It had been a little while since his run-in with the storm. Of course, it was near impossible for him to tell time of day, save for the warmth of the autumn sun of course, and so the ribboned fellow had fallen into the habit of resting when his legs felt weary, and journeying once his head felt fresh and his paws no longer tired and sore.
As he trotted along the sands, he held a shell clamped in his jaws; gently as such not to break its delicate structure. There was no telling how his sightless self had managed to stumble upon such a beauty, yet he had managed to all the same, and by the feels of things, it was fully intact and whole.
With ears pivoted towards the voice of the ocean, he set his prize down at his paws, humming softly to himself as he set to burying it halfway into the grains. Sight was not a necessity here as the gentle sir was able to nip the tip of the shell with his teeth whilst drilling it as deep as need be. Perhaps this was not some wolf's idea of enjoyment, but for the simple man, it was all that he needed to be satisfied. Soon, if luck was still on his side, he'd have a full row or two.
Everything had felt so strange since his encounter with Amber. He hadn't gone back to Arthendal yet because he was sure they would know what had happened, and there was still a part of Dag that couldn't even comprehend it. Whenver he tried to sit down and really think about it, it was as though his mind was shying away from the truth.
But he'd lain with a woman. She would have his pups now, she said.
His steps grew stronger when he found himself on the coast, and Dagfinn decided that Lotte would know what to do about all this. He'd go to Donnelaith and tell her all about it, and when he was done, everything would make sense again. That was just how Lotte worked. Seeing his twin would make everything better.
He paused, though, when he caught sight of the stranger and his shells. Dagfinn watched with interest for a long moment before deciding that Lotte could wait a little while. Instead, he rushed into the water and found a shell similar to that which his new friend had found, and then moved to carefully place it in the row that was surely forming.
The grains blessed his paws with soft, gentle ruggedness as his limbs carried him quite deftly over the surface. The blank emptiness at the forefront of his vision rarely bothered him, always the expected norm however hard his willpower wished to gaze upon each and every shape and figure. Yet for a creature who had only ever known a world of pearl and alabaster shades, he needed not to dwell in that compartment; finding comfort in the multitude of strange and unearthly voices that blessed the coast, as well as the softly tingling vibrations that made contact with his pads with every step. In the mind of the ribboned fellow, it was a perfectly simple world that needed no change.
"O come now let me seek joy within, these comforting waves below. How gracefully they dance and sing, like sirens to and fro." It was a simple melody he had invented from the very depths of his own spirit, a poem of such. If others took a disliking to it, like the Storm, he wouldn't mind. Simply voicing his enchantment was enough to banish whatever uncertainty had infiltrated his thoughts.
-
It was a while later that the man returned to his rows, the body of a whelk held gently between his teeth. So engrossed in his relevant carol, he did not notice the presence of a new being until they almost collided. "My apologies, sir!" he gasped, dropping the pointed shell at his paws. "I will cease my singing."
Dagfinn was surprised when the wolf refused to acknowledge his presence. He thought it terrible rude, at first, especially when he wagged his tail in plain view of the man and got no response - but something about the vague shimmer of white over the man's eyes gave him pause, even as he broke out into a song of delightful whimsy.
Experiementing, Dag placed himself directly in the man's path and waited, and almost quailed when he seemed intent on running him over! But it was not to be; the other wolf seemed to sense him at the last moment, and kept them from colliding too badly.
"A-anteeksi!" Dag stuttered, surprised in spite of himself. "Sorry - I didn't realize - " The man hurried to apologize for his singing, and Dag wouldn't hear it. "No, no!" he insisted, moving forward to poke companionably at the man's shoulder with his cold, wet nose. "Sing more - I am always looking for more songs to sing! I am sorry I stook in your path."
With a slight back-pedalling of paws, Tide sought to put some distance between the two, his ears burning in embarrassment as the strange fellow let out a string of apologetic tones. For some reason or another, it bothered him deeply to have made that mistake, so much so that he daren't retrieve his prize for another couple of moments as his auds swivelled past their pinnacle and back to press lightly against his tanned scalp.
"It's not a problem!" he quipped rather shakily, his words falling prey to the wind as a cold sensation burned through his shoulder. Tilting his snout in a downwards arc, the mottled sir returned the gesture, blindly nosing in the area he deemed safe to be the mans' flank "It was my nose that ran into your body."
Pulling away from the strangely frosted scent of the brute, Tide recollected his thoughts one by one, bending down to scoop up the whelk in the process and burry it in the sand beside the other two. "Was this you who brought this gift to stand amongst my collection?" he queried as his muzzle brushed the rough surface of Daggfin's intrepedous journey into the sea. There certainly hadn't been two shells when he'd first came to these sands. "If so, thank you, kind sir." He tilted his head back towards where he had left the stranger, letting his tail dust the breeze in smooth, circular motions.
The boy felt even worse for startling his fellow when he saw how shaken the other seemed to be. Refusing to back down on the matter, Dagfinn brushed off the wolf's insistence on taking the blame and gladly moved on to brighter subjects.
"It looked fun," he said in response to the man's question, looking down at the colorful seashells and then side-eying the blind wolf before him. What a shame it was to never know their color. Even if Dagfinn told him, would it mean anything to the other man? Like the Murhe Sala's, Tide's plight spoke to him on a deep and personal level, and for a moment, emotion choked away any words he might've spoken. Life just wasn't fair. "They did not have shells like this where I am from," he explained, hoping none of the pity he felt was evident in his voice - and he rather thought he'd succeeded, bard that he was. "There were only muscles - plain and b-black."
The last words was stumbled over, and he held in his breath after it left his mouth, as though he could take it back by doing so. How long had this wolf been blind? Did he know the color black? Did he know color at all?
"I'm Dagfinn," he said quickly, trying to cover up what he considered to be a terrible slurr. In his haste, he did not even give his full name in all its glory, as was his wont. "What's your name?"
His query was met with the simplest of statements, smooth and formal as his strange new companion spoke aloud. With a light rumble of content, the ribboned fellow let his head fall back towards the rows, nosing the sands as he searched for their beautifully curved shells. It took only a moment of brief hesitation before his snout jarred the edge of one of his finds and he let his tongue protrude a little, feeling his way upwards until he found the tip. This he clamped his teeth around and hit hard, tracing the new hole with a satisfactory smile. He did this to each of the others too, whilst keeping one ear awake as he listened to seaside tones of the boy.
"What's black?" he mumbled as he spat the last shards of shell, his thoughts a simple sheen. His friend seemed to stutter, nervousness perhaps? Leaving the rows be, he rose to his paws, throat emitting a low comforting chuff as he padded back to where the distressed wolf seemed to be disturbing the silence. "Tide," he replied, nudging his side to where he assumed his shoulder would be. "Well that's what I call myself." With a pleased grin, he set his rump to the grains, tail thumping the ground.
Tactlessly, Dagfinn pretended not to have heard Tide's question, and instead returned the other man's comforting touch. "A good name," he declared, a little too loudly, probably. "Do you spend much time by the sea, then?" he wondered aloud. Dagfinn truly hated the sand and the salt water, but he supposed he could understand the allure of it, if he squinted a little.
The shells were certainly interesting. Dag went back toward the water and dipped his nose into the waves, brushing through the sand in search of something more solid. When his teeth closed around a harder shape, he withdrew his muzzle to see what he'd found.
"Oh," he said, disappointed. It was only a rock - and an ugly one, at that. Dropping it back into the surf, he dipped his nose once again into the water, one ear still quirked toward his companion.