If the woman’s thoughts could have been read, Skellige would have turned her away, for the great leviathan was not the man she had thought him to be. He was uncouth, savage, and though this was common for the wolves of Warsaw, the brute was also a murderer. His failed attempt on their sister was enough to demonstrate that fact, let alone the countless lives lost on the borders of the islands that they had called home for so long. If Leokadia was coming to him simply because she thought him to be a more just ruler than their pale sister, she may have found herself being set up for disappointment. His ambitions were greater than Ksenia’s, but aside from this, he was as feral as she, only his actions were unbridled.
 
The call sounded overhead and the brute’s ears swiveled atop his crown with a feeling of surprise dawning on him. He had not anticipated to hear her voice ring over the sound of the waves, but he was pleased to know that she had found the intended pack lands without too much trouble. Skellige’s scent was littered along the borders of the bay, though; any passersby would know that there were wolves there seeking to claim the land.
 
Drawing himself away from his den and the tasks he had been working to complete, the wraith padded toward the direction of the call with swift steps. Sand was kicked up behind his dark figure, and when he caught sight of the pale form of his sister, the man furrowed his brows and flicked his tail in greeting to the slender Cairn. She did not look to have changed a bit, but that did not trouble him. “Leo,” he rumbled a greeting with a short curling smirk on his inky lips. “Was home growing boring for you without Jagoda? I can’t imagine you’d have lasted long without your most loyal pawn,” he teased the pallid form of his sister with a sharp twinkle in his gaze.

It was almost strange for the great wraith to hear his name on the tongue of one who knew how to speak it; someone who was familiar, and so he found himself longing less for home simply because the wolves of Warsaw were rallying behind him in his quest. Though the pale woman had never truly been an affectionate one, the leviathan knew that having her arrive on his shores was a sign of something. He could not have placed a word to it, however… it was, perhaps, too foreign a concept for the titan. Nevertheless, it was pleasing to have the dark-eyed woman there.
 
Her following words were almost expected. She seemed to take a look at the terrain around them and surmise that she was capable of more than he. The great titan chuckled and he lifted his brows on his skull with a taunting expression on his inky face. “Famines rarely ever take from the sea, Kadia,” he chided her, calling her by her least favorite nickname. “The day I cannot best you, is the day the mystics take me.” There was a playfulness about him that had not been there before. While it was hidden beneath the man’s rough exterior, he was capable of humor and Leokadia had always had a way of bringing out the competitive side in him.

The pallid woman went on to claim that his figure was scrawny, and the titan turned his head and craned it downward to inspect his own boxed chest and the twinge in the muscles of his neck as he did so. Yes, he knew how cutthroat Leokadia was with her words, but he did not back down from the verbal battle that she had initiated. With a cheeky little smirk, the leviathan returned his gaze to her circling figure and chuckled quietly – the noise resonated inside of his chest and sounded through his parted muzzle. “Oh, little sister… you’re too cute,” he purred to her with a wicked lift of a single brow. “At least your beauty will grant you favor in the eyes of someone,” he remarked with an outlandishly yellow grin on his dark face.
 
The woman seemed to trek around him, but the titan was not bothered by it. Physically there was no match to his prowess, but he had always enjoyed the battle of wits that his sister had provided him. Were it not for the sharp-tongued woman, he would have dulled his mental senses long ago and would have found himself as dullard as Jagoda was. The pale woman was by far one of his favorite siblings, though he dared not show it in a group setting for fear of them pegging it as weakness. Still, Leo had been a light in the darkness that he had not seen in quite some time… and her quick wit and sharp mind had been missed.

The strike of her words brought the man to earth for just a fraction of a second. The sly smirk that had creased his inky features had faded and he found the spark in his gaze had vanished for only a moment. Leo had only meant her words teasingly, but they had triggered a thought of the pale wood nymph Deirdre and her devotion toward him. For she was truly a beautiful specimen among wolves, and had she been birthed on the islands, they would have sung praises of her physicality. Even so, they would have groomed her for royalty based on her looks alone. Flicking his ears backwards and turning so that the dark of his gaze found Leo’s, he breathed through his flared nostrils in a quiet sigh. “You would be surprised,” he answered her quietly, brows knitting together across his forehead.  

