there was a storm. lightning. thunder. torrential rains that chilled you to the bone. winds that swept you off your paws. there was no escaping the storm, if you had no home to speak of. the packs of the cliffs were tucked away in their caves, safe and dry.
but aditya was alone. he had always been alone.
his pelt of browns and tans, already soaked from the downpour, was pulled beneath the waves. his golden eyes stung from the salt sea. his legs, burly and strong, were ineffectual now. they churned and kicked, desperate to free the rest of his body from the ocean. to no avail. he felt himself sinking. down. . .down. . .into a darkness he had only heard described in--
"hhhhhhg!"
aditya gasped desperately for air as his head finally hit the surface of the water, crashing through like a whale breaching. he blinked rapidly, trying to get the water from his eyes. his legs felt like limp seaweed, yet he somehow felt the strength to weakly paddle. the water was calm.
how long had he been under?!
"haye bhagwaan," he intoned, his voice raspy and reedy. just before the darkness had overcome him, he felt as if. . .something. . .had pushed him to the surface. yet when he had gone under before, the skies were the color of slate, the wind drowning out all other sounds save waves crashing. above him was a sky as blue as it could be, cloudless, and he could hear seabirds calling. had he slept? had he dreamt? was he dead?
before he could ruminate further on the endless existential possibilities, aditya felt the tips of his paws skim seafloor. he was washing ashore! breathlessly, he tugged himself through the shallows onto the beach, then flopped over, chest rising and falling with the barest of motion.
and fell promptly asleep, eyelids tugging downwards, feeling like a stone in the sand.
beach crabs. they were tickling his feet. he giggled like a child, trying to shake them off. he was surprised they weren't biting. . .but perhaps they were friendly crabs.
"hmmmm. . ." aditya breathed sleepily, paws twitching. he was trapped on the edge of dreams. he felt balanced on a precarious ledge between life and death.
"mere bachpan." his mother's voice, sweet as nectar, drizzled in and out of his ears. she was so long gone. . .he must be dead. . .
with some effort, the wolf opened his eyes a sliver, only to find a pair of blues staring right back. he would have jumped up and back in shock, had he not been so exhausted. as it were, he managed a surprised grunt, his throat red and raw from saltwater intake.
his eyelids were so puffy that he couldn't open them more than a crack, and his eyes were blurry with sleep. besides her--for it must be a "her;" the scent suggested it--eyes, he could make out no more than a sleek black form, standing close, nose pointed curiously.
she made a small sound, a tiny whine, and aditya struggled to respond. "kaun hain?" he asked in a ragged whisper, trying--and failing--to lift his head off the sand. she does not have your tongue, in all likelihood, the practical part of his brain admonished him. he struggled further, then, for a more neutral language.
"who. . .wh. . ." he gave up nearly immediately, hoping that blinking quizzically at her would help answer his question. aditya was fluent in many languages, but his fight against the sea had clouded his brain, rendering him nearly speechless.
he felt something warm and gentle against his cheek, and found that the dark female was laving the ocean grime from his face, like a mother bathing her pups after their journey out of the birth canal. seelie, she whispered. and then a word he did know--friend.
"see-lie," he tested the word on his tongue, daintily. friend. friend.
flailing legs punched the sea's rolling surface, a muzzle gasping desperately for air. he was too far away to reach, and every time he tried to swim closer. . . "nando! swim to me! nando, mere dost--" the sodden black mass kept floating farther away from him, the salt-choked cries growing fainter. he had to save nando--
"nahin!" he gasped aloud, wrenching his head away from the she-wolf and rising to his feet, swaying like a drunkard. he looked at her, eyes still half-closed, licking his lips as he summoned enough saliva to speak properly. "nando kahaan hai? mere dost nando?"
it was now that aditya was remembering that his friend--his best friend--had been swept away by the storm as well. he was not here, now. and aditya had to find him. . .dead or alive.
his breath left him in a sob, as she echoed his friend's name. "nando," he repeated, looking down and squeezing his eyes shut. the tawny male's face appeared in front of him, slightly blurry, as if seen underwater. not drowned, though, but happy. . . smiling. "my. . .friend."
the woman rose to her feet, and aditya blinked at her, suddenly unsure. where was she taking him? was it safe? did she have nando?
"please. . ." adi croaked, not exactly sure what he was pleading for. "where. . .where is here?" despite his poor physical conditions, the synapses in his brain were beginning to fire once more, and he started to make sense of it all. he had washed ashore, here. last time he had been fully conscious, he had clung to a slippery cliff, the wind buffeting him from all sides.
"seelie," he said. he looked around. "this. . .is seelie?" his golden eyes returned to her own blue pair. "or are you. . .seelie?"
undersea. he shuddered at the name. it wasn't so long ago that he had been literally undersea, and to have been swept onto a place called that. . .well, hari wasn't often cruel, but this highlighted a bad side of him, for sure.
then the sleek, black-pelted woman was asking for his name. it took him a couple seconds for it to all come together, before he responded hastily, "adi. aditya." his tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth, a salt-soaked mass of flesh. it was hard to speak clearly.
she began to groom him; her touch was warm and comforting, but almost as soon as it had began, she pulled away, leading him inland. at first, he resisted--how could he know what sort of bed of snakes this woman--this seelie--was leading him into?
but, after a long moment of thinking, he figured he had nothing left to lose. his home was long gone, his friend lost to the sea. he was here, with seelie, on undersea. . .and if she could help him, then he'd have to take the risk.
he felt much calmer as she spoke his name, her sweet voice breathing new life to the syllables. he nodded, the barest of smiles coming to his face--though it hurt to hold that expression for long. the sleek black wolf turned, then, and guided him to a river on the small, sloping mountain, drinking from it.
at her gesture, adi dipped his muzzle into the water, almost collapsing in ecstacy at the pure, crisp taste of it, washing the salt from his mouth and sliding down his sore throat. he was careful not to drink so much that his stomach ached, instead taking small, cautious swallows.
when he had finished, he sank to the ground, muscles shaking from exhaustion. the small trek up the ocean crag had depleted whatever strength he had, and he wanted desperately to sleep for a long time in a warm bed.
his golden eyes, the lashes still crusted with salt, lifted to her face. "seelie," he whispered. "dhanyavaad. bahut. . .thank you."
maybe he wasn't dead.