Warsaw was falling.
 
With the Cairn children having abandoned their homeland in search of the world that Skellige had found, their islands would be left without the most crucial members of their family. One of the surrounding packs would find out soon enough, and they would send their finest to the borders of the islands in hopes of discovering a weak point. The Cairn family would rule no more on those shores, of that he was certain. There was a piece of him that was proud of their fall, and another part of him that knew if he still belonged on their waters, they would hold the islands for years to come.
 
The wraith was forced to leave the thoughts of Warsaw and to contemplate his moves for claiming the land that sat beside Donnelaith. There was a nervousness in his mind, like a ticking clock, telling him that if he did not go forward and speak to the rulers of the forest, instead of the quiet pearl, that he would be denied access to claim beside them. While he had much to offer, it would not surprise him if they thought it a threat to have another pack so close to their own. He was gaining bodies, though, and would soon be a force to be reckoned with. Should he stake his claim and they did not want him there, he feared he would have to retaliate somehow; all alliances would have to be forsaken until Deirdre took the throne.
 
Skellige moved to keep himself busy throughout the day; he found the surrounding land to be enjoyable enough, though not as secluded or safe as the bay. He hadn’t the need to search for prey beyond the ocean water, but the silver-ribbed titan was not opposed to eating creatures that roamed the lands. With the famine fading, and the green having returned, it was likely that he would not struggle to catch sight of the larger prey animals while on the hunt.
 
It was a different creature that he saw, though, as he trailed the land over the sands. He had thought the brightly coated granules to have been a good potential home, should the bay not have worked. It had bothered him that the only surrounding land was the small patch of trees that belonged to the wood not too far away. He did not want to find himself in the thick of trees; he needed the breath of salt and the sound of the waves against the shore. There was little protection on the coast of the shimmering sands; he would not bring his wolves there to live in the open with the potential for attack.
 
A stranger’s scent mingled with that of the weeds in the water and the saline of the ocean caught the attention of the great wraith. His brows furrowed tightly over his eyes and he peered across the sands until a sharp figure caught his optics and held their attention for a quiet moment.
 
The wolf was sprawled in the sand with only a gentle rise and fall of his chest to suggest that he had not perished near the water. Skellige watched him for a moment longer before he took a few steps forward, head low to the earth. The hackles along his back and spine seemed to prickle with unease at the sight of the man in the sands. With tightly knitted brows, the titan appeared as a looming shadow on the brightly painted shoreline. The ink of his pelt stood out among the pale grains of sand. Closer he drew until he could partake in the scent of this strange wolf, but he did not seem to be allied with any of the packs nearby.
 
“What are you doing?” the wraith hissed through yellowed fangs. His eyes were locked with the male and he found himself growing far more curious than he was wary. Still, he did not know this brood, and he was not likely to trust the beast simply because he enjoyed leisure in the sand. So he would demand an answer.  

The wraith was met with foreign words, and his pelt bristled at the sound of them falling from this stranger’s lips. He was a curious looking thing; a man who appeared as though he had seen enough of battle, though touched by something more. There was a lackadaisical nonchalance to his mannerisms, as Skellige watched the glint of his canines in a parted yawn. The brute was wary of his presence for only a moment before he drew himself closer and captured the image of the stranger in the darkness of his own gaze. He was an odd figure, indeed.
 
The strange words seemed to have disappeared when the wolf spoke once more, this time in a sort of observance of his own being. The wraith peered at him coldly at the mention of resting in the sands beside the shore. He swiveled a single ear atop his skull in preparedness for any others who might have been nearby. The russet of his gaze darted away from the stranger for a moment when he had mentioned an injury on his being. The blood that had dribbled from his lips had been a sure sign that something had happened to him to leave him dazed and confused in the granules of sand that littered the shoreline.
 
“An odd thing to do after finding yourself injured,” the brute observed after a quiet moment of ensuring they were alone. He pulled his vision back to the stranger and tilted a brow atop his forehead. Pulling both of his auds forward so that they cupped to meet the words from the other wolf, he found himself wondering why the beast would take to lying in the sand if he had just been wounded. Certainly, there was more than what met the eye with this creature of the sand.
 
Fixing him with an inquisitive look, the dark titan pondered his next sentence before allowing it to slip past his leathery lips. “What brings you to the shore?” he had decided to ask. If answers could be obtained this way, he would settle, but he was still wary of the stranger and maintained a stretch of distance between the two of them.

The Witch Doctor would be able to clean this boy up if he had endured his happy accident somewhere closer to the bay. Instead, Skellige opted not to share this information just yet. Should he prove an interesting or worthy creature, then healing herbs would be an offer that he could easily make. 

The leviathan knew very little of medical maladies, and so the peculiar nature of the male was nothing more than just that… peculiar. Skellige watched on as the creature seemed to squint at him through optics that were plagued by a concussion. Were he to have known this, he would have simply set himself onward and forgotten the stranger in the sands. Instead, he awaited the response to his query.
 
