Wheeling Gull Isle a tall ship and a star to steer her by

Please respond to this thread if your character has decided to venture inland with Axolotl and Komodo!

@Adeline @Anatha @Aria @Axolotl @Calypso @Cattail @Constantine @Faeryn @Ixchel @Kalika @King @Komodo @Morrighan @Nova @Tael

“We’ll take it slow but we need to reach higher elevation as quick as we can. I’ve found fresh water and shelter further inland.”

As the first voyagers began to move doggedly in the direction of Ixchel’s summoning cry, the Atlanian and the Earthstalker took up the rear. The former’s glacial, pleochroic gaze was divided evenly between his god, the inland territory, and the remaining survivors; the latter was crouched at the water’s edge, a pearlescent female rooting through the debris and detritus alongside him. It appeared that their window of opportunity was swiftly beginning to close, however, for the darkened sky was soon illuminated by several shafts of distant lightning and a fierce roll of thunder — the worsening weather, driven by the breaking summer heat and the cloudburst from far off shore, was well on its way to creating a pocket of storm directly overhead.

posted by coelacanth.

NOTE: Coelacanth has two sets of infected puncture wounds: one at her nape and one at the juncture of her left shoulder and withers.

The flicker of life within the tiny Groenendael burned so low it was a wonder it did not snuff out completely. She did not stir, aside from the irregular fluttering of her thin flanks, and even when she was freed of detritus due to Parthenos’ and Komodo’s efforts, she lay like a cooling corpse in the swirling sands. Hypothermia had already set in thick and she had almost certainly aspirated an unknown quantity of seawater. She was malnourished, exhausted, and littered with purulent punctures that told tales of harsh treatment and neglect — and when the angakkuq’s great crown thrust insistently against the abscesses he could not see, the resulting pain sent a jolt of electricity through her emaciated musculature.

A twitch of limbs heralded the flicker’s eruption into a frail spark — gamine limbs twitched, twitched again, and then exploded into a violent flurry of movement.

Abruptly, the skeletal creature was on her paws, but the weakness of her body betrayed her. She swayed. Wobbled. Her hindquarters gave out and she splayed in the sand, hooking her sharply tapered muzzle to the side as she glared feebly at her perceived aggressors with suspicious Neptune eyes. Unheard, a growl seethed in her throat, but the bridge of her muzzle wrinkled and her velveteen flews lifted in a feeble expression of warning. Somewhere behind the bars of her feralized mind, something stirred at the sight of the Earthstalker — but she merely hunched in on herself, anxiously licking her lips as she listed to the right and just barely kept from toppling over with a desperate stab of one spindly foreleg.

Everything happens quickly and she barely has time to focus as it swirls around her. Her head throbs painfully every time she moves. Grayday is no longer at her side but when he brings Dawn closer, she realizes it isn’t Dawn at all. Instead, she blinks back her disbelief as @Anatha finally comes to life and stumbles off into the distance, temporarily forgotten by the others. She turns to follow after her, staggering off the sandy shores and follows her footprints into the darkness. She glances over her shoulder at the mess off in the distance where the others have collected in an attempt to help someone else.

Grayday becomes less of Grayday and more of someone else. Her throat closes up when she can’t find the man she thought had been there the whole time. Reality closes in around her as everything pieces back together once more. Grayday had never been here at all, nor had Dawn, and so she turned back to realize the girl is out of sight. She swallows the lump that formed in her throat, unsure of where to go from where she stands as she’s left alone and eventually staggers further away.

The girl watches from the shelter she has found beneath the bush as @Adeline moves by, gathering her senses and coming to realise that alone, beneath a bush, is not the place to be.  She squirms her battered body out, the blood on her coat well hidden in the dimness and driving storm. She lurches to her feet, head suddenly set afloat in a sea of dizziness. She sways, and the easiest thing to do would be to collapse back down and find the immediate shelter. But she can not be alone. 

She calls to the woman who staggered off, stumbling along behind her, bark breaking from her burning throat in a desperate call, moving as quickly as she can (which is, to say, horribly slow) in an attempt to catch up with the woman.

The young wolf heard the rustling sounds of other wolves pushing their way trhough the brush. Fearful and lonesome, she crept from her hiding spot - now flooded with murky water from the storm. Her steps were shaky, her pelage waterlogged and stuck to her frail bones. She opened her ivory maw to speak, but found her voice to be lost - her throat dry and tight. The flick of anothers creamy tail disappearing through the brush caught Calypso's attention. She stumbled forwards, attempting to call out, but all that came out was a whisper of a croak. Determined to be amongst others, she tracked the imprints left behind them in the mud.

