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+--- Thread: Stavanger Bay i’ll be your candle on the water (/showthread.php?tid=20221)
i’ll be your candle on the water - Szymon - January 24, 2017
I am rubbish at starting threads. Sorry, @Qilaq. Tagging for reference.
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Night has fallen, but the black-banded Leviathan surveys his territory with a restless eye. His vantage point, a rime-silver outcropping of stone made gritty by sand and salt, allows him to keep an eye on the mouth of the hastily furnished den where @Doe, @Julep, and @Isengrim sleep. His cubs are twelve weeks old now, though he doesn’t measure their age in time as much as change. Julep and Isengrim’s eyes are muddy, shifting from the milky blue of infancy to Doe’s brilliant gold — Szymon can’t see his own eyes, but even if he could, he’d probably still describe the cubs’ eyes in reference to Doe — and they’re exhaustingly mobile. And loud — so much louder than his first daughter. He’s impatient for spring — or, at the very least, for a break in the weather. There’s so much the Three need to learn and he worries that time is passing by too quickly for them to get it all down. He expects them to keep their fur steeped in brine and peppered in sand — they are Cairns — and he wants them to understand things he’ll never understand — they are Doe’s.
It’s instinctive for the father to lump Qilaq in with Isengrim and Julep. He used to wonder whether the dark wolf from the flatlands was her biological father, but Qilaq’s Drop rewrote any history she might have had. “Papa” is what she calls him, and he means it when he says she’s a Cairn now. He’s come to realize that she is different — the rapid development he sees daily in Julep and Isengrim draws a sharp contrast to the slower steps he needs to take with their big sister — but it doesn’t bother him. Quite the opposite, it endears the girl to him; he strives to keep her near, not trusting the world outside the bay to offer her asylum.
Speaking of which, where is she?
Szymon rises from his perch in one sharp, fluid motion and scuttles down the slope in a series of stuttering leaps, kicking up sand as his tattered ears press intently forward upon his narrow skull. “Qilaq,” he calls quietly, giving little care to the hour. He and Doe have only just gotten her back! He hovers — uninvited and perhaps unwarranted — because he doesn’t know any other way to be. He calls again for her: “Qilaq?” and points his scarred muzzle skyward, setting free a sonorous, bass-toned howl as he summons his eldest. Then, on paws that can’t seem to stop their fidgeting, he begins to pace. At long last, he drags a frozen solid menhaden from one of the caches and begins to lick and gnaw at it, trying to work it into something softer that the Benthos will be able to devour with ease. He is determined that his wife, his children, and his wolves will stride with strength into spring — whenever the hell it gets here.
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It’s instinctive for the father to lump Qilaq in with Isengrim and Julep. He used to wonder whether the dark wolf from the flatlands was her biological father, but Qilaq’s Drop rewrote any history she might have had. “Papa” is what she calls him, and he means it when he says she’s a Cairn now. He’s come to realize that she is different — the rapid development he sees daily in Julep and Isengrim draws a sharp contrast to the slower steps he needs to take with their big sister — but it doesn’t bother him. Quite the opposite, it endears the girl to him; he strives to keep her near, not trusting the world outside the bay to offer her asylum.
Speaking of which, where is she?
Szymon rises from his perch in one sharp, fluid motion and scuttles down the slope in a series of stuttering leaps, kicking up sand as his tattered ears press intently forward upon his narrow skull. “Qilaq,” he calls quietly, giving little care to the hour. He and Doe have only just gotten her back! He hovers — uninvited and perhaps unwarranted — because he doesn’t know any other way to be. He calls again for her: “Qilaq?” and points his scarred muzzle skyward, setting free a sonorous, bass-toned howl as he summons his eldest. Then, on paws that can’t seem to stop their fidgeting, he begins to pace. At long last, he drags a frozen solid menhaden from one of the caches and begins to lick and gnaw at it, trying to work it into something softer that the Benthos will be able to devour with ease. He is determined that his wife, his children, and his wolves will stride with strength into spring — whenever the hell it gets here.
