you can threaten me with a good time [re-intro]

[ROSEMARY]

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She lives, the sea air breathing life into her lungs with every passing moment. Yet she lives in the group’s shadow, out of the social light. To speak invites questions, and questions are the things Rosemary fears the most. The ocelot spends her days in quiet solitude, lovingly tending to her plants and filling the hours with meditation. Her interactions with the rest of the group are sparse, and even then only brought about when tending to the Necro Mambas’ supplies or meeting another soul on the beach.

The quiet settles her mind, lets her hear the crash of the waves without interruption from anxious thoughts. They always zig-zagged their way through her mind before, crashing into her plans and fouling up an otherwise serene mood. Yet even now, months into her solitude, she feels the tangled web of gunk sticking to the back of her mind, like a cockroach that lurked under the refrigerator awaiting the darkness. This anxiety – no, it ran deeper than general anxiety, she knew, she has always known but never wants to admit – ruled her life.

Everything she did, she did to try and drive this cockroach into its filthy hole. And yet she couldn’t explain the rationality behind her actions, not fully. No more than how she could explain how each molecule moved after her paw sunk into the wet muck of jungle soil. Yet here she was, trying to re-focus on her meditation after her mind wandered into these fears. Wondering, for the thousandth time, whether she meditated because she wanted to or because it drove away the cockroach. And the wondering turned into wretched fear, that old fear that lingered ever since she saw her mother’s mental decline –

Her eyes opened, all four of them. Just like that, she was back on the shores with the heat of her bonfire burning into her back. The sun set a few hours ago, and the night chill from the wet ocean winds came in full force. Usually she left the beach by now (the sand long since infiltrated her tea thermos), but the nettling fear to vacate the open space prodded her less insistently today. Despite the fears that surfaced, broke her meditation, Rosemary wanted to socialize. For once in her life, for once in the long time since she’d returned to the Typhoon after that disastrous stint in the Rosebloods.

waded through the spirits like a flood on the floor

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SHE PUSHED THE WATER INSIDE

© LEXASPERATED

[hushsound.]

Of all the people for Rosemary to first encounter in her first foray back into having a social life again, it was doubtful that her first choice probably would have been someone as new as Hushsound. The mute hero had arrived at the group only a few days ago, and while he was slowly becoming more and more familiar with everyone that resided within the Typhoon, he was also willing to bet that Rosemary would have preferred to run into one of the many other older members, or one of the members of her family. Still, he was never one to pass up meeting somebody, even though he couldn't really conventionally talk with any of them unless they were very very close. After all, he had only ever really spoken out loud to his first love, as well as somebody who was practically a mother figure to him, so he probably wouldn't be speaking in audible words to Rosemary anytime soon. Still, he desperately hoped that, with her 4 eyes, Rosemary was able to read his writing, or, even better, knew sign language like Goldie had demonstrated when he had first joined.

Walking along the beach on his own, the small golden male made no noise beyond the soft clang of his dagger sized sword against his hip, sheathed and attached to the belt around his waist. The young feline couldn't often get a full night's sleep easily, as his dreams were plagued with visions of crying princesses and dark clouds of misery and hatred wrapped around large castle structures. Because of this, he spent most of his time at night these days just silently exploring, watching the sun slowly disappear below the horizon line with curious light blue eyes that took in the beauty of it all without so much as a single comment. This time, however, his eyes were drawn towards something other than the now long gone sun: Rosemary. He had never seen the ocelot around before, and she was certainly different from any other ocelot he had seen in his short life, so he felt his paws guiding him towards her before he had really processed what they were doing. Once he was only a little bit away from Rosemary, he offered her a little smile and moved to carve words into the sand they were standing on, his fluffy tail flicking to and fro as he wrote out, "HELLO THERE. MY NAME IS HUSHSOUND, WHO ARE YOU?" He didn't want to seem as if he was being blunt or rude, but when he was writing on the ground, he usually had to be brief, for fear of running out of room or having his words trampled on.

[glow=black,2,300]LOVE IS NOT A VICTORY MARCH[/glow]

[Keona.]

[align=center]— if I fall, get knocked down, pick myself up off the ground —

Although never close to the witch, the tiny privateer possessed vague memories of her.  Afterall, the ocelot had been soothsayer at one point.  Consequently, as petite paws carried the fae across the sand, she halted from a familiar presence, pale sea-green hues blinking.  Diligently the gears began turning in her mind, seeking the proper name.  Roux.

Just lightly, her head tilted.  "Aloha Rosemary," yes, that sounded right.  Carefully, she began inclining her head, adjusting to the best of her abilities.  As she inhaled the salt air, ears perked, she caught the sound of sand shifting purposefully. 

Hushsound.  Her tail flicked silently in greeting, recalling uncomfortably that they could not communicate without an intermediate.  Oh well.  Despite disliking the lack of independence that required, she realized the pointlessness in being upset over it.  It was okay if he couldn't talk.  It was okay she couldn't see.  They just had to work around it when necessary.

Keona wondered how well the former soothsayer remembered her.  Out of every older member of the Typhoon, she presented an oddity in her existence -- she had hardly grown since many had come and gone, barely looking any different as the moons passed by.  Certainly she looked a little older now.  A question she hardly thought to ask.

Regardless of memory or lack off -- they hadn't been close; simply crewmates -- she'd offer the larger feline a polite smile.  "How're you?"

✯ — keona sibéal ní faoláin. female. privateer of the typhoon. blind. rusty spotted cat.  ref. bio.

