Stavanger Bay you can call me monster

@Skellige ♡ Post is vague because much is unknown!

Post is crappy because, well. You know why. x__x;

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Find Skellige.

Purely by chance, Szymon had chosen to go right instead of left upon leaving the idyllic plateau, and as his paws touched down on sand for the first time in far too long, a hiccupping sob broke from his jaws. Home. Blunt claws dug into the coarse grains like the ravaged back of a lover as Szymon dipped his muzzle to rub his cheek compulsively against the stuff, squinting sulphereous eyes to keep any of the rough granules from abrading his precious corneas. Getting shakily to his paws, the youngest Cairn boy surveyed his surroundings with frank curiosity. A measure of tension left him at the close proximity to the ocean. Despite his neuroses, Szymon had been as proficiently trained as any of his siblings and was a formidable force to be reckoned with — on land, of course, but especially underwater. The bay he’d found was embraced between two sentinel stone cliffs, but more importantly, it carried the scent Szymon had been trailing with only marginal success for the past few weeks.

Skellige had been here — Skellige had been here recently —

“S-S-S-S — ”

Skellige? I’m lost. I’m lost.

The sibilant syllable snaked its way from Szymon’s quivering lips as the twitching of his tail reached fever pitch. Triumph and terror swam within him in equal parts — he dared not howl for his brother, not so close to claimed territory and certainly not where Ksenia might hear. It was no secret that the golden child’s devotion was to the swarthy wraith who was his inverse — turning his head to preen at the inky rib cage markings that spanned his thin sides, Szymon reassured himself with the knowledge that Skellige needed him. He did. He had to. If Skellige didn’t want Szymon…

Trembling violently, his teeth chattering as his eyes rolled, Szymon forcibly shook himself out of the fit before it could fully grip him and twist him into the ghastly incarnation of shame. He wouldn’t even think of it. Skellige loved him — more than any of Szymon’s other siblings, Skellige seemed to have a soft spot for the fragile boy. Make yourself useful, Szymon chided himself, pulling himself out of his pessimistic funk by beginning to comb the area for clues. If Skellige wasn’t here anymore, the scent of him was still so recent that Szymon would be able to locate him. Of this, the ghostly white wolf was sure.

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It was the bay that spoke to him more than any other territory. He had thought perhaps that trailing down the coast to explore the land that was located further from Deirdre would have been for the best. The wraith knew that war was commonplace when packs were founded so close to each other. Though he was callous and savage, the beast did not want to find himself having to close his fangs around the pearl’s throat. She had aided him when he was stranded on the shores, and she had returned to him to learn the ways of the water. In return, he had saved her from the attacker on the sands, and had laid with her through the night until she found the strength to stand again. War was vicious and cruel, and he did not want to impose it on her.
 
The inky figure had remained on the bay, for the most part; the seclusion of it was most appealing to the inky brute. Skellige could not help but to revert back to the ways of the Warsaw wolves. In his search, he knew that he would hope to find a place that would not easily be taken advantage of. His soul could not stand to be apart from the waters, and he knew that if he were to teach children and newcomers the way of the swell, they could not do that unless their lands were on the shoreline itself. The bay provided both of these things. Perhaps, too, in some part of his soul, he enjoyed being so close to Donnelaith. If he should attempt to pursue it, the pearl of a woman would be right beside him.
 
Lengthy dark legs carried the brute inward from the waters; he had taken the time to strengthen the muscles in his body by swimming against the crash of the waves. It had been quite some time since the wraith had found himself struggling against the tug and pull of the sea, but it brought him a strange and serene happiness that could not be rivaled by anything that the land had to offer him. Once his paws struck the land, he slipped to the shore and shook his soaked pelt free of the clinging ocean water.
 
A scent struck his nares, and the dark creature turned his skull in the direction that the wind carried it. He must have been imagining the aroma… it was not possible.
 
