Stavanger Bay we gather in shadow and ash

This thread is MANDATORY for all Blackrock Depths members who wish to remain under Szymon and Doe’s leadership and any wolves who wish to automatically become part of Blackrock Depths following the fire. I have tagged everyone who has expressed interest, but I know several of you either have joining threads separate from this one or dated afterward, so feel free to ignore it if your character is joining via a different route.

This thread is backdated to January 1, 2017, just a few days after the fire.

@Rouge @Sage @Isengrim @Julep @Moorhen @Muses @Wuathila @Alttayih @Sadie @Coelacanth

Tragedy had befallen the wolves of Donnelaith and Blackrock Depths — without a sovereign at either helm, the duty fell to none other than Szymon to rally the peace-loving forest dwellers and the malevolent seawolves alike. He waited for the niggling, venomous voice he knew so well — “you are unfit,” it would say; “you are the weakest son,” — but somehow, that voice never came. It was Deirdre’s voice he heard, her mellifluous timbre urging him on: “you must,” she said simply, a thread of steel behind her gentle lilt, “for me and for Skellige, for our wolves, for the children, you must.” Whether the voice was truly prophetic or merely a coping mechanism to help Szymon bolster his fraying confidence, he squared his soot-smattered shoulders and drew a deep, steadying breath. He had no sense of it being too soon to take matters into his own jaws; every second that slipped by was a moment of opportunity for a usurper to challenge his claim. Ash-peppered lips curled, revealing a flash of brilliant white fangs at the very thought of losing all he’d worked so hard to defend — and in his moment of peril, he called upon the staying power of his spirit guide, the sea turtle.

Then, without preamble, he left the water’s edge. The rising sun of the new year was at his back as he desperately sought his wife, dirty and bedraggled as they all were. He found her with @Muses, tending to the children, and did not ask where she had been or when she had returned. “Doe,” he said without preamble, his bass timbre made husky and thick by the dangerous black smoke that had driven the wolves north. “I know you are w-w-weary.” So was he, evidently, for there was the pesky stutter when he most ardently needed it gone. Closing his golden eyes with exhaustion, he forced his next statement to some semblance of fluency, though it still hitched at the edges: “I need you — because you are my mate, and because you are Witch Doctor. I need you now, my lovely girl.” The Cairn way had not died or disappeared with Skellige — if anything, it was more important to commune with the Sea now, especially given that Szymon had offended Her.

Doe turned away from Muses and the children, her face made hard by the grief of the weeks leading up to this day, and by the singed fur that now revealed the sharpness of her bones under blistering skin. But when she looked on Szymon and when she heard his voice, something in her fearsome visage seemed to unravel. The red woman did not seem to soften, but there was something soft in her eyes, something that kept her from returning to the sorry state of Doctor or even Atoll. Doe Cairn. She was a Cairn, now.

"I am with you," she said, and the words were hushed and grave, but they were not soft as they had once been. Like the gull mantling its wings, the red woman drew herself up, ready to do what was needed. Together, they walked toward the Black Rock as the sky broke upon above them, and a dreary drizzle began to paint dew-stars over their coats. Despite the purpose laced through their even strides, the pair did not seem to hurry. Both were aching, world-weary, still feeling the sting of fear and betrayal from all their recent losses. It was difficult to shoulder the sum of all their losses and the uncertainy of their future, but together, the pair marched on.

"You've made my heart proud, Szymon," said Doe, her pace slowing as the sea sprawled out before them. Yellow eyes scanned the waves before slipping away, lovingly tracing the set of her husband's jaw. "You will make them all proud to serve under the Cairn name."