[idyllfields]

idyllfields

stars did fall

goldenluxury had told tales of her many family members from the time of pinchers reign. her many aunts being wildly chaotic in their younger days. they could see it in how it reflected in goldie's own personality. empowered by will and strength in her beliefs. meeting vandal, one of goldie's aunts, only enforced it.

rosemary was another one they had heard of in passing. a former soothsayer, she had said. while idyll had read up on former sages and soothsayers, rosemary's time had definitely stood out to them. another peg in the roux family that kept them in a line of healers. not only that but, from records she appeared to be a very knowledgeable woman.

idyllfields approached her calmly, trying not to behave overly fanatic over whom they thought of as a grand figure in typhoons history.

"hello, miss rosemary. i have heard much about you. my name is idyllfields, a sage here." oh wow. was their tail shaking? they kept it tucked close to their leg to hide it.

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[ROSEMARY]

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Three of them came up to her; the ocelot watched them approach with fidgety flexes of her claws, the urge to socialize suddenly suffocated under anxiety. One she recognizes, the smallest of the bunch, but it is the newness of the two that drove her anxiety up the wall to begin with. Her four amber-orange eyes flicker between the three of them, her expression frozen in a blank mask. If her eyes did not flutter as they did, she might’ve been mistaken as a statue.

It was a long moment before she spoke, a deep rattle in the back of her throat. “I am Rosemary Roux. You’re new, aren’t you, Hushsound?” she said to the tabby male, finding his name amusing in a darkly ironic way. How could you hush a voice that didn’t speak? It was a rude thought, and she hated herself for thinking of it – worse still, almost saying it. Socialization always came unnaturally to Rosemary, and the skill atrophied quickly. The blunder circled her thoughts like a vulture, even as her four eyes drifted to the tiny wildcat. “Growing tired of the silence, I‌ suppose. You?” she replied, plucking a meaningless response out of her bag of similar replies. Even when she wanted to get closer to someone, those walls in her mind did not come down easily.

Another funny thought occurs to her, of how the blind privateer cannot possibly ‘hear’ the voice of ironically named tabby. “I‌ don’t suppose the two of you both know Morse Code? It is an easy way to translate letters to paw taps, takes less than two weeks to learn. Come to think of it… it would probably be useful for the Typhoon as a whole to know it, for communication purposes,” Rosemary says, trailing off into a mutter to herself at the end.

She knows ciphers and ways to write code, from the witch coven she grew up in; they hoarded their secrets jealously, and everyone wrote in their own custom secret fashion, usually in different variations across grimoires. Now, Rosemary only played with such things as games, but it was a thought – just as it was a thought that Caesar Cipher had a funny name, being named after a silly little encryption strategy, when she first met him.

Rosemary looks to the last one to approach once she finishes chewing on these puzzles, an invisible brow quirking up. The sage, despite being larger than Rosemary and less stricken by anxiety in general, presented as a nervous fawn. “Then you must have your paws full with Goldenluxury alone. These pirates always find a dramatic accident to blunder into, don’t they?” she said, almost amused. That was one nice element of her solitary time, never waking up in the middle of the night to some panicked crewmate screaming about someone being half-dead. Rosemary lost count of how many times she patched up her niece, which made her wonder if she was a terrible aunt or Goldenluxury lacked chicken sense.

waded through the spirits like a flood on the floor

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SHE PUSHED THE WATER INSIDE

© LEXASPERATED

[Keona.]

[align=center]— if I fall, get knocked down, pick myself up off the ground —

Without thought her head falls to the side, eyes blinking.  Morse.  Her tiny paws felt familiar over the gentle engravings of braille, yet she knew nothing of morse code.  Rosemary stood as the first to mention the prospect.  Absently, a paw traced random patterns into the sand, the tip of her tail flicking to and fro.  "I don' know it," a thoughtful admittance.

"I know braille though," she added, brows creasing.  "I thin' I could learn it easy." Especially if the ocelot gave a time as short as two weeks.  Given how quickly she picked up on braille, Keona decided the idea worth pursing.  A new method of communication in cases with those who could not speak to her directly.  Or for moments requiring quiet speech.

✯ — keona sibéal ní faoláin. female. privateer of the typhoon. blind. rusty spotted cat.  ref. bio.

[hushsound.]

Rosemary Roux. This lady had the same last name as Miss Goldie, and that immediately peaked the young man's interest. After all, Goldie was such a grandiose figure that the "hero of the wild" couldn't help but feel as though he should look up to her, not to mention the strange sense of familiarity that she brought with her. So the prospect of meeting someone related to her? While it seemed as though that wasn't particularly an uncommon thing in The Typhoon, since the name Roux had reached his ears quite a few times since he had first joined. When Rosemary asked if he was new, a soft smile graced his muzzle, before he dipped his head in a nod to the older female, etching into the ground, "YES, I AM NEW. I ONLY JOINED A FEW DAYS AGO. I HAVE ENJOYED MY TIME HERE THUS FAR... IT IS NICE TO MEET YOU." He wasn't sure what he thought of her so far, but if she had voiced her thoughts about how his name was ironic, he probably just would've laughed it off, because... well, it was true. His name was very funny, considering the fact that he almost never spoke enough to be "hushed."

When Rosemary asked if he knew Morse code, he immediately felt his gaze flick over to Keona, knowing full well why she was suggesting it. After all, the two of them couldn't really communicate at all at the moment, unless they had some sort of talking mediator between them, so perhaps the idea was a good one. Shaking his head, the male made sure that Rosemary's eyes had taken in his last message before scrubbing it out, writing carefully once his canvas was returned to normal, "I HAVE NEVER THOUGHT OF LEARNING MORSE CODE, BUT PERHAPS IT WOULD BE USEFUL. MAYBE I COULD FIND A BOOK TO STUDY FROM." He wasn't sure if perhaps Rosemary was suggesting that she could teach them, but even if she was, he didn't want to trouble her to teach him.

[glow=black,2,300]LOVE IS NOT A VICTORY MARCH[/glow]

[bubblegum]