TW for depictions of drowning and coming death

it is empty, achilles: so end it all now. tt's a pointless resistance for you

the babes are curled against her stomach, carefully aligned in their birth order: son, daughter, daughter, son. two dark daughters, one with her chimeric split and the other with seneca's blotchy pattern. and the sons, pale and stark as she. one seems a perfect blend of the two lifegiverss. she reaches to touch his forehead with her nose, a purr in her throat. "velkominn í heiminn, velkan." she breathes wearily, closing her eyes and praying to vellen. to let her keep this one, to raise him and do right by him. her other sons are lost - she's starting to believe aki isn't coming back, as ragna said so long ago. it hurts, feels like she's losing him all over again every day she wakes and thinks he's gone, he's gone. but velkan is here and velkan will stay, she thinks fiercely, claws unsheathing and digging into the sand of her quiet den. the darkest daughter she regards critically, nearing naming her raven in the mother tongue - but, no. she already fights her sister, the two squabbling in their newborn way for the best teat, the warmest spot. a fond smile touches her dark lips and she grins savagely in the dark. "úr sterkasta húsinu, solvi." and when she reaches to christen her daughter, she squawks in protest. a paw lifts to carefully turn the two sister away from one another and her chimeric daughter batters a toe with tiny paws. stríðsmaður, megi hún vera örugg. hillevi."

and vellen hisses in her mind, reminding her. reminding her.

how could she forget?

the firstborn: a son, larger than the rest and pale, with not a single marking to break the expanse of white. "gjöf." she says softly, her throat tightening and eyes burning though she denies herself the relief of crying. she does this, saga knows, or she runs the risk of losing her nieces. the risk of them carrying the shame of their family.

quietly, she rises, taking them one by one to the seaside. it's quiet and still with the dying light of the sun lighting it up red, red, red. fitting, she notes, with a bitter sneer. three of them lay in a pile, mewling and cold as they fiddle at the edge of the sea, and she curls a tail around them. they're wet to the bone and occasionally sputter and cough. their first drowning was swift, merciless: saga held them down with a paw until the bubbles stopped and pulled them to the sand to wait for them to awaken. and they all did, stirring with the strength she knows them to possess.

but gjöf remains at her right side, dry. alone. wailing.

she waits a moment, silently grooming the three wrapped within her tail, until they're warm and quiet from the shared trauma.

and then she issues a low, deep chuffing sound for @Hrefna and @Voluspa. she bids them to her to solve a problem the family now shares.

a problem saga intends to solve with a gift

table by ferus & lineart by eerien00dle

asteria knew the day was coming.

saga had grown larger since she had come to the lagoon, and the dark child did not know what that would mean for her. for all the nights that she had spent curled next to the sigrun they had skirted the deeper topics, leaving the young girl unsure of her future even now. would saga wish her gone when the cubs arrived?

fear had taken root in her heart -- she had only just found a mother and now she might lose her? even asteria knew that jealousy was unbecoming and so she kept her thoughts private, smothered, but they taunted and teased her relentlessly. her last interaction with nero weighed heavily on her and she had not visited any friends for the last few days; all of this combined to tempt the black wave back to life.

already she had begun to think of the sigrun as a mother, feeling safe and warm during the nights they spent together. it was all she had wanted, no matter how brave she had tried to be on her own, and she considered the offer that had been given. asteria had taken the time to think as saga had requested but she already knew her answer... so why the hesitation? only this -- she feared that everything would change when her true children were born.

the call that rang out drew her curiosity and her attention away from her childish concerns and she turned instinctively towards the ocean. the sand was soft beneath her paws and the girl hurried along before it occurred to her quite abruptly that she may not be welcome. it had not been an open call but a specific one, and she wondered what @Saga wanted with the yearlings.

recalling advice given long ago she stopped to roll in the wet sand by the riverside before she rose, dirty and smelling a lot more like dirt than herself. she scuffed her paws in the sand to mask her white toes before she gave a satisfied nod and carried on. her steps were more cautious, then, and she lingered in the shadows of the foliage. while not as thick as the forest or the jungle it was enough to mask the black coat of the zero child, especially with her white toes dirtied as they were.

asteria passed the den (where she could smell the birth and her heart quickened) and moved slowly towards the beach. crouching she tucked herself at the base of a palm tree, bright eyes peeking through large leaves to study the chimera painted mother at the seaside. four small bodies lay beside her, three hardly visible and the other squawking loudly. why wasn't saga cuddling him, too?

a chill ran down her spine and she crouched so low that her belly touched the sand, and she barely dared breath as she waited to see if Saga would give her comfort to the fourth child. surely she would? surely she was just... distracted?