Though it pained the black-banded Cairn to look upon the ruin the fire had wrought upon his wife’s delicate framework, he would never be able to see her as anything but beautiful. In her golden eyes — eyes that warmed and softened for him — he read strength and determination, support and love unlike anything he had ever known. “It is your blessing I need,” he beseeched her, quietly enough that the Sea would have no cause for jealousy. “Yours first and foremost — and Hers.” Drawing breath, “I saw Deirdre leap from the cliffs of Donnelaith — I tried to follow her and was pulled under. I nearly drowned.” Doe would surely understand how virulent the Wickedness had been to exact such payment from one of her divine children. “When I resurfaced, Deirdre was gone — and when I tried to search for her, lightning blinded me. She does not want me to find Skellige’s Chosen One.” In desperation, in grief, he pressed the crown of his head to Doe’s throat and released a shuddering sigh. “Can you calm Her?” he asked, knowing it was not out of Doe’s reach by any stretch of the imagination. “We must hold the bay.”

"She will be calmed," Doe replied, ears flickering in something like worry as she listened to her husband's plea. She would have to, when Doe reminded her of the sacrifices she had made, of the children she had given up into the waves, of the blood that she'd spilt - some pure, and some her own. She would have to understand, would have to be appeased. "We have been faithful, Szymon. She will be calmed."

There was no word for 'ocean' in her mother's tongue, but Doe padded into the icy surf singing of and endlessness that exceeded the sky's, the deepness that dwarfed the red canyons, the vivid blue that went unmatched, the Wickedness and all Her wrath - there was no word for ocean, but there were words enough. And Doe entreated the Sea, begging mercy from Her trails, assuring that she would be better heeded from then on.

We have heard you. We will not forget again.

But the waves still lashed against them, anger in every crash. Doe turned toward her mate, apology in her eyes, and lashed out, her teeth scoring pink welts into his tender flesh, which filled quickly with blood that began to run down into the water.

For you, Doe. For you.

Because of the scrappy little witch doctor who stood before him now, Szymon was capable of boundless faith — and for her, and for their surviving children, he would strengthen his grip and gather his brother’s wolves. He watched with fanatic pride glimmering in his bright gold eyes, and he made no protest as Doe lashed out at him with her fangs bared, leaving two asymmetrical, curving wounds under each of his eyes. Rivulets of crimson splashed into the water that crashed at his paws, turning the froth of the shallows pinkish, and he stood motionless and proud, endeavoring to show the Wickedness that although he was not the same manner of wolf as his brother, he was worthy. He was blessed. He was a Cairn.

Watchful and wary, he kept utterly silent and did not take his eyes off the Sea as She fed upon his blood; he was unsure whether to exact the same payment from his wife, and awaited further instructions.

Blood ran like tears down her husband's face, and in response, Doe felt her own throat begin to tighten. It hurt her to hurt him, and her heart was broken already by the loss of her daughters - three, now - and the absence of her King. But she swallowed down her cries, unwilling to risk sullying this offering with such emotions. Besides - she had a new King to serve.

Doe looked on her mate and saw in him, for the first time, the makings of a Leviathan. Wild-eyed and steel-jawed and painted red by his intense devotion to the Wickedness. He made her proud - so proud to be his family, his mate, his partner.

With something almost like defiance in her eyes, Doe Cairn raised her chin, offering her own face to his fangs. As it was with everything else, they were in this together.

A sudden blaze of pain and sorrow for the daughters he had lost and for the lightless, joyless citrine of Doe’s eyes rocked Szymon where he stood; to mark her as she had marked him was so abhorrent it curled his lips in a grimace of dislike. From the very first day he’d met her, he’d been cautious not even to touch the sprightly female lest his affection inadvertently cause the rending or bruising of her tender flesh and bone. Despite himself, a traitorous desire to flee inland, far from the Sea and Her demands — demands that had fallen upon his shoulders simply because he was the only remaining Cairn to shoulder them — brewed within his chest. I have given You my life, he thought, unsure whether he was directing his words to Skellige or the Sea or both, but You have taken more than I could afford. His breath hissed between his clenched teeth.

