Waves crashed.
Where the rage of the sea met the shore and the sun set in gold, crabs scurried. Kelp sat loose along the curves of the rocks and lined the waters. Driftwood wedged between the crevices of sand and stone. There he rested, the wolf from the sea, limp and lifeless as he was pushed out from the waters and casted onto the sand and stone. His head laid elevated, saltwater rushing up along his spine, lifting his fur against its course and bursting into the air.
His eyes were closed.
As if the sand and deep oceans itself made him, he perhaps had become one with it. The fish fought the tides, and the sand fleas burrowed. The stick of kelp touched his cheek. The current rushed in roar.
There was another stranger upon their sands. God's little warrior came. This time, Malakai kept his distance should this man be another as the last- one which trespassed onto the holy lands with disrespect and disregard for their laws.
This one was different. He was not digging around and wandering their home for a place to hide and sleep. He was laying, he was on his side. Maybe he was sleeping. Yet the way he did so and in the shallows of the water, waves rushing him, sand and kelp matted on his coat. There was something wrong, Kai felt.
Coming up nearer, but wearily at a space, he shouts. Hey! What are you doing!?
There was ringing in heaven.
In the clouds, there was great mist to touch his coat and the soft sound of vapor whispering. There was everything. There was nothing. There was the beautiful colors of dawn and the dreadful black clouding his eyes.
Reality.
The rushing crashed through his ears. It was deafening. The sand under his body pulled away, and driftwood hit against his flank each time the tide rushed, head forced to rock against the stones. A bed of seaweed cloaked in sun. There was a voice, and one of God's precious gifts. So close. The ringing came again, and the darkness overwhelmed his view. Scurrying. Salty scents. Still, he did not move. His eyes did not break apart. Rush in, rush out, the flow of his coat against the water, the sand blowing gently through the wind.
Nothing.
For a minute, Malakai wasn't exactly what to do. Strangers could be dangerous. Strangers could be bad,
evil even. He had learned from his parents to be cautious of those not of the island when they came and so Kai didn't want to get too close in case this was some demon's trickery.
So, he did the only thing a child really knew to do when they were faced with a problem they did not know how to conquer - he screamed out for his parents, howling and yelling for his mom and dad,
@Heda and
@Caracal.
Then, hesitantly so, he approached and flopped his front legs on the driftwood that kept smacking into the drowned wolf. He pulled back, unable to move it completely but enough to hold it back as he peered down at the stranger.
when heda's son called, she put down the fish she had been slicing into ragged filets and headed along the beachhead to find malakai. heda trusted god in all ways, but she was not remiss in her duties at their sea-locked borders.
rare, to have visitors who did not know the times when the landbridge was visible, and when it was not. the white wolf kissed malakai's cheek and helped to pull the driftwood further into the sand.
heda bent closer. she was not surprised to find a wolf, nor that he was injured; no. her surprise was instantaneous and momentary, a little shock rushing through her as she looked at the rangy body of the sea-gift and his quiet face, and found the man handsome.
a breath. she pressed a paw to his shoulder. "hello? you're safe now, can you hear me?"
"Child," he spoke softly, deeply, after the young one's voice broke through the beach. A voice of rust, as if the sea had eroded his vocals.
God's gift..God's gift.. So close. He spoke with no knowledge of sight, surroundings or thought. He simply knew there was a gift nearby, a pure one from the oceans who found him. A pure one who must not be so close, he knew, and yet he did not, that there was the danger of the seas.
From then, he spoke no more until a holy voice came and broke him from the deep sleep that continued to pull at his mind. A gentle pressure on his shoulder, and a touch of one's breath. A gasp is taken from his lips as his head turns and swivels, his eyes wincing and rolling behind his lids as his nose forced out seawater. Before his eyes opened, he offered her his voice. "Miss." Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Far from stable, and physically the ocean had done as it would to him, but mentally, he found soundness. In knowing that fate came, and brought him to her and land. "You are gracious."
A voice then came. It was rough and broken and Malakai leaned forward over the wood to view the man laid next to it, near rocks and moss catching around his body, washed shore just like the rest of the environment.
The stranger was silent again but Kai's mom came quick, helping him with the driftwood he was struggling to hold back off of the newcomer. Malakai then quickly stepped back as her mother had once instructed him before when near a stranger on their lands. He tips his head up to her for direction. What do we do?
heda thought he must have almost drowned, strengthened by the streaming water from his nose. "malakai, go and get your father. or everett. we'll need help getting him near the den." again she moved closer, to where her face might fill the stranger's line of sight.
"we are godly," heda deferred in a voice suffused with wondering. "he's delivered you to sweetharbor."
and that would be what she believed. softly she sought to slide an arm beneath his head, lifting him up from the waters. "are you in pain?" heda asked, too belatedly.
His lips, dry from salt and his fur stiff from the waters, he felt his breath taken away. For the tides so strong, he had made it to land. There could not be a better gift, nor a better miracle spoken from Fates hand. "Thank our Lord. He has brought us together." With the guide of her leg and paw, his head was lifted into the air where he could breathe the rush of the winds. This woman and her child, he was sure. "It has been Fate from his hands to speak." Heavenly eyes, she had. He was grateful for them. "I feel no pain." With closed eyes, he took a deep inhale again that spoke thankfulness for air. "But my legs are weak and worn. I will crawl to what I must. Might I have your name?"
Feel free to continue on without Kai!
Malakai nodded sharply, taking his mother's direction seriously, as a mission in a way. He turned and ran off down the beach a ways before cutting inland. Be it
@Everett or his father (
@Caracal), he sought out the freshest scent he found first and ran them down. He would lead them back, yet hold back at a distance, watching the adults and learned.
Malakai would find him within the lavender field, eyes closed, for once, against the world. Silent in his prayers, despite the movement of his lips.
He had not found Reverie. The Lord had not brought her back. And all he asked was
Why?
The wind tangled hus golden fur. He rose at Malakai's urging.
Lead me,
he would say, despite knowing the way, and he would run with the youth down to where sand stretched to ocean, and where Heda and stranger bobbed into sight.
Malakai hung back -- a better place for him than at a stranger's paws -- and Everett gave him a small nod begore he drew near on quiet paws. Just a chuff to make Heda aware of his arrival, before he gave the stranger the might of his attention.
Waterlogged. Half drowned. But breathing, and speaking -- and praise God, for this! That Malakai had found him. And yet, he would need rest. Shelter. Somewhere to recover so the tides did not suck him away --
He looked to Heda, waiting for her charge.
malakai spun off obediently, and heda cradled the man close as he spoke. on his salt-rimed lips was the word of god, and her heart leapt to hear it. "i'm heda. that was my son, malakai. sweetharbor will take care of you while you recover."
the sea lapped against them; the warm air brought the flurrying of lavender scent over the pair in a cascade. everett was there, now; she looked up at him. "malakai found him. he's very weak. i don't think he can make it up to the greenhills, so let's take him to the lion's den. i took care of someone there, once; there's a bed and good light, and it's away from everything." she was rambling, voice trailing off now as she stared helplessly down into the face of the waterlogged stranger.
Somehow alive.
By God's grace.
Only a lord could have made it possible for him. Such kind, considerate people. This time, when it came, he knew it was not yet his time.
It was not yet his time.
In shaky breath and ill-felt lungs, he felt that dizziness again.
"Nakano Saran."
And they would know his name, and he would know theirs. Already, he felt a bond that had been blessed and sealed upon. It had been fate, on this new journey they trekked.