There, in the distance, there was a pale figure. The wraith found his breath caught in his throat and he narrowed his gaze on the body that seemed to stretch so far ahead of him. His heart thrummed in his chest like the beating of a war drum, and he drew his ears forward… almost as if he could catch the fluttering stammer of words that would fall from the pale creature’s mouth. He could not truly believe it until he had found himself beside the young boy.
 
Without hesitation, the brute’s paws struck the sand and kicked the granules upwards behind him. His pace was rapid as he loped along the water’s edge towards the distant shape. Ishild and Ksenia had already made themselves known to him, but he never would have thought that the youngest Cairn would seek the wilds and leave the islands behind. Still, as he beat his way towards the pale body, his dark eyes were alight with curiosity. Skellige could not calm the pounding of his heart inside of his chest, and just as he neared the form of Szymon, he thought it might erupt. The inky marking along the young man’s ribs was his confirmation. Ragged breathing fell from his dark leathery lips and he hung his head towards the earth, ears drawn forward.
 
“Brother,” he whispered quietly. His dark eyes had never truly spoken of love; not until that moment.
 

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Despite the bravado that currently dominated his manner of thinking, there was a part of Szymon that feared he would never see Skellige again. Szymon wasn’t selfish; there were few things he needed in this world. Above sleep, sustenance, and even the sea was the eldest Cairn, held on a pedestal Szymon was happy to coil around the base of. Though Szymon was equipped to survive without his brother, it would be lying to say that he wanted to. Dipping his scarred muzzle, he nosed at the partially excavated shell of a crustacean, serpentine tongue darting forth to lick it clean. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but he was alone and food was present — Szymon ate when he could whether his stomach grumbled or not. For amusement’s sake, he crunched the shell between his jaws, relishing the splintering sound that followed.

Find Skellige.

Chiding himself for wasting precious time, Szymon picked up his pace, looking for anything that might tell the story of where his brother had gone — inky fur snagged on a driftwood log, prints, carcasses licked clean that bore the Cairn eldest’s scent. Yet the sea was a mischievous, selfish thing — surely at this point the high tide would have swept most hints away. Closing his eyes, Szymon hung his head, upwind and facing the opposite direction from the brother he so ardently sought — completely unaware that his painfully fruitless mission was about to come to a very fruitful end.

The sound of churned sand and the muted splash of water bade Szymon turn around, his body immediately curving into a defensive crouch — but the wolf who ran toward him was unmistakable. Scarcely daring to believe that it was his brother who careened toward him with violent zeal, Szymon remained where he stood — struck dumb by the joy that radiated in hot waves through every particle of muscle and flesh. He hadn’t found Skellige — but, oh! Skellige had found Szymon instead. The youngest Cairn’s eyes immediately flicked to the pallid markings that reflected his own, and an elation almost carnal in sensation swept through him in a dizzying, delirious way. Pushing forward, his body moving of its own accord, Szymon slipped his head lower still, cautiously pushing the crown of his head beneath Skellige’s powerful jaws. His habitually twitching tail snaked behind him in long, frenetic sweeps as low, ecstatic, near hysterical whines bubbled from his quivering jaws and he butted his head skyward, bumping Skellige’s jaw to a higher elevation. Chin up, buttercup.

Szymon was a wolf of few words, but it seemed that just this once, the gods of verbal communication would let him have his say — unsullied and perfect, the way he’d always wanted to speak: “Skellige,” he rumbled in his deep, seldom heard timbre, and all the devotion in the world gilded that three-syllable moniker in gold. A long, trembling breath was drawn slowly between the ghostly wolf’s clenched teeth and spilled in a rare sigh of true contentment. Despite being opposites in nearly every way — perhaps because of it — Skellige completed Szymon.

Everything would be okay, now.