As the rain beats down and the wind moves to and fro, Adeline struggles to hold on to a scent long enough to locate the young wolf. She’s sure she’s lost the trail entirely but she can’t have gone too far, especially after being pulled from the cold water while unconscious. The girl opens her mouth to make a sound to try and find her but she hears a strangled cry behind her. Her ears instantly move forward and she spins her head around to see her, feeling a wave of relief wash off her shoulders. Even if it is not Dawn, she is thankful to find her in one piece and conscious but she doesn’t know for how long. All she knows is she needs to get to her and keep her safe.

Adeline spins around all in the same moment and rushes to her, despite how much it hurts to move. The pull in her chest of cracked ribs reminds her to slow down but her legs move faster than her mind can make the decision and she steps up close, ignoring the boundaries of strangers, and puts her nose to work to search for any obvious wounds that need immediate treatment. There’s little she can do in their situation but she can at least assess what is going on and what she needs and, hopefully, find her some shelter.

Before she gets too far in her investigation, she pulls back at the sound of another pitiful cry. Another wolf (@Calypso) has come up between the two of them and the other group. “Wait here,” she instructs, giving her an encouraging nudge to keep in one spot so she does not loser her, and moves to close the distance between her and the other girl. She’s similar in size to the first and she reckons them to be close in age. They are big enough to survive the roughness of the storm but still young enough to need some guidance and Adeline puts her troubles aside to help gather the two girls together so they can find a place together.

“Here!” she shouts, hoping to draw her attention and draw her closer.

the woman turns, comes back for her. the girl breaths a sigh of relief, thrusting her muzzle into the other's shoulder and trembling, a moment. here is comfort. here is safety. here is security. the woman stays but a moment, and the girl obeys her command silently. she will come back. she has too. she is alone, then, in the storm, and her mind struggles to put together the pieces. how did she get here? things are distorted, blurry. she can grasp faces, places, and names. but they are adrift in a sea of confusion, and the blurred nature of her thoughts confuses her. 

her heart races, and she casts about for the woman. when she hears the call, "here!" , she bursts into motion, ignoring the blooming pain of her bruised ribs and the hurt of her flesh founds. she finds the woman quickly and moves to stand beside her, shoulder just brushing the other's flank, needing something that is steady in this storm, both in her mind and all around her.

There is a flurry of movement, an skeletal inkblot lashing out against earthstalker. He is drawn away from the others that have gathered and begun the journey as the woman haunches in on herself. He recognizes her, albeit, barely. She does not look the same woman he once knew; at least not fully. “Coelacanth Corten,” He speaks her name affirming for himself that it is actually her though it would be hard to mistake her. The Cortens are the only part sheep dog, part wolf breeds he’s ever met in his life, to be fair. She appears to be feral and Axolotl is not sure they can rouse her from her state but she is weak. She needs fresh water. She needs food and her injuries tended to. She needs to be able to keep up with them or else she is likely to die. “You need to move, Coelacanth.” He is not gentle as he speaks the words, an issued command to a creature that he once knew to be gentle and lovely that is now a feral beast he barely recognizes. So he acts as he feels he need to: with commanding words and commanding tone.

“We must move or we will all perish on this forsaken beach.” He raises his voice against the snarling storm so that those gathered may hear him. He feels like a broken record being as redundant as he has been but he repeats himself anyway as he situates himself at the metaphorical head of the group and begins to lead the way inland following a path that is familiar to him but otherwise lost to the wiles of the hurricane. The promise of shelter and fresh water and the necessity to reach both as quickly as they can is daunting as it presses against him. He would feel better if he had food to offer them but he did not and for now fresh water and shelter would need to be incentive enough.

Feel free to reference Parthenos helping with Coelacanth!

They move inland once the last of the bodies is rescued; she isn't sure if any are left behind, and does not dare to think of this. The entire event has likely sapped the group's collective power. Much as her arrival scarred her, their's would become a formative moment in their lives - their new lives.

Parthenos would do whatever she could to keep them with her. She would not be alone here any longer - they were a blessing, a thing sent to her at a time most dire. So, she tended the dark creature. The wounded wraith would need the most attention. And as she - Coelecanthe, spoke one voice - as Coelecanthe held the attention of the leader (or the beast Parthenos saw forthwright as the leader so far), she would keep her attention there as well. If the shadow lived, so too would the others.

The inky girl had been freed from the clutching seaweed, but the sea did not relinquish her entirely. She lay cold on the sand, the rain and the mist clouding his field of vision around them, looking [for all intents and purposes], very dead. The sky had darkened in its fury but even with such limited light, he could clearly see the scalloped edge of the girl’s ribcage and see that she was starved; more so than she was the last time he had seen her, all those weeks ago. There was a moment that he could only stare at the puddle of ink doubtfully — would they give him to her, to take her, only to give her back but take her once more, mere moments later? — and as he lamented the creature called Coelacanth, Komodo jostled her around, pressing his nose against the bony parts of her body and hoping to shake the life back into her 

As he and the ghostlike woman [was it aria?] worked to resuscitate the limpid form, Komodo pondered his attachment to the waifish thing that lay twisted about his legs. The earthstalker was not a man wont to shackle himself with the ties that bind, but he did covet and there was a neediness about her that drew him in and held him there indeed. It did not really make sense; she was a soul with whom they shared only several months — and many of those months were spent distant — but as much as Komodo liked to believe he was a man entirely unfettered by the past, he also know that wasn’t true.

