After her time spent with Taltos, she didnn’t manage to get too far in her destination. Instead, once the male had left, watched the river in a similar fashion as he had when he’d caught the trout. Tuulikki never attempts, and even treaded along the banks to find spots that might be more suitable. Finding her own method of learning would be the key. She’d talked herself through and through when learning to catch a rabbit based on her instincts rather than words, and she’d tried a few different ways and found a few different failures before she’d gotten the hang of it.
There are more shallow areas to the west, dips where water leaves off and sometimes fish get stuck in places like that. Tuulikki didn’t stay to look for long when, with low tide, a sandbar became evident.
The sandbar hadn’t been there the last time she’d come by and she previously considered ignoring it, or at least waiting to see what happened, but curiosity gripped her and sent her down the unsteady sand.
Now, as waves wash back and forth over it, erasing what marks might have been there before. Looking back, her own begin to disappear the more she walks. A sinking feeling shows up in her gut and she licks her lips, tasting nothing but damp salt, and Tuulikki chooses to ignore it to find out what she can.
Getting to the island proves to be problematic when she gets off the sandbar, through dips of tame water, and over the shore to grassier areas. There is scent of another, fresh from what she can tell with the wind and salt water potent in the area. There isn’t much she can decipher by clouded scent so the female leans her head back and howls with the thunderstorm brewing.
The Stormlands. It was fitting. The storm seemed like it would pass over only this hub of land, in any case. Was it a bad thing? No. Certainly not. Unless, of course, the place could be washed out by the waters. Her investigating had not been that thorough. Her trait of self-preservation would have had her sprinting off the island were it not for the fact that another howled. Interest happened to be the most prominent feeling within her, beyond her aggravation. Tiamat cleverly decided that she could leave this wolf here on the island and find out through the others surviving (or the contrary result) what state of safety this place offered truly.
So she trotted in the direction she had heard the call, using every ounce of authority she possessed in the process. And when the figure was in her line of sight, the gray woman did not feign kindness, or offer shelter. "You have trespassed," she growled, "This is mine." The reality was she had very little authority to say as much; she had no followers, no reputation, nothing but her fangs and her cleverness and her will; she would not admit it aloud [as it would never help her case], but it was the latter two she often relied on. Such was the way it was at present. "A storm comes. Decide your fate. A scullion of mine, or shark-bate." Her eyes flashed as she tilted her head, presenting her pitiless deigning.
It is not long little wind has to wait but she is ever watching of the clouds get closer, threatening to break with heavy waterfall. Thunder booms from the distance the moment the other wolf comes into view and Tuulikki’s frame shrinks a degree: her knees bend a little closer to the ground, ears droop, and her tail hangs lazily behind her.
She brings on a similar air as Zaria and Taltos but this one is different.
Important.
Her sins are brought to light and Tuulikki sinks apologetically, worried she’s brought on more damage than she’d intended. If only she hadn’t been so hasty coming across the ocean.
The girl back tracks a step or two but it is too late to ask for forgiveness.
An ultimatum is presented as the threat of the storm gets bigger. She looks behind her, the ocean angry as the waves begin to increase as the wind blows them ashore. The land bridge comes and goes from sight. With calm upon her face, she turns back to the alphess in consideration. She feels the eye of the storm surrounding only her; one misstep would send her whirling away.
Despite her uncompleted mission looming in the background, it does not surprise her when smoothly she says: “Yours.”
The sea beyond her isle becomes more and more wild as the winds buffet them. And Tiamat is clearly a woman with little patience. Her average stature, thin though it is, would do what it could to push the little thing to the starved mouth of the beast should the answer not come soon... and it came sooner than she expected. It was as though the other could see the malignant light in her eye. Perhaps she had. It was no hidden thing, after all.
Tiamat ruminated further on the matter of this creatures life. "I must test your mettle as my scullion. All of mine will be given some small task to complete. And here is yours: linger on The Stormlands until this one overhead passes. There is shelter within; if you can find it in time, you may survive and walk with me yet." Tiamat wanted to inspire courage within the other. That the island might be swallowed whole by the storm was not mentioned; this was her terrible experiment. "You will survive," and if it were a lie, it was not obvious. Tiamat did not know, after all, but spoke with the conviction that her words were truth. They could be. "I simply do not abide by cowardice." A blatant lie, that; she was leaving, after all, due to her own cowardice, her doubts that this place would hold in a storm.
But the other need not know that. Let the other think her brave, think her strong. It was all for the better.
"Do not fear. This storm will pass within the hour. And I will find you then, and bring you to food." Her eyes held the other as though they were hands upon shoulders, comforting now, without the edge and hostility she had began with. Her ears flick and she steps backward, some, and gestures into the depths of her home. "Run. Find shelter. It is guaranteed within the caves you will find; where wind and water alike cannot touch you." And once the other did this, Tiamat herself would turn the opposite direction. "And do not look back. Those who look back are always defeated by what is behind them." In this case, the storm and more obviously, the premise of death.
A test?
Perhaps her mission wouldn’t be deterred after all and this is somehow incorporated. She hadn’t been given a lot of details. It put a few answers on the calm she felt centered. The plan is laid out for her, questions are answered, and she’s given hope she is one step closer to filling the void she’d been searching for.
You will survive.
What should sound like a prayer, sounds like promise. Tuulikki nods her head at the request, the woman telling her what to do and how to feel.
She’d make it to the other side, alive—perhaps not in one piece but that doesn’t scare her away so easily—and she knew she’d survive everything from this point forward. Perhaps the wolfess would do nothing but kill her once the storm is over but for now, she had comfort in knowing she’d live for a little while longer.
Tuulikki’s eyes lift as the storm rolls in and when the other gives her further instructions, she takes a few hesitant steps forward. She fears breaking the calm around her with the storm at bay, but even with thunder and the first drops of rain, it doesn’t crumble. She swallows hard and nods her head, lifting her head long enough to nod her departure.
If you want to continue, do you want a new thread?
Tiamat was unblinking as the other retreated up until the first torrent of rain came. And once this occurred, and the other had not looked back, the woman was near-flying over the sand. With the wind at her back, she escaped her potential fate in no time; but each second on the sandbar was a deadly one, where the waters threatened to take her to her watery grave. But her death was not to be had on this stormy evening. Upon escaping the potentially deadly island, Tiamat turned to rest on her haunches away from where the tide might rise to to observe the island.
She would sit comfortably beneath this deluge for hours, half-lidded eyes watching the island and the way the ocean behaved with it. The water-level did not rise. And the island was not devoured. Perhaps it still could be. The lone wolf slid onto her belly, the only audience privy to the knowledge of the fate she might have dealt. When the storm passed, she would swim to meet the other; by then, the sandbar would be gone. In the meantime? The beat of the ocean was a peaceful one, and she let it lull her to sleep. In the end, if this wolf were to die, not even the one who swung the sword would bear witness to its result.
I will start the next one!