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It was almost shocking how much the young boy had changed; Skellige could recall his birth, and the growth that had shaped him into a creature who was smaller than his siblings, but far more devoted than any of the others. Szymon was special; he was the breath and body of what was good in the Cairn family, and he had not been tainted by the things that had happened to him. The wraith saw his youngest sibling and felt a breath of relief slip from his lips.
 
As the pale boy closed the short distance between them, Skellige watched the movements of his sibling with a careful eye. He had been banished from Warsaw for some time now, and he did not want to think that his other brothers and sisters had taken advantage of the weakness in Szymon. He was still a Cairn and he still knew their ways. The boy seemed to move with submission and a gentle sway. His muzzle slipped under Skellige’s chin and lifted his skull upwards. The wraith looked at the sand that stretched beyond them and heaved a heavy sigh that had filled his soul and his lungs with remorse for having left the pale child behind.
 
When the ivory-clad child spoke his name, it brought many memories back to the inky titan. His body tightened and he felt himself grow tired very suddenly. Skellige was far from home, and now so were many – if not all – of the other Cairn children. Who was there to take rule over Warsaw? Surely they had not left the pack in the hands of only their parents. The islands were sacred and could not be stolen from them… not when they had held it for such a short time. The fear bubbled in his gut for several long moments before he had to force himself to remain calm.
 
“Szymon, did you travel here with one of the others? Ishild? Ksenia?” he inquired of his brother. Skellige had found that questions were best asked to the boy if they could be answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and not much more. He did not want to strain the pale child or awaken the awful stammer that sat in the back of his throat. Little did Skellige know, even their half sibling Marbas had made his way to the wilds. None of the prodigal children were located on Warsaw at that time save for Jagoda. And the white-masked brute was not fit to lead the lands.
 
Skellige could not allow himself to care for the pack that had thrown him. He would be forced to move on and claim his own land; it was time for him to show the others that his banishment had not rendered him useless or pathetic. They had bred him for war and ravaging, and he intended to do just that. He did not need their islands to thrive.

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Szymon, ever attuned to his eldest brother’s moods, fixed his sulphureous eyes obliquely on Skellige’s face with unmasked intensity as Skellige took his own inventory of Szymon’s relative condition. Szymon was, perhaps, a little worse for the wear — the Cairn brood was a frenzy of sharks with venomous fangs, born to a warring territory and bred for that violent art. The sigh that heaved from Skellige’s face in a remorseful rush was met with another pointed thrust of Szymon’s crown against the underside of that swarthy jaw. In Szymon’s eyes, there was nothing that needed to be forgiven or dwelled upon — his devotion was absolute, and all was well now.

The tension that seized, for the moment, the wrathful titan’s steely musculature begged a kneejerk response from his smaller sibling — casting his gaze away from Skellige’s face, Szymon scanned the area for any intruders or interlopers that might destroy the fierce contentment of this reunion. His hackles flickered to life along his spine like a cresting wave of cream and ginger as he flicked his tongue out to catch the tip of his nose. A familiar scent tickled the edge of Szymon’s senses with this close proximity to his brother — Donnelaith — and Deirdre — but he thought little of it as Skellige began to speak. Watching carefully as Skellige formed his query, grateful for the ease with which he could reply, Szymon slowly, definitively shook his head. His ears flatted with discontent, winging to each side of his head like a furry airplane at the mention of Ksenia before settling habitually back upon his skull in submission. With quiet clarity, he moved like a pointing dog — thrusting his scarred muzzle in the general direction of the mountain tarn where he’d seen her. The golden eyes registered surprise that Ishild was here — Szymon bore no ill will or outright terror toward his less physically demonstrative sibling.

Szymon was perhaps ill-suited for the violence and vehemence of his bloodline — yet had he been offered the opportunity to escape it, he would have passionately rejected it. Like an omega wolf, Szymon was content to remain on the fringes of pack life — a reluctant war machine who, despite his capabilities, would likely have been happier not knowing the metallic, uniquely acrid flavor of wolf blood — but the idea of being on the outside was terrifying. Ksenia was not known for her kindness and warmth anymore than Skellige himself was, and Szymon reasoned that if Skellige wanted her dead, die she would. He didn’t like the idea — but so devoted was the boy to Skellige that even the simple reason — “because I feel like it,” — would more than suffice.