RE: i’ll be your candle on the water - Qilaq - January 24, 2017
Having been born and grown up in the beginning of summer, the concept of cold had been a gradual approach. Qilaq didn’t mind it so much, enjoying the nights that were cool enough that made relaxation easy. When the cold became a different kind of cold, sending Qilaq who knows where, whenever she can grab on to warmth, she does. Even if she feels a little cramped in the den with her parents and siblings, she stays as much as she can handle to make sure she doesn’t lose any of her toes and any of her tail. She stretches her legs when she needs to but for now, until the cold front is over, she’ll endure the closeness of the others.
The howl that calls for her rockets her head up and she stiffens, trying to register the last few seconds as her brain forces her awake. She works her way through a crowd of smaller bodies and limbs and forces her thin frame out into the open air. She shivers almost immediately as she moves, stretching her limbs and keeping her pace rather quick until she sees the busy body working on something at his feet. In the dark, Qilaq can’t really determine what it is as she slows to a stop as she sees Doe’s grooming of her younger siblings. She blinks a few times and shakes it off, slowly getting closer until she can see that it is nothing more than a fish and her feet move quicker to stand closer to her father.
RE: i’ll be your candle on the water - Szymon - February 03, 2017
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Oh, right.
Szymon had grown so accustomed to not seeing Qilaq around the younger cubs that it’s a shock to him when she tumbles out of the East Cliff Den’s mouth. “There you are,” he says anyway, grinning eagerly at the sight of her. It’s a rare expression for the young father, who tends to be a rather stoic creature even around his children — and then he sees how cold she is and remembers that he probably shouldn’t be inviting her out into the frigid winter weather. He wants to talk to her alone, though — he wants to recapture how he felt the day he’d taught her to swim. It pleases him to be needed, and the responsibilities of fatherhood ground him when Doe’s flightiness loosens his own grip on what’s real and what isn’t.
“Qilaq,” he says gently, his tongue roughly pushing her fur along the grain and smoothing the fur between her ears. He nibbles warmly at the ruff of her cheek and then gestures with a quirk of his muzzle. “I’m sorry. I’ll take you somewhere warm.” He picks up the fish in his mouth and leads her toward the insulated nook where the sheepdog usually sleeps. Fortunately she’s absent, and he lays the fish before his eldest daughter. “You should try to eat a little bit,” he encourages. “I can find you something else if you don’t want this.” She has lost too much weight — and so has Doe — and between the two of them, Szymon sometimes wishes he could force the food down them to ensure their survival.
They spent the evening together, Szymon singing and sometimes talking, before Qilaq inevitably nodded off due to Dad’s Boring Anecdotes Time — then he woke her up again like a giant jerk, and brought her back to bed in the Stone Den.
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Szymon had grown so accustomed to not seeing Qilaq around the younger cubs that it’s a shock to him when she tumbles out of the East Cliff Den’s mouth. “There you are,” he says anyway, grinning eagerly at the sight of her. It’s a rare expression for the young father, who tends to be a rather stoic creature even around his children — and then he sees how cold she is and remembers that he probably shouldn’t be inviting her out into the frigid winter weather. He wants to talk to her alone, though — he wants to recapture how he felt the day he’d taught her to swim. It pleases him to be needed, and the responsibilities of fatherhood ground him when Doe’s flightiness loosens his own grip on what’s real and what isn’t.
“Qilaq,” he says gently, his tongue roughly pushing her fur along the grain and smoothing the fur between her ears. He nibbles warmly at the ruff of her cheek and then gestures with a quirk of his muzzle. “I’m sorry. I’ll take you somewhere warm.” He picks up the fish in his mouth and leads her toward the insulated nook where the sheepdog usually sleeps. Fortunately she’s absent, and he lays the fish before his eldest daughter. “You should try to eat a little bit,” he encourages. “I can find you something else if you don’t want this.” She has lost too much weight — and so has Doe — and between the two of them, Szymon sometimes wishes he could force the food down them to ensure their survival.
They spent the evening together, Szymon singing and sometimes talking, before Qilaq inevitably nodded off due to Dad’s Boring Anecdotes Time — then he woke her up again like a giant jerk, and brought her back to bed in the Stone Den.