Turtle Island salt whispering

recovery was a blessing bestowed with far too much slowness on chani.
terrified, alone, and exposed, the birth had been tormenting, remembered only as waves of terrified pain punctuated by rolling black.
pain she had expected. chani had heard and witnessed family in childbed. sapphique did not make their daughters strangers to such natural reality. but the rest; "oh, maman," chani choked in hoarsened voice.
her first forays had been for water, and water alone. the next had been on patrol for any small predators, of which she found only mice and the guano of bats. it was hard to leave the pups, and went against every instinct the young mother possessed, but she had little choice.
bird's nests fed her again, and a collection of voles it cost too much to hunt. chani was trembling when she returned to the little den tucked into shadows of rosethorn, and spent the next day licking rainwater from stones, considering that this was too, too much.
her crying was frequent. she was happy in between, which confused her mind more, and stared often into the sea until it blurred or she fell asleep or one of the babies roused her.
how sustainable is this?
she didn't know.

can be a cameo!

going out to sea was, by far, his greatest mistake.

qapnuk was not a seabird; he had his work, though, and the wind carried him from point to point while he attended to body after body. work was never done. there was always somewhere he could go, bones to pick at and—oh!

there was blood scent. it was hard to find among the salt. something else... milk? maybe milk. something sweet, at any rate. a beat of his wings and he was soaring across the channel, to a spit of land that looked far from inviting.

there was at least one tree there that could support his weight, he thought—and so he aimed for it, and touched down minutes later. the bulk of his belly crushed against weaker branches, snapping them like finger bones; and when the momentary chaos subsides, he is settled.

his bald face lifts from the cover of some branches, angling for a better view of his surroundings. with a huff—what would emit from his beak was more of a shrill croak and a click—he saw mostly flatness and... a wolf?

"nou pral oblije tann," chani mumbled to her son, then pulled the daughter close. "nou pral tann."
a breath.
"mwen pral moutre w naje di ak vit."
she kissed one downy head and then the other.
"epi apre nou pral lakay ou."
a breath.
imagine maman! imagine when chani returned, flanked by her children.
alive.
her tired eyes alit upon the vulture in the trees, and chani blinked.

this wolf had a ruddy streak. the more qapnuk studied it the more interested he became - not just in the adult, but the little bundles all around.

they looked like rats, he thought. that was where the sweet smell came from, the one tinged by a beautiful copper flavor. what tiny bones they must have.

he left the branch in favor of a closer one sprouting from a nearby tree, but through the transit from one place to another he did not take his side-eye off of the little family. only his body seemed to act, which gave the impression of puppetry to his limbs.

the subtle tilt of his head and singular focus of those eyes gave a clear impression: food?

chani watched the bird, ears falling to splay and eyes hardening. teeth gleamed, and she gnashed them in the marine air, answering with her own directness.
he was not so large that she could not break his neck and skin him for the sake of his stringy meat. careful, a growl warned, before chani turned away, back to curl the children where the bird would not glimpse them again.
and then a thought came to her.
from the denmouth flew three half-chewed vole carcasses, the last fresh-caught that day. 
a truce. a trap. he decided.