The pale girl continued as if his moment of solemn repose had not caught her off guard, but it had not been his intention after all. Setting his gaze back to her features, the brute nodded his skull with a stern movement and lifted his brows upwards once more. “Yes you will,” he promised her in the deep rumbling voice that she would have been accustomed to. Certainly with the frequent appearances by Deirdre, Leo would be able to catch sight of the pale woman from the forest. That was… if the young Cairn intended to stay.
 
Casting his gaze on her with a sort of intense fixation, the brute lifted his skull upward and titled his head ever so slightly to the left in query. “This is the bay. If you intend to see for yourself you’ll have to stick around, and I don’t care very much if you’re family Leo,” he said with a carefully curling smirk, “you’ll have to join to see anything.” But if the ivory woman should choose it, she would have a place in his ranks and he would allow her to pass through the bay as one of his own. The wolves of Warsaw were rising up and taking over a new world, and he was going to be at the helm.

The smile returned to the dark man’s features as Leo continued her mockery of him. With a shake of his inky skull, he rose to see her feign a dart at him with a quickness in her steps, and the brute swung his crown out of her reach. Lashing his tail to the side, Skellige peeled his dark lips over his yellowed canines and charged after her with his head low. In the last minute before reaching her body, he lifted his crown upward and snapped with his teeth in her direction, hoping that he might playfully latch onto something. Should she dodge his initial attempt, the momentum that carried him would strike against her and bowl them both into the sands.

The ivory pearl managed to dodge against his fangs, but his shoulder met her frame and they tumbled into the sands like yin and yang. His limbs attempted to correct himself, but the brute was far more proficient in the water than he was on dry land. There was an outrageous cry from Leokadia as her back rolled through the granules and once they had come to a steady halt, she was atop him with a vicious gleam in her gaze. For a heartbeat, the girl glanced away from him, and the great inky wraith lowered his limbs just slightly so that he could use them as a spring to shoot her from his body. Pushing up with all of his might, the leviathan wondered what could have distracted the pale woman from their tousle.
 
Just as he had extended his thick legs, the scent of blood reached his nose, and he sneered at the younger Cairn with a wicked flash of his yellow canines.

Leo was pushed from him, but once she had landed and his vision caught sight of the jagged gouge that was settled in her spine, he frowned and pushed himself to his feet with quickly knit brows on his already stern face. “Leo, you twit,” he growled out of frustration and closed the distance on them. The thick crimson seemed to ooze out of the wound and trail down the lower portion of her back, mingling with the inky stripe that ran from mid-length to her tail tip. A heaving sigh escaped his muzzle and he shook his head, sending bits of sand falling back to the earth.
 
“I know someone who might be able to look at this,” he remarked coyly, thinking back on their conversation not ten minutes prior. Of course, Skellige was beginning to feel as though he relied on the wolf of the forest too much for the various injuries that happened to his wolves. Though, he thought to himself, it was a good excuse to see her again.  

The inky brute had known that he should have been reluctant for another to check her wound, but he was more set on having to prove the black-striped girl that she had been wrong, and that there were creatures who were far more beautiful than she could have imagined who could love a beast such as himself. Though Skellige knew that the love he had earned from Deirdre had been given to him by one of youthful air and an almost naïve mind, it mattered very little. She had proven a sense of maturity far beyond her years, and it was one of his many reasons for finding himself so drawn to her. Though the leviathan had never known any true semblance of love, there was an inkling of it in his heart for the pale forest wolf.
 
With a snort, the sea king pointed his muzzle in the direction of the Donnelaith borders and began to lead his injured sister through the depths of the bay, allowing her to take sight of what it was he would conquer. Though it was not Warsaw, it was his own, and for that he felt more pride than he ever had on the old islands of his homeland.