Cerulean Cape wave-wracked and wanton

Serein’s perspective this time ♥

Serein stepped away from her twin, addressing the crowd as Brontide chatted genially with the Morningsiders. She watched the scrawny-looking male disengage from the group and shook her head in gentle bemusement when her niece followed close behind. In so many ways, the girl took after her sheepdog mother. Oh, yes — the wandering trio had stopped by to observe the childless mother, though they’d never had the heart to tell Seelie or to interact with the human-bonded dog. Dead things were better off dead. Speaking of which, “I’ve a story that’ll make you bed down a little closer to your loved ones,” she grinned wickedly.

The streamlined, sandstone female adopted a haunting tone. “Far to the west and across the sea, there is an island with no name. For long generations, the island was uninhabited — until the day a mountain of fire erupted on the adjacent coast, sending creatures of every kind into the sea itself to seek sanctuary. Many perished.

“The serenity of the island’s shores was marred by the bodies of the dead and dying. One voice rose above the din of agonized cries: ‘Help us — please help us!’” Serein’s voice took on a thin, threadbare quality, scraping from her throat like sand from the inside of a discarded crab shell. “He was young and wild and afraid, and he was the first of the wounded to rise up and stand on his own — and his first action was to turn and help others. Perhaps this was why the Ancient One chose to speak to him alone.”

Serein drew a deep breath, then threw it into a shocking bellow.

“‘This is not your island, tauhou!’ roared the Ancient One, and the force of His voice threw the young wolf face first in the sand with a pleading cry.

“‘Tauhou?’ he repeated uncertainly. ‘That’s not my name — my name is — is — ’

“‘Your name was forfeit to me when you set foot here!’” Serein laughed, a deep belly laugh with something at once humorous and sinister lurking beneath her crocodile smile. “‘You are all tauhou to me — strangers on my island, new arrivals without passage or permission. Your bloated bodies foul my shore. Your putrid ash-stench clouds my air. How dare you?’” Her voice rose and escalated to a mountainous roar. “In the shadows, something moved — and the tauhou, who would come to be known as First to Rise, stepped forward to meet it, sacrificing his own wellbeing to save the others.

“What emerged from the forest was the largest wolf the stranger had ever seen, with an undercoat as pale as the sand upon which they stood and a cloak of gray and red. He looked as if he’d been fashioned from the island itself: the slate gray of the pebbled shore and the ruddy red of the seaweed that littered it. His eyes were a red-orange like the Hunter’s Moon,” Serein said, motioning toward the eerily glowing moon with a playful grin. “First to Rise watched him steadfastly, and for a long while the two locked stares. Then, much to the tauhou’s surprise, the Ancient One bowed his head.

“‘I cannot frighten you away, young wolf — but listen, only listen. This island is not for you. I beg you to leave. I ask. I do not command. Please heed my words and leave.’”

Serein shook her head. “‘No. I am staying,’ the stranger said staunchly, sure that this was another trick of a practiced charlatan. He did not waver even when the Ancient One curled his lips, showing his teeth in a pained and tortured grimace.

“‘Against my advice, you have made your choice,’ the Ancient One lamented, ‘and for your courage alone I will name you First to Rise. You did not mean to come here, but you have chosen to remain. You have no past. You have always been First to Rise.’

“Left no other choice, ‘Very well. Then I am First to Rise, though I liked my first name better,’ muttered the newly named wolf, making no effort to hide his displeasure.” Serein went on for some time, describing the tremulous nature of First to Rise’s first interactions with the Ancient One. “After a time, First to Rise fell asleep.”

Serein was silent for a long moment, exchanging a secret glance with Sirimiri, and then she shrieked loud enough to scatter a sleeping gull with an indignant squawk.

“‘WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM?’

“First to Rise awoke to a shifting, crunching sound — and when he glanced around, all the bodies were gone — including creatures that had been alive and well mere hours prior. The sea was a deep, disturbing red, and all around him he could hear a sinister cacophony of laughter. ‘WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THEM?’ he shouted, his paws thunderous as he ran toward the heart of the island. As he ran, his limbs began to grow heavy and stiff — and then a voice as heavy as stone creaked:

“‘You were warned. You were warned. Kukalatimajka needs blood.’

“When he stopped running, it was out of both shock and necessity — for at the island’s center was a collection of wolf-shaped stones. He recognized the Ancient One, but there were so many more — and although their mouths could not move, he could isolate each voice and pinpoint who was speaking. ‘What is happening to me?’ he cried out as his paws began to solidify. ‘What happened to my friends? What is happening?’

“‘I told you to leave.’ It was not only the Ancient One’s voice but a chorus of voices, all speaking the same words at different, staggered intervals. ‘I told you to leave — I told you to leave — you were warned. Kukalatimajka needs blood. The ancient debt.’

“‘Kukala-the-whatsit?’ First to Rise squeaked out, his legs turning slowly to granite. He could no longer move, and despite his wild struggling, deep down he accepted his fate. ‘What debt?’ he begged. ‘What curse?’ Quicker now, his flanks and torso. ‘ANSWER ME!’ Still quicker, his chest and throat — and then he spoke no more. His eyes widened, lips drawing back into a scream as the island began to shake with the rumble of a distant storm — but it was not the sky crying. It was the sea itself.

“From the froth of the blood-red waves came the warped and waterlogged bodies of the perished, reanimated to walk the earth once more. They groaned and growled, gnashing their teeth, carrying bones in their mouths and beaks and talons and paws — but as they came upon First to Rise, they stopped. The light of the moon seemed to burn more brightly — and one by one, the members of the undead legion dissipated like smoke. ‘The debt is paid at last,’ they moaned as they vanished into thin air.

“‘The debt,’ the stone wolves took up the cry. ‘The debt is paid at last.’ They hummed with an otherworldly tone, deep in the earth, to be felt and not heard by the mortal ear. At once the island, which had been barren and covered in stone, began to bloom — and the curse was lifted. First to Rise, alive despite the imprisonment of his body, learned from the others what had occurred hundreds of years before his time: a slaughter of the innocent that had infected the neighboring continent. The mountain of fire had cleansed the mainland, but those who had escaped — descendants of the heartless warmongers of bygone days — had been revived by the hate that had infected the very earth. Only a truly willing sacrifice could change the course of history.”

Serein drew a breath, having cobbled together the story herself. This was her first attempt at telling it, though Sirimiri and Brontide would have heard bits and pieces of its fledgling attempts beforehand. “The living stone wolves came to be known as pohaku,” she said at last, “for even stone may speak and sing. Legend says that they still guard the island — but no wolf alive has ever found the isle and returned to tell the tale.”