With a frenetic twitch of his tail, Szymon uttered a low, rumbling growl, his golden eyes casting about the area with an eloquent turn of his head — and, after a beat, the guttural noise smoothed out into a deep-pitched query: well? What are we doing here? All around him was the scent of Skellige, and as his gaze flickered to one, then the other stone sentinel that clasped the bay in a lover’s embrace, he pushed his ears forward upon his skull, cupping them toward the eldest Cairn as though awaiting his verdict of the place. It was prime territory — but with such close proximity to Donnelaith, claiming the area promised to be a difficult, delicate task. Still, the Cairn brood tended to be selfish of the places and people they claimed — if Skellige wanted the bay, he could take it. It wasn’t like either Skellige or Szymon to wander endlessly — they needed roots, a place to guard and defend. It was what they were born for, after all.

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The Cairn children were a strange group. Their entire family, for that matter, was a group that was not too prominently typical in any aspect of their lives. The blood that coursed through them also coursed through many of the wolves on Warsaw, but it was only those who carried their name who were smiled on. In the eyes of the others, Bronislav and Serafiem had done exceptionally well in their offspring. They had produced Skellige as their first born. From the moment he had opened his tiny maw and cried to the world, they had assigned him the ruler of the dredge, and he had done well in their tasks. Jaglon had been assigned as a reefer, and when Ksenia had finally emerged from the womb, all of the wolves of Warsaw had held their breath at the sight of her. Even after she had grown into an adult, they had marveled still. Their second litter had offered the islands more leaders for their roles. Ishild was a merciless breaker. Jagoda an angler that could not be matched by any other. Leokadia was adaptable but found her passion as a nautilus. And then there was Szymon…
 
None of them had known what to do about Szymon. He had been born with a startlingly contrasting coat coloration to Skellige’s and the mystics had been adamant about telling Serafiem that she had not given birth to a cursed child. Still, they had treated the boy as though he was a plague on their islands. He did not seem to truly fit any role that they assigned him, and so they set the pallid figure out to tend to the others. Skellige had always found a soft spot in his heart for the contrasting boy… for his brother, but the other Cairn children were vicious and cruel to Szy, and they had forced him into a neurotic state of being. The inky sea king could never abuse his youngest brother the way that his siblings had. He was a wicked man, but he could not muster the strength to harm the ink-ribbed child.
 
Even still, when the boy answered his question with a nervous shake of his skull and pointed his muzzle in the direction of a mountain that stretched further away, Skellige did not fault him. “You’ve seen her, then,” the leviathan remarked with a cold clip to his words. The wraith did not need to speak it for there to be an understanding. He wanted the pale woman dead. His first attempt – though botched – had not deterred him from finishing the job. Having her there without Jaglon was a marvel to him, and yet he could not help the anger that rose in the back of his throat at the thought of her sauntering into the wilds to find him without a significant form of defense to assist her. She would regret the decision she had made. Festering for a moment, the brute heaved a heavy sigh and fixed his dark eyes on the youngest Cairn. There was a questioning expression in the yellow of his brother’s eyes.
 
Glancing around to the bay where they stood, Skellige nodded his head. “This will be our home, Szymon. I will take this bay and you may stay here with me. You will not have to return to the brutality of the others. But we must find those of us who are alike in mind and soul… those who have spoken with the sea and have answered the call,” he explained in a quiet and rumbling voice. But the leviathan did not doubt that they would come; the swell of the ocean did not intend to see the ink child fail in his endeavors. Already, he had failed so much. This would be a triumph.