An undulating growl took up residence within the youngest Cairn’s breast, breaking free as his scarred lips reeled back over his fangs, wrenching so violently his mottled gums were visible and gleaming. The hurt he felt at the prospect of wounding his Chosen One — she was already so wounded, from her singed flesh to the very marrow of her bones to the relentless thump of her full heart — was transmuted into fury at the Sea, at his brother, at the fire that had devoured Donnelaith, and at himself. Somewhere along the line he’d discovered that his boundless faith was not nearly as bottomless as he’d thought — he did have boundaries, and doubts, and questions that no wolf could answer, and the Sea had closed her lips to all but Skellige. Szymon had never been able to hear Her voice as clearly as his brother had, and She was angry with him.

I love you, said his eyes as he gazed upon his mate, I love you and I may not know it yet, but you are my goddess, as his hackles bristled in salt-and-ash-crusted spikes and he struck out at the woman who worshipped a deity she had unknowingly usurped. His fangs met flesh and drew blood, leaving stripes of crimson on flesh he’d sworn to himself never to sully. For Doe, he would persist in his faith.

Hello everyone! This is a mandatory pack meeting - but it should only last a round or two. Please try to reply in a timely manner. @Julep @Isengrim @Rouge @Muses @Sage. Sandpiper is also invited, but I don't see her in the ranks so it's really up to you, Hero.

The pain flared, brief but bright, across her cheeks and down along her jaws. She would never see the marks clearly, but they would forever lie upon her face: two horizontal slashes on each side, one set close under her eyes and the other mirroring each other on the line of her jaw. Like Szymon, her blood streamed down into the water, and tiny fish began to gather around them, feeding.

For the moment, the sea had been calmed. Doe gazed up at her husband, eyes shining with love and relief. She, too, practiced the faith for her husband's sake, but it was so deeply ingrained, now. So natural. So real. In that moment, she believed in the Wickedness and the power She held over their lives, and she believed that she and Szymon had been blessed once more.

Tilting back her head, Doe called for their packmates, wanting them to partake in this moment of peace. Come out, and come into the water, she howled, and there was something a little like sorrow and a lot like hope in her voice.

In an unexpected turn of events, Coelacanth was the first to answer Doe’s summons.

The atramentous sheepdog cross had not been invited — it was the sorrow in Doe’s familiar cry that drew her reluctantly past the ring of obsidian, crawling on her belly, patently apologetic. Her ink-feathered tail stirred the glittering granules in her wake, conjuring a miniature sandstorm as she crept to the edge of the lapping water. Glimmering seablue eyes darted shyly toward the black-banded Leviathan before settling on the siren of Tara with feverish intensity. In her mouth, the little Groenendael clutched a glittering moonstone that seemed to glow from within with cerulean and turquoise light. She laid it reverently at the queen’s blood-spattered paws, timorously stretching forth her tapered muzzle to make her offering, and in a continuation of that motion she rested her pert chin in delicate homage upon Doe’s singed toes.

Though the inky ingénue looked a little worse for the wear — her sprightly framework had been whittled down to a waiflike fragility and was consumed by intermittent fits of trembling — she seemed in relatively good health. Szymon ghosted forward to investigate, his scarred muzzle boldly pushing the silky fur against the grain as his nose and lips traced upward along her spine and nape, and the tiny wolfdog resolutely maintained her submissive posture. Airy whines and whimpers fluttered from her lips and nostrils, making little patterns in the sand as she turned her head to pillow her cheek upon Doe’s compact paws, her sumi-e brush tail beating with uncontainable excitement against her hocks. Abruptly Szymon claimed her; his maw parted and he bent to mouth at her nape and the bridge of her slender muzzle — for although she was eloquent in her submission, authority was new to the golden-eyed Cairn and he felt the need to forcibly assert himself at every opportunity — and Coelacanth closed her eyes, tufted ears folding demurely against her streamlined skull. Mollified, the Leviathan stepped back — and Seelie turned her Neptune gaze worshipfully upon the friend, sister, and mother who had saved her so many times before.

