Cerulean Cape i let all my love rot inside me

Cascada trails the sandy beaches of the island. Most of the time, she feels trapped. There’s plenty of the island she hasn’t explored but the fact she can’t leave constantly reminds her of the prison she’s found herself. The sandbar had been destroyed during the storm and what is left isn’t easy to cross. She’s never much tested her swimming skills but she’d washed up over here somehow, with whatever she could call swimming at the time. All she knows is she doesn’t want to stay here anymore and she needs to find a way over, whether or not her intentions change to come back for those she’s grown close to, no matter how few.

The sandbar still breaks off from the island in one particular sandy spot but after several yards it dips back down into water. Low tide is among them, at least (not that she realizes what that means), and gives her a little shallower, not so angry waves around her.

Swimming can’t be that hard, can it?

She puts her feet into the water. It is much heavier than fresh water and it stays with her longer. Her coat often feels thick with salt and humidity. How any of those taking residence here does it is beyond her. Slowly, she takes another step, and then another, until she can no longer touch the bottom and she has to float. She steels herself with a heavy breath and begins the trek and swims with more effort and energy than she probably has.

Eventually, she fins another bank of sand that she drags herself upon, shakes out her fur, and takes a few moments to catch her breath before she starts again. She can at least see the mainland’s shore from her and with another breath, she crosses the distance with more struggle than efficiency and eventually washes up further down the shore than intended. Cascada drags herself up to her feet, shakes her fur out again, and tries to get through the sand without too much clumping to her legs making for a rather unpleasant trek inland.

Khalil keeps pushing his boundaries, just as he does with his warrior training. If he does not push against and break them then he will never know his full potential — or at least this is what he thinks, anyway. He has travelled further than he can recall traveling before as he heads north, towards the coast. He has never seen sand or the ocean before in his life as he wades through the golden dunes — unsure how he feels about the extra effort he has to put into just walking as the sand shifts and gives way beneath his footfalls, swallowing his mittened paws he keeps moving for the fear that it will not stop with just his paws, but finds relief when the sand wet from the waves which crash and then recede back into the sea is more firm. Solid. He sticks to it, instead, shivering as the cold waves rush against his soot dusted stockings, his fur sticky with salt water and flecked with grains of sand.

Khal isn’t so sure he likes the beach, though the breeze — if not insultingly salty and sticky — is nice as it weaves through the tendrils of fur cools him off and the sun is warm upon his face. After spending almost a whole month cooped up in the abysmal darkness of Blackfeather Woods (though it was of his own choice as he accumulated to their pack). The truth as Khal knows it is that he is relatively free to do whatever he wants — and even if he isn’t it is clear that he isn’t listening and will revolt against the heavy burden of chains that keep him stationed. He needs room to seek adventure, to grow, to fight. One cannot fight in a cage, after all.

The soutri’s glacial gaze fixates on fresh paw prints that lead into dry sand dunes before the tide rushes up and washes the prints almost entirely away. He sees her in the distance, a flash of agouti fur before she (though he cannot pick up on a distinct scent) disappears from his view. He almost doesn’t go after her but the impulse is too strong and he wonders if she has swam in the sea (and why she would do that!) and finds himself following in her direction, letting out a chuff to garner her attention as he stands upon the slight rise of the sand dune, hoping that the noise was not swallowed by the sea behind him.

The sand clumping to her legs and underbelly weigh her down and slows all her steps. The swimming, especially inexperienced, exhausted all the energy she had and she isn’t sure how far she’s going to get. Water and a safe place to rest is all she really wants and if she can get far enough away from the ocean, she knows she’ll find it. Her eyes are half-lidded as she continues to more or less drag herself through from the wet sand to dry and closer to the dune. If she could get to fresh water, or at least some grass to roll in to try and get some of the sand off her form, she’d be more than content to just stop there.

Frustrated by her own predicament—almost enough to regret leaving the island—she comes to a stop and just stands there. The chuff has her attention and her ears slick back against her head, turning over her shoulder to see a child. Cascada blinks a few times, not certain she’s seeing what she’s seeing, and eventually she slowly turns all the way around. Sure that she looks like a mess, she tries to shake out her coat—water and sand flinging every which way—before she shuffles forward a few steps.

“Are you lost?” she asks after a moment, licking at her dry lips. “Are you from around here? Can…” she trails off, surprised at her next request. “Do you know where there’s fresh water?”

