Sequoia Coast i am not the only traveler, who has not repaid his debt

“Raseri, wake up.”

The singing melody of her voice washed through the hairs of his ears. Dark eyelashes fluttered and closed against the vivid glow of the sun. The calidity of the Sunstone had exhausted his strength. He was young again, but his body had been worn by their battles and the weakness that they shared. The brute had been hired to teach them to fight, but he had not understood the undertaking. Still, he had been with them for nearly a year. In spite of his common sense, he had grown close to the Sunstone wolves. It would be time for him to leave, and he had prolonged the departure for far too long.

“Please, Raseri; I want to train some more,” she pleaded, closer to him – close enough that he could almost feel the touch of her pelt against his own coarse fur. Once more, his eyelids fluttered, and he peered into the bottomless pools of her gaze. The sea glass color was mesmerizing in comparison to the smolder of his own fiery optics. Kierkegaard had never seen something that was so vivid.

Moth smiled at him and then planted a swift kiss on his cheek. The ghost groaned and lifted his skull from the cave floor with a few swift blinks to rid himself of the sleep that clung to him like a wet, thick blanket. Her white-cloaked skull canted and she beamed with pearly white fangs. She was beautiful and so full of life. He never imagined he would ever find another like her. The heat emanated from her pelt, warming him. In spite of this, the ghost still felt a cold grip on his frame. It was almost as though a frigid wave had engulfed his body. The ache in his bones was foreign to the memory, but he felt it as he rose upward and huffed at the youthful desert wolfess. Moth's delight did not fade from her features. Her lithe frame danced toward him and he felt her – he swore that he could feel her – against his chest as she laughed.

A crash of waves jolted him. Kierkegaard did not remember the sound of water near the Sunstone wolf pack. It was queer and unusual that such a noise would encroach on his most fond memories. It was almost perverse that the world would take even this – a memory – from him.

The swelter tore against his frame as he stepped from the cave. The wraith's limbs quivered with each move. Almost as though he was not intended to be there, the pain beat against his body and demanded that he turn around. The brute had never followed her from the cave on that day; he had tiredly cast her from his presence and fallen back into a deep slumber. It was no longer a memory, but a fabrication of what he had longed for; the regret he had carried with him all his life.

Sea green bore into him and his lips twitched upward into something of a smile, but it vanished as he took another step and the scene flickered before him. “You're going to stay, then?” she asked him in a hopeful tone. The ghost nodded his head, but he did not feel his crown move. Regardless, Moth reacted pleasantly and her tail flagged as she guided them into the arid wastes. “Your father won't be pleased,” he remarked. His voice did not feel as though it belonged to him. It was foreign, almost as though someone else had spoken them. “He likes you, even if he doesn't act like it. He's just...” she trailed off, ears flattening to her skull. Kierkegaard waited for her to continue, but she didn't, and so he parted his lips to buoy something more. The sound of the ocean crashed against his skull with a piercing and frigid hand. The wraith turned his skull to look, as if he would find something beyond the waste, but there was nothing but ripe cacti and burnt umber. “Just?” the word echoed as it left his lips, and when he turned to see the gold of her frame, it faded before she fell back into focus. “He's just worried that you're going to abandon us. He likes you, but he – he says you don't belong here.” She turned to face him with a knowing expression. Kierkegaard had seen that look more times than he dared to admit.

“He's not wrong, you know.”

But he was not certain that he had even uttered the words this time. Moth seemed to understand, and her expression fell. The lively young creature took on a somber aura, and he could almost feel the poignancy of her emotion trapped within his ribs. The ghost tried to breathe, but he could feel only water pooling into his lungs. Her sadness vanished and she cast her gaze on him once more, playfully this time, with adoration. Something in him stirred and the ghost turned away from her, unable to look on the face that he had – in fact – left behind. “I think he's wrong,” she affirmed in that same soft, song-like tone.

“I love you, Raseri.”

A fondness changed her features. It morphed into something that he had taken advantage of on numerous occasions, but still he knew it. It was an expression that he had seen many times. The ragged brute could recall it well, but when she looked to him, her colors began to change and distort. The white hood that was painted over her face and skull had turned to ink. Rust marked the backs of her ears. The gold of her body was bleached into a pale ash and she became spindly and wicked. Moth's face met his own, and his mouth gaped as he watched the sun strike her eyes, turning them from briny green to canary yellow. Moth existed no more; he was staring into the eyes of Caiaphas. The waves crashed louder, and the cry of gulls overhead rattled him. The desert landscape was vanishing and before long, it was changed to a greyscale backdrop, snow on the earth.

The penetrating ache of winter gripped his body, and the ghost would have groaned against it if he were able. Instead, he let the world sink its fangs into his flesh and grip him tight. If this was death, he could only imagine that it was all that he deserved. He was the captain of a mighty vessel, and it was sinking to the depths of the sea. Of course, it had not been intended for him to escape; he was to capsize with it.

Pain wracked his figure. Water was all that he could sense, though his eyes remained tightly closed. The wraith only wanted to escape back to the Sunstone; he wanted to feel the wretched, arid heat against his tired body. The visions did not return to him. The waves tossed once more, and his ragged frame was pitched against the frigid sand with a sickening slosh. Kierkegaard did not move for some time. He felt the water as it pushed against the shoreline and his decimated frame. The ghost was dead. He knew that he could not have survived the plummet into the swell, or the harsh beating and churning of the ocean. The Demonte-Sairensu was not as young as he had once been, and the world did not owe him any favors, and so he had anticipated his end.