Sadie heard a call but was not sure to answer it or not. She was just merely inspecting that land, though she knew well that she was beyond the marked borders. Normally, a wolf would be scared being in someone else's territory when it was marked, but she didn't. It made her feel rebellious, young, invigorated-- feelings she lived for. The pirate, her ears swiveling and turning pricked at the sorrowful note of the song she heard, wondering what could make someone sad in their call. Sadness was a feeling Sadie didn't understand too well, nor did she understand empathy.

The pirate, with a curious pace, set off towards the call, waiting to be chased away. The call had an instruction, to go into the water. Though it was frigid and bitterly cold, sadie felt like the call was almost- urgent in the sense that it needed something, someone. She followed suit, trotting into the water and stopping a fair distance away, staring at the others who were in the water too. She was light on her paws, ready to run off.

She appeared easily, eyes merely wary of the surroundings. Almost immediately those eyes picked out the stormy visage of Cairn and Wanderer relaxed almost imperceptibly - this face she knew. She stood on the outskirts, looking, but not seeing the faces of the others. Her jaws clenched gently about the thick staff she carried with her at all times but she did not tear into it, for she knew none of those gathered save the regal wolf she'd met but days before.

She had determined thus; she would not sully the purpose of her stick with false faces she might not see after the winter.

Sage hadn't been doing much lately, she wasn't the most social type. Though no one had attempted to talk to her either, until the sudden call from Doe to go to the water. She hesitated, the shadow had yet to test her skills in the ocean, only the rough rivers and such. The beach was still a foriegn thing to her, she was reluctant, nevertheless, but followed the howl silentely padding out onto the frail grains of sand that made her stand out extrememly. Her black pelt was no longer a form of camoflauge, and instead betrayed her as a target - she hated it. A small group of wolves had gathered, most of which she didn't know. She didn't care though, Sage had come for Doe, not these strangers and paid no attention to them. 

Once reaching the shore, staring down at the border between land and water, she paused. She knew well her fur would pile heavily once meeting with the salty blood of the sea. She took a deep breath before stepping into the icey waters, holding a stoic expression despite being extremely frigid. Before reaching too far in the water, the silhouette bowed to her greater ranks. She might dislike the idea of being underneath someone, but she knew when respect was due, and these two she held courtesy for. "My apologies for being late." She insisted, though it seemed she was the only pack mate around. Unless these were newly recruited. 

"What is it you ask of me?" Sage questioned, assuming this wasn't just a call to chit-chat.

Tacking on a fading ending to this as Doe has left the game. ♥
No need to reply to this, but I will leave it open for a week to allow people to say what they want to.

Pride filled the new Leviathan’s heart as he looked out over the faces, both familiar and unfamiliar, who had answered Doe’s summons. Though Rouge had not made an appearance, her presence in the pack was already solidified for Szymon. Her profession often took her far and wide, after all. He looked with particular fascination upon Alttayih, noting with interest that she did not mark down any new notches on her stick — at least, not yet. Without preamble, “In the Cairn name, Doe and I will claim this bay,” he said in his sonorous bass timbre. “The Sea is angry, and She has taken — much. Today, with my blood and Doe’s, She has been paid, and She is sated.” Drawing his tongue across his scarred lips, “This is a new age for Blackrock Depths,” Szymon added, “and we will relocate to the northeast edge of the territory while the fires of Donnelaith abate. Patrols should be kept up to search for my daughter, Qilaq — Skellige and his children, Redshank, Sandpiper, and Smokestep — and Deirdre, witch queen of Donnelaith.” At this point, he didn’t want to overwhelm the wolves by assigning them their spirit guides, but he considered their willingness to come to the water a communal version of The Drop. “If you choose to follow us, come with me and I will lead you to the den and the new caches,” he said unceremoniously. Without a word, he shepherded Doe, Julep, Isengrim, and Moorhen away with gentle pushes of his muzzle and nips of his fangs, and the sheepdog was swift at his heels as he turned and moved further inland, the fresh wounds on his face still smarting and dripping blood.