asteria is attempting to hide at the edge of the beach


+5 Practice concealing your scent

TABLE © DUSK

shame; it clung to her like an incessant plague, churning within the yearling's gullet with each passing moment. that day still haunted her, the memories of it, of vellen of their family, still scarred across her vision, almost as though they would never free her from their chains. but voluspa knew that the pain was far from over, for there were much bigger sacrifices that needed to be made, in the name of their god and in the name of their family. and yet, on top of the pain, there remained boiling anger, fueled by denial that she would have died that day in the waters if it had not been for @Hrefna's interference. her sister had been careless, even foolish, and now they had to pay the price for it. it was an unforgiveable act, as had been apparent in the detest of their father -- and the older littermate shared that sentiment, even if she currently failed to see that hrefna's devotion was the only reason she stood here now, alive and breathing. but, alas, the sigrun remained blinded by her faith and scorned by her sister, feeling cheated by magnus’ displeasure and the sound of his angry, poignant displeasure in the aftermath of the drowning. she had always strived for greatness, to be the pinnacle of sigrun fealty and character — and now look at her! Tumbled, battered, and broken. what did vellen think of them now?

obedient as ever, voluspa moved in the direction of @Saga's summons without pause nor a moment of hesitation, knowing that the day of their reckoning had been fast approaching. it did not take her long to find the bold-pelted woman hovering out upon the sands, with her newborns curled tightly against her body - survivors -, except for one. and it was then that she found herself biting her tongue, eyes casting down from the face of her aunt and onto the lone cub writhing in the sand, seperated from his siblings. was it fair that he should have trade his life for their's? that he should be forced to pay for the mistakes that weighed down upon her own shoulders? voluspa knew not the answer to that, but she did know that this was the way that it had to be. if saga willed this to be their path to forgiveness and salvation, what choice did she have but to oblige, but to agree? if it spared hrefna's soul, and if it spared her's, it was the only viable option.

and so, voluspa would settle silently along the sands, waiting expectantly for morbid, cruel instruction to follow soon after. if one looked close enough, they may have been able to catch the tremble of her paws against the coastline, and the edge of regret that stung mercilessly at the corners of her eyes. but she had no more tears left to give, and no more begging to be done, but knew that, after today, she would owe her life in more ways than one to her family.

table code by ferus

Haven't I given enough?
Always the fool with the slowest heart

She had been brooding. Like a child after touching the hot stove in a moment’s impulse, Hrefna recoiled at the reactions of her family after that drowning day. Unforgivable, foolish, evil—their words swirled around her mind in a relentless frenzy every waking moment from then on. Only the shift in direction she paced suggested that she had heard her aunt’s summons. While her insides churned with bitter venom as she moved, even Hrefna knew that it was in her best interest to heed the call of the Sigrúns. It was by His will alone that she had not been done off with that very day.

“Aunty,” she greeted lowly as she approached the shore, refusing to spare her sister even a glance. She could perform the act of the cold shoulder for as long as she liked, but truthfully, she did not trust the way her lip quivered when she faced Voluspa. She did not trust that she would stick up for herself.

Hrefna shifted her attention to the mewling creatures at Saga’s paws. They were not the first newborns she had witnessed, though she knew without a doubt that these were the ones she would remember the most agonizingly. She watched how they crawled and mewled, and noted that only the lightest of them remained undrenched from baptism.

“What shall I do?”

@Voluspa is silent as she takes her place at the seaside, eyes skittering between the lone boy and saga herself. her own eyes remain steady and face impassive as she reaches a paw to quell the wailing of the newborn. he quiets at her touch, curling against her large paw, and she makes a soft crooning noise in the back of her throat, bending to press her nose to his forehead. try as she might, she cannot play utterly detached. this is her son. her firstborn. and now he will meet vellen far before his time and he will stay with vellen.

for their ills.

her gaze lifts to cradle @Hrefna as the sullen girl approaches, greeting her and falling into what is expected of her without question. the faintest of nods of approval tips her head and she casts her gaze back to the shuffling trio of baptized sigrun. for a moment, grief passes across her face and she bows her head across her pale boy. vellen take him willingly and spare these poor young fools your ire. she prays silently, eyes closed against the sight of the cub. we will find our way once more and may your will never be questioned again.

and her eyes open, a paw cupping against the back of the boy to slide him across the sand to the girls' feet.

"gjöf ." she introduces, inclining her jaw. "a gift to vellen. a sacrifice and a show of our devotion." her eyes narrow, pinning hrefna particularly beneath a hard stare. her jaw grits and her claws curl into the sand, fighting the desire to slash out. magnus was still her jarl and she takes the departure at the drowning to mean nothing will be done to her. but she still doesn't like it. her skin burns and she turns her head away with a twisted expression of disdain. weariness grips her, bids her go back to bed, but the woman remains steadfast and unwavering.

"og megi ég aldrei sjá þig hrækja framan í hefðir okkar aftur." the words are a growl and she manages not to snap her teeth in punctuation. "taktu gjöfina sem ég býð og bið að það sé nóg." she adds, lifting a paw and jabbing at the sea.

