she wants to find him.
she doesn't want him to see her.

she's caught, torn between one desire and the next, and frustration and indecision leaves her frozen. she catches the inside of her cheek in her teeth and gnaws until iron explodes across her tongue - and then she gingerly pokes at the holes in the flesh. her nose wrinkles, jaws parting in a little grimace. an exhale, hard enough that it startles a nearby plover into zipping across the sands with a cry out outrage. her eyes narrow on the bird, expression twisting, as she considers how little the bird has to worry about.

does it care about gods and families and laws? does it even know? she sticks her tongue out at the creature, shrugging her shoulders up around her ears against the cold of the winter. lorcan has dashed off - exploring no doubt - and she's left with only her nervous energy. it leaves her restless and uncomfortable and she decides, eventually, that she might as well seek out her father. they parted on good enough terms but there's still something about being back, about being here, that makes her feel like she's too big for her skin.

and she's got so, so many questions for him.

in the end, she doesn't find him and iðunn sits in the mouth of the tunnels with her head angled out to watch the soft churning of the waves a few feet beyond where she lurks.

@Calypso

❝

This is the start of how it all ever ends. They used to shout my name, now they whisper it.

⚓︎Every so often she returns here, drawn by the tedious need to ensure her cache remains stocked. Often she finds it in ruin, whether raided by wandering rogues or chewed apart by skittering rodents, and she spends time putting it all back in order. It seems pointless, at times, for how often does she use these tools, now?

And yet…

It would be as impossible as stopping her heart, leaving it in disarray, and she knows that deep down she clings to the hope that she will find value again. Idle paws make her uneasy, and the dreams that had haunted her over the last months are nearly enough to send her spiralling. Calypso needed something more to occupy her time, especially when Hakon was busy elsewhere, and these small excursions to the shore at least gave her a sense of purpose.

As she reached the mouth of the tunnels she froze, staring at the almost familiar from perched there. Was it possible? Calypso knew that the girl had left, but was this her returned? So grown?

Just as she thought to call to her, to confirm what her eyes were seeing, everything changed.

In the blink of an eye she was gone, not standing on the black shore with the blistering breeze pulling at her coat. Instead she faced an idyllic scene, a place familiar and not all at once.

The vision shifts and she is in another place, the tundra perhaps, same but different. Again and it is the rainforest that she once called home, only there are no dens nor paths through the thick foliage. Once more and her beloved cay is stretched before her, but where is her den? Her garden?

When the scenes settle she feels disorientated, stumbling both on the grass she stands now and back on the shore where her eyes have become unfocused and unseeing.

It seems a normal place, peaceful and unassuming, but Calypso cannot shake the unease that curls down her spine. So at odds with the sight is this sense of wrongness that she almost wants to run, until she sees Them.

Fury consumes her as she looks upon the starry figure before her, transfixed by the way their colours seem to shift before her very eyes. Vines and bones and horns and oh — she knows that this is somebody…. Important.

There is a sense of being pushed; shoved out of this vision with a name on her lips —

“Kivuli.” Her breath purling around her muzzle as she exhales, standing once more on the barren shore, staring at the girl.

novi

dunn is absently staring, wondering where to go from here, when it hits.

the ground churns underfoot and she feels, very much, like she's tumbling into the dark sea to her side. up is down, left is right; she feels both very much weightless and like she's being crushed. and then suddenly, the feeling lifts and she drops into an unknown jungle. it's thick, practically drowning her with life - vegetation, prey, everything but lions.

it's strange and comforting all at once.

but before she can dwell on the peaceful feeling there is an itching between her shoulder blades. slowly, like moving through something physical rather than a soft fog, iðunn turns. her gaze slithers over the figure, shadowy and still, peering at her with a two-toned gaze. vel- she begins, but then: no. no, this is kivuli. she says it like greeting an old friend, like she's known them all her life.

her mouth parts to ask more but she blinks and-

@Calypso.

she's suddenly there, staring, with the lion's name on her own lips. surprise flickers across her gaze and she finds herself on her paws without consciously knowing she's moved.

you- she starts, ears laying back against her skull, tucking beneath her shock of blonde hair. saw them too? what was this?

❝

This is the start of how it all ever ends. They used to shout my name, now they whisper it.

⚓︎Calypso tries very hard to be brave. Pulling at all the broken pieces of her self, gathering them up and shoving them together as if she might will herself whole. She tries very hard not to think of the mist, or the ominous sense that this Kivuli wanted them gone.

“I did,” she finally says, frustrated to hear the quiver in her voice despite her best efforts to fend it off. “D’ere’s been ot’er… visions…” Is that what she should call them?

It felt wrong, in a sense. The same mist that had taken her from her home for so long had been there, too. Calypso flexed her toes on the ground, reminded of the missing ones that proves the mist was no mere vision. Her tongue traced the jagged edge of her broken tooth as she frowns, considering what exactly it all meant.

Then she seems to remember herself and she focuses back on the returned daughter. Strange that timing, wasn’t it?

No, no; Calypso gives a mental shake of her head and looks for a smile to give to the girl. “Does him know yer back, yet?” Hakon had not mentioned anything, but she wasn’t certain he would even if he had been rhinitis with Idunn.

novi

even before @Calypso confirms that she saw him, iðunn can tell. by the too-white flash of her gaze, by the tension in her jawline, by the way her throat moves. if nothing else, ofelia has helped dun to see more of what's in front of her, it not what lay out of sight. she's still not sure how she feels about the very, very loud silence of her god. but calypso's confirmation makes her own heart give a strange little stutter. was this a test of vellen? others. she parrots, though with less trepidation than one might have thought. the yearling is very intrigue by all of this, drawn in by the mystery. it was the first time a god has spoken loudly enough that she's heard - even if it's not the right god.

or, she thinks darkly. maybe it's not the wrong god. maybe...

she asks after hákon and she smiles softly. not yet. and there should be more following that - explanation. excitement to reunite. but there's only that: not yet. because of course they'll find one another, of course she'll tuck herself to his chest.

but it feels so strange to feel back. wrong and right and hard and easy all in one messy ball. i needed.... she trails off with a shrug, eyes dropping away from the gentle medic and seeking the steadiness of the surf. much as she hates the beach she loves it, too; savage and gentle and cruel and kind. so very many contradictions. she thinks, maybe, she likes it because she's that way, too.

time. she says finally, forcing the word out and swallowing against her own tension, forcing her gaze her father's gaze onto the woman, steady and thoughtful.

❝

This is the start of how it all ever ends. They used to shout my name, now they whisper it.

⚓︎"aye, ot'ers." there is a brief hesitation, and then she pushes on. "if d'is is connected to de mist d'at came afore..." there, though, she trails off, unable to give her fears strength by naming them. all she knew was that if this god was responsible for the mist that had snatched so many from their homes, then calypso did not think he was a very kind god at all.

in fact, she believed he should be feared; very much so.

the medic is keen to move on, to shy from that topic and embrace another. however speaking of the girls father is not necessarily a comfortable topic either, and she finds herself shifting her weight.

following her gaze to the sea calypso merely nods. "aye, time." didn't they all need a bit of that? it was a difficult balance to find, though, for there was also such a thing as too much time.

"did ye learn what ye needed?" maybe it was a strange question, maybe it would offend her, but calypso asks it anyway. there was the faintest hint of hope in her voice, thinking that maybe her return was exactly what was needed to breath a little more life in to the skagos.

@Iðunn

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