All I know is, darling, I was made for loving you

Together, they walked. Together, they thrived. Together, they had built a home, a name, a beginning. And now, they were to start a family. Esmerelda hadn't worked out quite... how they would start one; unfortunately, as they were both females, well... It was a bit more difficult. They could find a surrogate, or even someone to... inseminate one of them (her lip curled at the thought, both in distaste and in possessiveness), but she had not had either of those conversations with Wake yet. It wasn't that she didn't want to, or wanted to delay the next chapter of their lives together, but more that she wished there was another way.

Recently, she had taken to searching for guidance on such matters from the stars, and the Lady of the Sea herself, but everything she read and saw, it was all jumbled. Illegible. It would all be revealed in time, she was sure. Until then, the Mystic of the Saltwoods would spend time reading the stars and the seas, seeking that which she did not know. And yet, what she didn't know was also everything her heart yearned for.

A deep breath was taken and released, lifting her thoughts from her shoulders and guiding her to less frustrating ones. Like the handsome beauty of her wife as they strolled along their shores, the glow of their waters lighting the way. Ever since she had found this place and welcomed Cyrelias to their home, Esmerelda and Wake had come here many nights to lavish in its beauty and lay among the lights.

Tonight, it was as beautiful as always. Already, the sea witch felt the effects of this place, the tingle that ran along her nerves sweet and electrifying. Her plans were a simple seduction, but the gods had other plans for them tonight. There was a cry that stopped her in her tracks, drawing her eyes from her wife and instead to a clutch of puppies laying among a small nest of seaweed and shells, all beautifully woven together somehow, just out of reach of the glowing tides.

Her heart stuttered, stopped.

There, five little babes, asleep and as sweet as could be. She tore her gaze from their tiny forms and looked up the beach and down it. Behind them, perhaps even the sea, but there was no one. No one rushing them away from the pups, no scent lingering on them either. That, perhaps more than anything, convinced her.

Her eyes glistened then, as she looked to Wake. “Meu amor... Esses são nossos bebês. Lady Sea nos abençoou. — My love... These are our babies. Lady Sea has blessed us.” She whimpered, barely containing a sob, her chest tight with shock and joy as she stepped towards them and lowered her head to sniff their tiny heads as they slept. “She has blessed us.” Unable to contain herself, the newly minted mother ran her tongue across each of their heads, seeking to stir them awake so that she could greet them.

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@Wake first and then the babies!!!

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Babies could come when they were ready, now that they knew they wanted them.

Wake had not...discovered logistics, but she had brewed upon it. She had a feeling either one of them would rather devour the flesh of man before it let them contribute to their family. There was the concept of surrogacy. The woman among their ranks were few and it was a tall order, even from a Captain's point of view.

They'd figure it out, was her true point. They always had, always would.

But tonight she planned on focusing on just them. To shower her beloved in affection and trinkets of the sea. Wake had not departed the honeymoon phase by any stretch. She seemed to cherish it wholly and welcome it each time. She had been prepared to proclaim such things right now, but as her mouth opened —

She cried? No, no. It could not be her. It reminded her of the baby bird and how it had stirred something within her. This was no different in feelings. Only amplified by the amount of cries there were.

Five little voices, five mouths with hunger, five bodies curled together as they slumbered again.

Tiny and young. Not newborns but certainly too young to be left alone. So...who had left them? She blinked against the moonlight and twisted her head around. No frantic mother rushed forward with cries for her children. No father dared to make claim. They smelled of nothing but the sea, the bed of kelp they laid upon. How many times had she witnessed adults simplying appearing? There were no rules to say children couldn't, but still she faltered. Fumbled her words.

“I—”

Her wife was much more eloquent in the way she greeted the babes.

Lady Sea had continued to provide for Saltwoods, now it had gone so far as to give the sapphics their next generation.

“They're so...small...” Her voice an emotional whisper as she crouched near her wife, gray-blue eyes looking down at the near-all-monochrome bodies. She had been ready to breach motherhood, but she had not thought that the sea would send little guppies to them. Delicate and in need of mothers.