She hears him, and there is a mild shock of surprise as the crash of the waves against the shore is far from quiet, made noisier by the cry of the gulls overhead as they squabble and screech their displeasure at the soturi who tries to be deaf to the racket and thinks that the first bird that comes near him is going to become his next meal. Glacial gaze watches her as she looks over her shoulder and then, slowly, turns to face him in full. He had been right: he had been in the water: as evidenced by the trail of water droplets in the dry sand but as she shuffles towards him — just a few steps — his questions fade off of his lips without ever having been spoken. She fires off her own set of questions, instead, and the tundrian born titan gives a slight roll of his eyes. What was it with adults? Did they think every child they stumble across is lost? Every adult (or nearly every) he had came across during his travels had asked that question and unlike the very first time when Nyx had found him he wasn’t lost. He would never be that helpless again, he thinks. “No, I’m not lost.” There is a slight crack — he cringes slightly, thinking how much he hates puberty (which little does he know will plague him for at least two or three more months) — to his voice but he thinks the rasp, like smoke steeped whiskey might be a little more deeper than it was a few days ago.

“I’m not from around here,” The aspiring warlord responds. The scent of Blackfeather Woods has long since been shed from his fur, by the river water to lend him anonymity and further by the salt of the sea. He is no one, now. It is intoxicating: this freedom. This ability to shed his skin like a cobra. “but I followed a river all the way to this cape,” He gives pause, salmon pink tongue swiping across his jowls tasting the salt of sea from the sticky air upon his fur. “It’s just a little ways west. I’ll show you.” He gestures with his muzzle but in the end decides to show her the way and changes direction and begins to head towards the Tokoto River. “Why were you swimming in that water?” The tundrian realizes he has no name for it, never having heard the words “sea” or “ocean” spoken as he supposed there’s been no need for Nyx to mention them as Blackfeather Woods is plenty far away from it.

The way the boy reacts to the question throws her off and she isn’t sure what to make of it. She can barely remember her time as a puppy, turmoil and heartbreak one right after the other has given her more edge than perhaps is normal. But she knows she hadn’t been alone, or spent much time away from her family, that the only conceivable option might be lost. And since he isn’t from around her, it would only make sense. Cascada chews on the inside of her lip a little and glances around, deciding to ignore the childish response.

“Please,” she says after a moment, taking a step closer to close the distance so she could follow. Her mouth is uncomfortable and her tongue feels large, making it difficult to want to talk. As much as she has already, what few words they are, leaves her with a salty film building up no amount of licking will give relief.

He asks about her swimming and she glances off to the divot in the sand where she’d dragged herself out, mostly washed away and even up until the wide can reach no further. She shudders and then tries to shake again, most sand going everywhere. “I was on the island,” she says when she looks again, nothing more than a blip in the distance. “I didn’t want to be anymore.” She smacks her lips a moment later, turning back to the boy in hopes he’ll lead the way to fresh water.

Please, she asks of him. Please. He mulls that over in his mind, ears fluttering back to rest at half mast atop his skull as his lip quivers as if he is contemplating it; but he already knows he will lead her to the river (he just has to be a little bit of an asshole first). She does not look like she is in the mood for cruel jests and he might be apathetic but he isn’t (yet) so malign. She is in need of his assistance and though Drogon isn’t about to admit it feels nice to be needed for a change. It is for that reason alone, initially, he decides to help her. Her life could depend on him. He might walk that delicate line between savior and reaper. “Come on,” He encourages as the sand begins to shift beneath each step he takes as he leads the way up a sandy dune. “The Totoka isn’t far.” He assures her, checking back here and there to make sure she is following him,

“Here we are,” He steps to the side as the reach the sandy bank of the river where it runs through the western edge of the Cape. He casts his glacial gaze to the island across the water, assuming that is the island she spoke of. They are directly across from it now, he notes. “Do you think they will come looking for you?” He inquires, assuming that there was a pack on the island without asking for confirmation as he turns his attention back to her because if she thought there was even a slight possibility they couldn’t afford to linger here long. Of course there was water to cross first but if one was determined enough — Dragon wasn’t sure if the small expanse of sea would be enough to stop them from searching for her. Unless, they knew she’d left. He assumes (again) that because he told no one he left that she had done the same.

Cascada follows diligently behind the boy, almost now certain he has to be a hallucination. She blinks a few times to see if he remains in her vision but the sight of water gives her a whole new boost. Speed sinks in and she rushes to the water, dropping her muzzle in and drinking until she thinks her stomach might burst. It isn’t enough to get the dry, salty feeling away completely and she stares down at her rippling reflection and considers dropping down in the water. It would help shed the sand in her fur.

Drogon, however, seems far more interested in where she came from rather than where she’s going. Then again, so had she.

“No. They won’t,” she says, lifting her left paw into the air. “They probably won’t notice I’m gone.” Maybe Anatha but she is in far more capable hands with the group of wolves than one. Cascada takes a deep breath and finally lets her form sink down into the cool water, sand and debris drifting out of her coat the longer she’s in.

