be mireille. you are a saltwolf den, not an inlander?"

catch of the day! sobeille's eyes briefly rimmed with surprise to be witness to such cleverness. her mind did not work this way naturally, so she turned to her cinder counterpart with disguised awe.

maman's smile was warm; sobeille wondered what she would have made of her bringing an inlander or boy home. for now, she simply played observer -- hoping maman would see in the stranger the same glittering jewel of promise sobeille did.

a nod.

once, twice.

born in a cove. never strayed far from the sea. she admitted now. understood that to others it might make her less worldly and a bit more inexperienced with things. however if this maman mireille was much like sobeille, she imagined it might not be such a heavy hinderance.

i got all the usual skills that come with being raised along it. her grin was sincere, her tail offered a brief wiggle behind her. and i ain't got any plans to leave her behind.

it was not to any wolf that she looked now, but out towards the hard edges of water she could glimpse from here.

deep approval.
this one with her sassing tongue and quick wit.
"a woman of de salt, through an' through," the obsidian observed. "show us how you fish," mireille decided, already poised to accept dogfish no matter how many catches she made.
and the way sobeille looked at the woman did not pose an obstacle to such ease of entry.

glimmering in that luminous gaze was deep approval; sobeille studied the roadmap of her maman’s face, learning.

that dogfish reiterated her undying devotion of the sea earned more esteem from the girl. delighted by her maman’s playful challenge, sobeille fell in step besides dogfish, tail jaunty and gait conveying an easy confidence that no matter dogfish’s performance, her place in sapphique was already set firm in stone.