Dragoncrest Cliffs On m'app'lait Baby Doll

tweaking this a bit so I can keep his current timeline straight :)

The keeper of the black pearl returned. 

Lissome and lanky, an oil painting of ash and cinnamon, bejeweled with eyes that rivaled lilacs in their hue and beauty. He approached along the shore, leaving behind a set of pawprints in the sand that were washed away with the ebb and flow of each wave. He travelled toward the claim of Sapphique having travelled along the Sound first- and knew by the shape of the bay where one ended and the other began even though the latter was dotted with the scents of his family. 

His song was sweet as it lifted, clear and sonorous as if gifted from a siren...And by rights, it had been. He felt no need to beg an audience at the border- someone like him wouldn't need permission...Unlike the common vagrant, he instead announced his arrival as a beacon for welcoming; waiting to be embraced, as an entitled prince might simply pause at the arm of the throne to allow someone else to fluff the pillow first.

He was welcomed by his aunt, though her wordlessness perplexed him. His first few questions were answered only with gestures, and an apologetic look. Something of the siren magic she had possessed had left her; it planted a seed of doubt within Tousaint’s mind, though he cared too much for his family to lend it a voice. 

He did not stay long- not wanting them to believe he had come back to stay. He gave no information about the fledgling pack in the mountains that he had pledged to help, and instead told stories of Eresta to those who ask of their departed loved ones. 

And then, at night, he searched. 

His memory was as clear as the moon that hung over the ocean. The landscape had changed since he had left, but Tousaint had never lost the image in his mind’s eye of the hiding place for his pearl. He’d hidden it from view so even an envious sea bird could not spot it and steal it for their collection. 

It had been tucked within the knot of a tree, and blocked off by a shell that matched the colour of the bark; it would not appear unusual, from a distance. The sequoia would keep it safe, he thought-

But when he arrived, he found that the cache had been raided- perhaps long ago. 

He hissed and sniffed about, scuffing nettles aside in hopes of finding it on the forest floor. The shell had been wedged in there so firmly that he knew he would have to shatter it in order to get it out- that way, squirrels would have no way to get it. 

Only a wolf would have had the force necessary to get it out, he thought. And most wolves in the pack would not dare to steal another’s pearl; not when it was a gift given from the ocean. 

Only one wolf fit the bill of a thief.

@Sobeille. 

He scowled and slashed at the sequoia’s bark with a rake of his claws. Sap dripped in slow lines down the rough trunk. His breath heaved; he’d come this far, to get something that was rightfully his- and just like the foxtail that Val had given him as a child, his treasure had been stolen. 

He slashed at the tree again- with the opposite paw. He slashed at it again, cleaving a line down through the others. 

Two ears, and a muzzle, if looked down on from above. In the darkness, the sap looked black, but glistened like blood. He watched it drip, and slow to a stop. The likeness brought sour words to his tongue.

A curse on you, Sobeille Miette, 

He snarled in his mother’s tongue. 

The scars in the trunk would scab and remain; the curse uttered to an audience of sequoias and sleeping sea birds. 

Tousaint left by dawn, and headed for the mountains.