Drogon isn’t so sure why he’s so concerned about whether the stranger follows him because she appears — for the moment — fairly dependent upon him to lead her to a fresh water source and when they reach it the soturi watches as she strides forward and drinks deeply from it. His moment of wayward heroics is over and the proud set of his shoulders lowers minutely. It was good to feel needed for that short walk. He wonders if he should leave, hesitating a few feet away from her but she has yet to answer his question and his curiosity far out weighs his desire to bail. It’s not exactly in the tundrian’s nature to be so flighty: he only left Blackfeather Woods because he clashed with who and what they were. Losing Nyx was an unfortunate side effect to that realization but he’d lost wolves much more important to him before and he was doing just fine. He was a survivor at all and any cost. A belief that has him living dangerously in the varying shades of grey of morals ( a trait he’s unknowingly gotten from Arturo ) where good and evil have no clear definition. It alters from his perception and can be argued that each situation is unique and thus each definition of those words can be manipulated to suit his needs per situation ( perhaps there is a bithiúnach living within his heart after all ).

Drogon is so caught up in his thoughts that the growing titan almost doesn’t realize she is speaking to him and tunes back into the present with a small jolt of surprise when she speaks with certainty. For a second, he is confused having forgotten about his question but it comes back to him quickly and his lips are terse as he realizes she speaks of the pack she left behind. ‘They probably won’t notice I’m gone’ she speaks and something within the soturi tugs though he can’t exactly place it. Sympathy, perhaps. “They sound like assholes.”It was a terrible thing, Drogon thinks: to be lonely. How horribly lonely it must be to be able to speak confidently that they ( probably ) wouldn’t even notice that she ran away.

“I’m Drogon.” He offers her in a way of introduction, shedding Kahlil like a king cobra sheds it’s skin. This was becoming alarmingly easy for him: as if the world was his stage and he was the thespian on stage acting out his roles. Some for necessity and some for convenience and idly he wonders if he would ever stop. Could he? Currently, it was how he coped. It was how he survived. Changing his name, his personality. “I left my pack, too. I wasn’t a fan of their whole hide behind secrecy like cowards, religious voodoo, and when your usefulness runs out the Dark Master has every right to kill you in the name of the gods, blah, blah bullshit.” Drogon admits her with a roll of his eyes, figuring that it might not hurt to show them they are alike in the regards of running away.

They sound like assholes.

Cascada snorts, blowing the water in front of her nose. Green eyes focus on him as he continues to speak, introducing himself and explaining what happened with him. He’s seems far more mature than a child his age should be but she supposes going through such trauma early on forces one’s hand to grow up. She lost her parents at a young age, and later some of the most important wolves in her life. Her heart is but a dull ache inside her chest as she swims in a constant state of sorrow. Most days she doesn’t even realize how low she feels, unable to feel a spike in reprieve.

“I did not know them well. There was a storm and we washed up on the island. The wolves there are trying to make it work as a pack but,” she pauses and tightens her jaw. It may work or it may fizzle out if they do not get along and find a wolf to lead them. She releases a shaky breath the water is able to hide and she slowly pulls herself from the surface and shakes out her fur. “I’m Cascada,” she then introduces with a wet wag of her tail and the weight of sand lifted from her form and replaced by waterlogged fur.

She snorts at his deduction of the Island wolves and Drogon feels a wicked smirk tug at the corners of his lips. She does not confirm or deny his words but he chooses to take the noise she makes as confirmation regardless. Drogon worries, for a moment, that she will do as everyone else has done and poke and prod him about his parents: an explanation that he does not feel like getting into every time he runs across a nosy adult but to his relief she does not inquire and the soturi keeps his past securely to his chest unwilling to offer it freely. Too many wolves know it already …wolves that he may have very well made enemies of ( even if it is the past of his own creation: the lie with a small sliver of truth to it ). There are few he is willing to trust these days and came to the tough conclusion that he might be better on his own. He, at the very least, can trust himself.