Then, moments later, she sputtered to life. She stood there, sodden and stiff legged, chest heaving from the rush and Komodo only stared. His firebright gaze, alive with the energy from the storm and the girl’s resurrection, watched on as the girl’s lip wrinkled into the beginning of a snarl and the angakkuq understood, for the storm raged and disoriented them both. Yet, at the same time he did not understand, as something truly awful must have befallen the silken ingenue. He had been right all along.
 
Komodo’s eyes danced from the girl back to Aria, not entirely sure what to do with this feral creature, but when she swayed to and fro the brute positioned his frame to buttress her weight and keep her, for the most part, standing. He shifted his shoulder, feeling her featherlight bones against his. The earthstalker swallowed thickly. “Hey, big ears” he crooned gently, his roughhewn tone felt through the vibrations of his chest more than it was perceived by the ears. He worked to keep his tone cool; not the snappish instructions delivered to Axolotl and the unknown girl— he did not want to incite her further. This was no place for a starved soul’s hysteria — let her defy him later, after the gods spent the last of their energies and the storm moved on — but now was the time for compliance. All she needed to do was follow his and Aria’s guidance, and all would be well.

Axolotl had turned to meet them. Just as Komodo had, the Atlanian recognized the sheepdog easily; he could not help but be struck with a sense of divine providence at the three of them finding one another… and Ixchel was upon the island, too, hopefully hale and dry somewhere, no worse for wear. Once they were all safe and the storm spent, the search would begin for survivors — not just for Ixchel, but for the many others who had been born of the sea. The unknown woman and the small one’s disappearance had not gone unnoticed.

The maestro whipped up around them and Axolotl made to lead the caravan from the sea’s hellfire. Komodo had no further objections. With the white women pressing up against the skeletal girl’s other side, they shuffled forward and after the seawolf who oddly seemed at home within the storm.  “Easy,” he grumbled.  “One step at a time.”

Not far from the other wolves, but too far down the shore to see in this weather, King stumbled his own way further inland, eyes still shut tightly against the angry gale of the storm. His ears swivelled uncertainly toward the sound of voices, but he was a wolf that trusted his nose above all else, and for the time being, all he could smell was the salt of the sea. If there were wolves out there, they'd have to find their own way to shelter; at this point, he'd be lucky if he could save himself.

Eventually, the male stumbled into a small clearing between the trees, where the wind wasn't quite so harsh. He opened his eyes a crack and saw racing grass and shivering trees, and a few shallow divots in the ground, where he might find just enough shelter to keep himself from flying away while he rested.

Grateful for what little comfort he had, King curled up in his own little nest and shut his eyes once more. With any luck, the storm would be over when he awoke, and then he'd see where the sea had taken him.

“Coelacanth Corten,” spoke a particularly wild looking wolf, his pleochroic eyes looking more green than blue in the eerie glow of the worsening storm. The words meant nothing to the sodden little Groenendael, though; she merely registered his tone, which was none too welcoming. His voice was all at once like a beacon in the dark, the roar of the sea, and the clap of thunder — and it bore the weight of a command. “No!” was her immediate reaction, finely-sculpted head tossing nervously as she inanely tried to whip around and leap back into the roiling ocean. He was going to ask her what her name was — couldn’t he see that she’d tried to tell him?! — and this time she couldn’t even remember what it was. Did she even have one?

He’d have to bite her again, and this time he wouldn’t give her a second chance.

She was confronted then with another large male, this one with fiery sunglow eyes that briefly held her attention. His voice was gentler, but the words he gave her seemed equally cryptic. There was no glint of recognition in her wild eyes, and she was just as inclined to fight his dominion as she’d been to fight Axolotl’s — but she was abruptly walled in on both sides by the burly angakkuq and a seagleam-silver siren with a nasty looking wound on her crown. The sight of the blood was alarming, but the feeling of being trapped was worse still, and she struggled briefly as though she might throw them all off and jump back into the sea.

It was the weight of her body and not any desire to submit or acquiesce that caused the sodden sheepdog to cease her attempts at escaping those who sought to aid her. She was so heavy and empty and everything was so cold. She dropped her head in a moonlit tableau of abject defeat, muzzle bobbing wearily and bumping against the sand as she stumbled meekly along, supported on either side by Komodo and Parthenos as they sought to follow the harsh-tongued Atlanian and take shelter from the wrath of the warring sea and sky.