But it was not an end that was granted. With a garbled cough, he spewed water onto the shore and vomited what seemed to be an endless slew of saline and brine. Air rushed to his lungs, and at once his eyelids fluttered open; a burning fire against the backdrop of dismal grey.

The mountains no longer called her name, their whispers blew in directions opposite her own. Perhaps she was never meant to be there, despite the telling of her mother, for the coast spoke louder than they ever had. She did not understand the pull nor the ocean’s voice—it was nothing like the mountains, stars, or anything else she’d heard before—but she did not fight it. Like bees to honey she was drawn in and, unsurprisingly, ensnared within its grasp; for the first time after so many cycles of the moon, she did not feel the need to venture out into new terrains. She stuck to the coast, the soft sand and snow underfoot gradually softening her pads, ridding her of the rough texture developed during her life in the mountains.

Slow steps led her down the beach that day, the ocean to her right and inland to her left. She lost track of time, forgetting the position of her shadow against the loose earth when she set out, but wondered if it even mattered. She considered turning back but something drew her forward; there was a whisper infused with the breeze, luring her west with a voice so sweet she felt appalled by the notion of ignoring it. So gentle the words were, unlike anything else to touch her ears. She did not recognise it, not at all, but she followed like the obedient lamb she was—until she met an interruption in the scenery ahead of her, a form hunched over that she could not turn away from. Even from a distance away yet, she saw the various slicked portions of his coat, weighed down with water and smelling strongly of the sea; it clogged her nose, she could pluck out not a single scent other than the sea’s life force. It wasn’t until she was closer, legs moving without her permission, that she was able to recognise who it was—and she felt a breath hitch in her throat, startled and fearful, worries extended towards the man.

“Kierkegaard…?” the child called, voice wavering. Swallowing her nerves, she crept even closer yet, head low and ears back. “What hap-happened? Are you… are you alright?” The fear she once felt towards the pallid beast had long since faded, leaving behind something similar to respect and perhaps even admiration. Yet, to see him at the mercy of the sea, all she could feel welling up within her breast was concern.

of all the wolves missing from the sound, it was kierkegaard's absence the sylph felt most keenly. at first sharp tendrils of betrayal had claimed her emotions -- until arguably the dumbest of the luschyon trio had arrived home and detailed the events that had transpired. any last whisper of good will caiaphas might have harbored towards drageda was keenly sundered -- and when the hours turned into days with no calls heralding kierkegaard's return caiaphas grew fretful. she had spent the last several days out on the fringe, canvassing the coast with heretic fury. they had done this - they had claimed her last friend.

she did not want to believe he was dead, but knew the severe realities of the world. she set to finding him, either alive or dead. it was a grim task and one she endured alone, bitter for it. bitter that the world would eek one last sting of salt in the wounds of her life -- bitter that yet again something valuable to her had been callously plucked from her side like a newborn fawn from its mother.

that particular hour she had just turned back from the tidal flats when a dark figure cut across the sand, drifting towards a sodden object washed ashore. instantly caiaphas' heart was set aflutter and she strode towards the two with a strident expression, fear mounting her throat and stomach -- up until the soggy wretch heaved skyward and a violent plume of bile was spat in the sand. even from this distance she recognized it as kierkegaard and she flung headlong towards him, a snarl cracking her wizened muzzle as she shouldered (r00d!) towards him and threw her muzzle to his cheek. "who did this!" the siren queen hissed, her vehement gaze landing accusingly on the dark child despite her obvious innocence in the crime. wasting no time, caiaphas spun back around and sought to clamp kierkegaard's scruff in her muzzle and drag him well away from the idle threat of the waves.

The voice that sounded registered in his mind as having been familiar, but he could not place a name to it, and so he groaned in response. Words had never been his strong suit, and having been washed ashore with the clashing of waves had not spurred a more verbose nature from his roots. The voice knew his name and she seemed distraught at the sight of him, but his cheeks flushed with embarrassment at the sound. His molten gaze rolled upward to look at her, but he could not move from his splayed situation on the beach. The water came ashore and beat against his frame once more, causing the ghost to shudder violently against her touch. He could not feel his feet, but he knew how they worked and was furious that he could not make them move – none of his limbs would respond to his attempts.

Huffing and flopping his head against a new blanket of sand, Kierkegaard tried to fix his eyes on the young dark girl, but he growled with the pain that flushed through his body. He could do nothing but lay sprawled and gurgle out the remnants of sea wash that still lingered in his lungs and stomach. The ghost retched again and did not bother to move his head from it. Peering up at the young girl with exhaustion painted to his features, Kierkegaard opened his mouth in an attempt to speak but failed.

It was not long before another form approached swiftly and he felt a cool calm wash over him at the sight of her. For all the trauma, the wraith would never forget her name. Still, his current state caused him to feel useless and pathetic in front of her and he wished the waters would swallow him again to wash him home. She placed her narrow snout beside his ear and whispered an inquiry. He sloshed his head up, feeling her tug him from the brush of the water and breathed heavily. What had he been doing in the waves anyway? He wondered what might have drawn him out there, but he could not come to a conclusion. Instead of responding to her heated question, he retched again, turning the tossing of his stomach into a dry heave that felt like it was tearing his insides apart.