Unbeknownst to him, a frown began to twist his lips into a contemplative scowl and he is jarred from his thoughts once more as she speaks about the Island wolves. That their gathering had been sheer coincidence but that they were as unorganized as it came …or at least that was how he took her cryptic words about ‘trying to make it work as a pack’. Trying and failing, he gleams from her words though she does not come right out and say it. He shifts his weight as she offers him her name in return, tucking it away. Cascada. “Are you heading anywhere specific, Cascada?” He inquires of her suddenly, his ears cupping forth atop his skull before they slick back to rest at half mast. “Would you mind a traveling companion? I know how to hunt. I know how to fight and I won’t slow you down,” The young titan makes his claims with unabashed confidence. His hunting skills aren’t as refined as they could be, admittedly, but he could fill his own stomach with small woodland creatures and that was enough, for now. He has taken advantage of his teachers when it came to his warrior training and though he was not large enough to take on an adult ( though he isn’t exactly small by any mean of the word anymore as he is in the stage of rapid growth ) and win by brute strength alone that doesn’t mean he can’t deal some serious damage and take hits. His build is thick and heavy and his soft puppy pudge has begun to harden into solid, corded muscle. “You won’t even know I’m there most of the time.” Drogon offers as incentive, if his offered skills aren’t enough to encourage it. He doesn't want her to think that she'll need to be responsible for him. He was adventurous and an opportunist and had a ( inherited and familiar ) drive to know the layout of land and the surrounding packs, running off the belief that he shares with his mobster father: that knowledge is the ultimate power.

If she didn’t have the company she does, she’d have stuck around in the water for a while longer. Even if she suffered through the surf trying to get back to main land, she feels she’ll never shed the heaviness of salt water and sand. Cascada shakes her fur out a second time and finally pulls herself out of the river. He offers himself as someone to travel with, which she finds a little odd. He has such a youthful face and he claims to be able to do all these things that keep him alive. He shouldn’t be worrying about such things.

“I don’t know where I’m going,” she says at first, uncertain of even what direction she’s meant to go. She doesn’t have a clue where she is or how she’d even gotten to this point. There isn’t anyone at her side anymore and everyone that has come and just as quickly gone. It is the only constant and she closes her eyes against the bitter thoughts. “If you want, I guess,” she offers with an indifferent shrug. She did little to help Anatha and the others that perhaps simply existing around the other will be enough. Cascada takes a deep breath and lowers her rump to the ground, feeling the weight of pushing her body to the limits. Before she goes anywhere, she’ll need to rest a while.

“That’s fine,” Drogon interjects quickly when she admits that she doesn’t know where she is going. “I don’t know where I’m going either.” He’s accustomed to it by now. Just so long as his path keeps him away from Blackfeather Woods. It is not fear that conjures that thought but exasperation. He has more important things to do; but still the further he could keep away from their dark woods the better. She seems rather indifferent when she replies, and he squints at her for a second and then away from her, at the sea, as he process her words of: “I guess”, as if she couldn’t be bothered either way. Perhaps, the soturi thinks, she isn’t. “Why’s it about what I want?” It was true that he asked but he was hesitant about forcing his presence anywhere if it wasn’t really wanted ( which is a surprise to him ). “Do you want company?” He presses, with no intention of letting it go. “If you don’t want me hanging around then I’m not going to.” He’ll …move on. Something he’s startlingly good at doing. Moving on. Moving forward without so much as a glimpse backwards. The past was the past for a reason and his future, the ‘what will be’ interested him far more than the ‘what was’.

Cascada hadn’t expected to be question and she glances back to him, staring at him for a long moment. She does not understand the child any more than she understands anyone else but it feels off. She can’t put her paw on it, either, so when he gives it back to her she doesn’t know what to do with it. Her jaw tightens and she weakly clears her throat. “I don’t want anything,” she tells him finally after a long moment. Everything she has always slips between her paws before she’s really given the chance to take care of it. There’s no doubt Drogon will be the same if he tags along. If he wants to, he will, and she’ll take the companionship while she has it but the inevitable end is already written across his face.

“Follow, if you want. I don’t know where I’m going,” she reiterates. She releases a slow breath and pulls herself from the shore. She’s got what she needs for the time being and so she begins the start of her new journey, wherever that may lead.

Drogon’s ears twitch as she replies that she doesn’t want anything and he wonders if that is the truth or a lie. He’s told plenty of them, told them so often that he can no longer define the line between what he has made up and what is truth. It doesn’t matter. He has unmade and re-made himself, slaughtering the naive child he’d been in the process. He moves on but in reality it feels a lot like running away. He is running, he’s been running since the day he was “pup nabbed”. Anytime he gets too close to forming an attachment he flees because the truth was that he only trusts himself. He may not be afraid of the wilds or, even, death but he is afraid of growing attached. Afraid to let someone in and the one time he had begun to he’d been told his life would be snuffed from him when he ceased being useful to her ( ok, so that wasn’t exactly what Miraak had said but the part of being killed when he stopped being useful to the Dark Brotherhood had been a harsh wake up call ). She reiterates what she’s already told him, but he’s already decided that he will tag along. “That’s half the journey, isn’t it?” He murmurs as he joins her. “— finding out where we’re going, I mean.” He isn’t bothered by her indecisiveness as to where she intends to go because it aligns with his own. For now, it is exactly what he needs and he is content to be her companion.