"go. send him on his way and none so gently as your father did for you."

it's cruel in so many ways but saga can't be kind in this moment. won't, even if vellen would be so gentle as to allow it. voluspa may not be at fault, truly, but she can't help but wonder every time she looks at the girl: are you meant to be here at all?

table by ferus & lineart by eerien00dle

@Saga lowers her head to the wriggling cub and Asteria is comforted. A chill had wound in to her heart as she had watched him so clearly ignored, begging for what its mother had been denying.

But Saga is not cruel -- she comforts the tiny cub as Asteria had expected. From her vantage point she cannot see that they are wet and she knows nothing of what had happened at the yearling drowning (or even that drownings are a thing). To her young, naive eyes she sees a mother on the beach, close to the ocean she follows.

While she may not know of the Sigrun's beliefs she does know of their affinity with the ocean, and she is eager to learn more of her the god her mother follows.

Voluspa appears, then, followed by a shape that she does not know. There is conversation between them and Asteria frowned as she struggled to make sense of it without being able to hear. The tiny cub is pushed towards the two yearlings and she sees it as an introduction. Perhaps, then, she should go, for she would meet her new siblings another time. After Saga and the wee ones had time to rest.

Try as she might, though, she cannot make herself leave. Something holds her in her place and keeps her eyes trained on the sight before her. Something tells her that there is more to see.

TABLE © DUSK

This content might touch on topics that are sensitive or triggering for some readers. Trigger Warning for mentions of sacrifice, drowning

fresh as it may be, voluspa is used to the anger. she was expecting it, especially from @Saga, who had been the one to make the cataclysmic decision to give up one of her own, for them. there is a stoicness to her features, tainted only by the grief that loomed heavily within her gaze as her looked between her aunt, sister, and the poor, damned soul writhing in the sand. "gjöf." she repeated, tones gruff and macabre beneath the brokenness of her strength. a strong name, for a strong son that would ride the waves alongside vellen, and the one to which voluspa would owe her life, and her hopeful salvation, to, should this act of sacrifice appease their god in the way that they hoped it would.

pausing only for a moment, voluspa was quick to gingerly scoop the cub from the sand, cupping him tightly between her forelimb and her chest, before her eyes passed to @Hrefna with a dark and haunting stare. this was their punishment, whether they liked it or not -- and despite the frustration, and the confusion, and the tension that currently festered between them, voluspa would not wish such a thing on anyone. without choice, however, they were just dutiful soldiers to the cause, and the sigrun knew that there was no going back, not now, not ever. and so, it was with a heavy heart that she began her trek towards the abyss, jaw clenched tightly as she waded into the shallows, hopefully alongside hrefna. the touch of the cold waters sent a shiver down her spine, sparking back those members of panic, of faith, and of disaster -- how funny it was, then, that this had all come full circle. it was only when they stood knee-deep within the sea that voluspa would turn to her sister once more, craning back her forelimb and exposing the cub to the wailing winds, and, in turn, hrefna. it's time.

and should voluspa ever know that wandering, looming question that hung upon saga's mind as she watched them from the sands above -- well, the two of them cold rejoice in the sad and bitter pill, for she, too, shared such reservations about her life and self-worth. don't worry saga, i think that too.

table code by ferus

Haven't I given enough?
Always the fool with the slowest heart

(ABOVE TRIGGER WARNING CONTINUED)

(+5 Hold a ritual
+5 Meditate or pray with someone)

At first, no one spoke as Saga cradled her head above the cubs, unease rising steadily within Hrefna's throat at what was to come to pass. She flinched as her aunt pushed the infant form of the undrowned child toward them with her paw, almost as if she expected to be struck.
"A gift to Vellen. A sacrifice and a show of our devotion." Hrefna pursed her lips as she felt the iron-hot stare of her aunt begin to burn into her pelt as she explained her terrible plan. If looks could kill, she did not think she would be alive to hear the plan. She noticed the way her claws curled into the shore and how she strained to stay still, though Saga opted to lash out with her words rather than her other weapons. Her face began to flush with fiery heat as Hrefna swallowed the lump in her throat, gritting her teeth harder to prevent the outburst she knew would come if she let it. "Go. Send him on his way and none so gently as your father did for you."

"Yes, Saga," she agreed woefully, her tongue thick in her mouth. She did not move immediately--only watched as Voluspa pressed forward and scooped up his infant form. Silently, she was grateful that she did not have to initiate such a task. She slunk forward to catch up with her sister's immersed form, tightening her chest with strain as the icy waters threatened to take the very breath from her lungs. She did not stop until Voluspa did, their knees soaked with tormenting kisses of the tide as her sister revealed the cub to the elements. Her breath caught in her throat, Hrefna began:

"Oh Vellen, in all of Your greatness," she prayed aloud. "We come before Thee humbly. We offer Thee this gift--" she paused, "Gjof--in penance for our foolish crimes. We beg that You spare us, mortals, from Your greatness and power. May we show our devotion with his life." The words seemed to fall flat at the end, her seeing eye turning up to try and meet Voluspa's gaze with unspoken questioning. Your turn.

@Saga @Asteria @Voluspa