Once the answer struck his ears, the inky brute nodded his head in understanding. The silver-cloaked beast was without a master; in other words, he was without a home. This was something to be found troublesome by most, but the sea king was reaching into the far corners of his mind in hopes of finding answers to the many questions that flitted about inside of his skull. The brute before him reminded Skellige strongly of his younger brother Jagoda, but it was not bothersome to the man of the sea. There was – once again – a familiar way about the nature of the stranger. So the leviathan did not depart. He remained to hear the rest of what the silver-toned male had to say. What was unveiled was as vague as the creature before him.
 
Perhaps it had been destined by the mystics that this creature should show up on the shores, knocked into the sands and grass by some unknown force. “The world has a strange way of correcting the paths of those who wander through,” he returned to the citrine-eyed stranger. “Perhaps they had sent you to these shores with a purpose in mind,” Skellige then ventured carefully. He did not know the beliefs of this wolf, or who he spoke to in his dark times. The leviathan did know that he would be frowned upon if he should not answer the sign that had been sent by the great ones.
 
“Perhaps you have found what you were searching for.”

The monotonous response again reminded Skellige of his brother. All of this and the way in which the silver beast spoke of happening upon the sands; it was a soft reminder for the leviathan to remember his roots and the mystics who had brought him to those lands. Though the wraith did not know if this strange man had many strong beliefs in the great ones who watched over them, or the power of the ocean’s tide, but he did not need to. The familiarity was sign enough for the silver-ribbed sea king.
 
While he traveled to that end of the shore on his own, there would be others at the bay who would be capable of making sure this man was tended to. Whether it was the Witch Doctor or Deirdre who came to his aid, the slate-cloaked wolf of the sands would have someone to tend to his wounds. Fixing him with the same lackluster expression, Skellige waited to see what he would have to say to the matter of finding his purpose by sheer serendipity. While he was concussed and could not recall his true meaning for having approached the shore, it mattered very little to Skellige. The leviathan wanted only to know what this man’s plans were; what he intended to do with the new life that had been struck into his skull by a creature from nowhere… a creature that had since disappeared from sight.
 
When at last the long silence seemed to fade, and the canary-eyed male had made a decision, he closed the distance that was stretched before the wraith and lowered his skull toward the inky feet of Skellige. He had been seeking a master to serve, he said in a quiet and rumbling voice. The dark gaze of the sea wolf fell on the silver of his back and spine and noted the sharp rippling of his muscles as he lowered his frame. The brute would make for a handsome dredge. Once introduced, he fancied himself a warrior and wanderer and then pledged himself to the wraith of the water.
 
Blinking once, the great sea king nodded his head. “Tetsubō,” the man repeated with a careful flick of his tongue. “I am Skellige Cairn. My claim is not here, but further down the shoreline. Travel with me and the witch doctor will tend to your wounds,” he remarked to the man. Doe would be a suitable woman to see if this man was fit to begin helping their claim on the bay. If she could not do it on her own, Skellige knew that he could rely on the knowledge that Deirdre had. She had proficiently tended to the wound on his shoulder and neck. She could do the same to this wolf.

"You stated that you are a warrior. In my culture, we will call you a dredge, but I see no reason why you should not do well in this role," he informed the man. The inky brute was slowly making his way back toward the bay and hoping that he might find the Doctor along the way. She had been frantic in her attempts to gather things for the blessing of the sea. Her treks had taken her all across the shore, just as Skellige had traveled it well. 

The two were not all that dissimilar. While Skellige had warped his sense of obedience to a fault, he had once been very close to the man that Tetsubō was. The wraith had done well at following orders and tending to the needs of those around him. He had offered only the best of service to his masters and those who stood above him, but he had grown tired of that life and had found himself disenchanted by those who would look over him for his savageness. He would blame them until the day he died for having picked his sister to rule over him. Ksenia was proficient in battle, but she was nothing when compared to the leviathan of a man. Warsaw had been his right and his alone, and the only change in his plans had been that his sights were set for a different goal.
 
The sound of his name seemed strange on the other man’s tongue, but he did not comment on it. There was no need to bother the beast with such things. Their alliance had been struck and it was time to lead the concussed warrior back to the bay to have his wounds tended to and the rest of his condition thoroughly checked. If he was to take up the life of a dredge, it would have been best to assign him something of a permanent healer, but their numbers were still small and it was not a necessity. Tetsubō would find himself in the care of some of the most adept of their kind. The witch doctors had healed wounds on his own figure that should have brought him to an untimely demise.
 
The slate-colored male was silent as they sauntered forward across the crystal sands. Skellige was not one to break such a quiet mood. Turning his skull toward the brute at his side, the inky wraith found that only one thing needed to be said before they arrived. “We have many rituals you will need to grow accustomed to, but all of that will be explained in due time. For now, we will focus on making sure you are physically well,” he remarked. Certainly Tetsubō would be struck by their culture upon arrival, but it was best to have him fully immersed than to attempt to explain it all to him. They had a ways to go and nothing more needed to be said in the meantime, so Skellige moved on.