“They're ours.”

Her throat tightened and she leaned a touch closer, to softly sniff at delicate heads.

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Perhaps she was born with belief.

Perhaps they had been summoned by their mothers' wishful thinking and seasalt prayers. Perhaps something higher moved beyond them all in mysterious ways. She was too young to ponder these things out loud, in deeper thinking.

She only knew that the ocean was now like a womb. That something had placed her among the bundle of bodies that slept around her, as if they had always known each other. Maybe they always had. Maybe their stardust had always mingled with one another until they had come earth-side.

Whatever had been before though would be lost in the soft trickle of infantile wants and needs. In the warmth of bodies and cooing emotional voices. She was tired, though, as if she had traveled millions of miles to come here.

So she only mouthed at the fur nearest to her — sibling? New mother? It mattered not which — with mild protest before she sighed a tired baby breath.

She was so glad to be here, even if she could not express it properly right now.

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The siren drifted – all knowing but the warmth of her siblings and the cold currents of the ocean. Somehow it was like being rocked to sleep; and not even upon surfacing would the babe’s slumber be disturbed. One with the flow of water – one that drifted without fuss in the only thing she’d known as a “mother” ever since coming to existence: the sea. Though all good dreams come to an end.

As soon as the small girl felt a wet brush against her delicate crown, a high pitched whine had expelled out of her tiny vocal cords. In a sort of wobble she sat up and saw…not much of anything – just a blurry film of shapes and colors of what should’ve been there, but she still recognized them as live things. By her continued whining the pup was still upset about being woken up, and the teething from one of her littermates only made this worse when she’d then begin to flat out well up into tears and cry.

Scream, and cry, then scream some more.

The frustration and confusion was not something young Coe could handle…and she was really hungry right now.

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they were stars that dotted and burned in the endless galaxies, called forth by a safe and pure warmth. in the years to come, this would be her guiding light, her own little nova that would forever light her path.

she and her siblings would nestle together in their shared warmth, all as one and one as all. it would be their first breath, their first movement, their first everything. mothers' first kiss, the first sound of their voices and the waves that had washed them ashore.

the tiniest yawn split those sleeping jaws before she wiggled around to curl closer to her brothers warmth.
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Free floating like sea foam, he was simply bubbles in a vast endless sea. Organic waste churned up beneath the waves of the breathing sea, stirred and whipped into a frothy being that eventually spat out a bundle of black with only a few hairs of white in eventual signature markings. Landing with others like him, little toe beans reaching out in a fat stretch of stubby limbs - only to immediately retreat back into the comfort of his potato shape.

Mumbled voices through shut ears could be heard, but easily ignored. For now he slept while gaining consciousness that the sea took too long to give. Eventually, he would cry for food and warmth but for now he was quiet... peaceful and needed nothing but time.

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Zephyr would not remember how she came to be, though she was sure to recall the warmth and love that would surround her from that moment onward.

Whatever had disturbed a sibling did nothing to rouse the slumbering babe who would soon be known as Zephyr. She lay content among her siblings, dozing and utterly relaxed despite her exposure to the world. From her came soft little snores, and she remained oblivious to having been found - as though she knew these she-wolves had yearned for her existence.


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As each of them stirred, Esmerelda could practically feel her heart grow in size, tears prickling at her eyes with a heat she'd never quite felt. Even as one of the babes stirred with a whine and a cry — a voice pushed through her head, a strong sense of instinct; hunger. provide. — she would smile, a soft laugh breaking her silence as it coupled with a soft but happy sob.

“We must find food for them, meu amor. We must bring them home and warm them, feed them, and then figure out where we go from here.” She leaned in, her face burrowing into the fur of Wake's neck for a moment before she lovingly kissed her wife's cheek.

Another bright star in Esmerelda's life flared to life this night. Five of them, in fact. She could not remember a time when she'd been so happy, her soul so warm and content. It was the start of a new life for them all.

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Fade!

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