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Were Warsaw a ship, Szymon would have been cast as the Jonah — and had his parents and siblings not thrust him physically and emotionally into that role, his guilty conscience would have just as soundly done the trick. Only Skellige had taken a chance on the golden-hearted youngest Cairn, and for that glimmer of understanding, Szymon had willingly devoted his life to the stormy titan. A sharp nod greeted the leviathan’s clipped assumption, the pallid younger brother’s lip curling with derision at the mere thought of the vain creature that was his sister. Szymon remained watchful and wary as wrath churned within the silver-ribbed dredge king’s breast; Skellige’s temper was not one to be trifled with, and although he was gentler than most with the sulphureous-eyed boy, it still did not pay for Szymon to let his guard down.

Patiently he waited, and was awarded with Skellige’s command. Glancing about with new zeal in his glowing golden eyes, the youngest Cairn surveyed the area. Dipping his head low in respect and tacit understanding, Szymon greeted the thunder rumble of Skellige’s voice with a low, guttural growl of his own. As the leviathan spoke, so his will would be done — for his will was the sea’s will, and the sea provided.

Now as Szymon looked around the bay proper, he saw promise. Who could fight with equal ferocity in sand, shale, and sea, but a Cairn? Despite the abuse of his childhood, Szymon had killed and conquered — not with the zeal and carnal enjoyment of his kin, but with at least the same efficiency. Growing up in Warsaw had brought about a change, a loss of innocence, in the inky-ribbed creature. He looked at sand and saw advantage there — the Cairns’ long legs were meant for running both sprint and distance in the stuff. He looked at the sea and saw a means of beating the famine that these poor wolves of the valleys, forests, and mountains could not fathom. Many had died needlessly; for the bounty of the ocean was just beneath their noses had they even dared to look. If any wolf were to conquer the bay, Skellige Cairn could do it.

And Szymon would support him every step of the way.

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The subject of Ksenia was a difficult one for the inky brute to manage. In spite of his composure, there was a torrid anger that sat like an ember in his gut. The leviathan was nearly grateful that his youngest sibling was nearly incapable of speaking, or he would have found himself throwing hateful words at the pallid boy instead of to their witch of a sister. It was she who deserved his rage; she had earned enough of it, and yet there was a substantial amount that waged war inside of him. The leviathan would not look kindly on her, should she arrive at his borders. Something spoke to him and settled as a warning for what was to come. He knew that he could not rely on all of the Cairn children to stand beside him, but having one was more than he would have hoped for.
 
Skellige did not possess the same charisma and skilled manipulation that Ksenia did. He could not hope to speak as eloquently as she, or walk with the grace of a true queen. But the colorless woman had been groomed for her role, and so he could attribute many of her skills to this alone. Nevertheless, there did not seem to be a day that passed where the wraith did not question his true fate. Were he to have simply allowed their games unfold and taken his seat as a pawn, the sea king would have found himself among the fellow dredge of the islands. He would have been able to live there and prosper on their lands, fending off the surrounding wolves so that his family would maintain the honor of holding Warsaw. If only he had been as obedient as the others, there would have been no strife. But Skellige could not hold back the hatred he felt for his littermate. His wishes were to see her to an end. He would gift her skull to the Witch Doctor and would wear her pelt atop his head like a pale crown.
 
Seeing Szymon react in a manner that spoke of abuse, the brute frowned at him. It was wise to shy away from the leviathan when he found himself troubled by his moods. The great inky beast was capable of bringing himself to a calmer state of being. Instead of lashing out at the younger Cairn, he swallowed the bile that had risen in the back of his throat and forced himself to center on their tasks. With the support that he had found and the growth of their small group, Skellige was prepared to make his claim. Deirdre had found a way to accept his alliance, and the coalition brought a strange sense of pleasure to the brute.
 
Drawing his dark gaze toward his pallid sibling, the leviathan breathed steadily. “We have much to do, Szymon,” he reflected aloud. “I will ask that in the coming days, you assist in marking the borders of the bay. Seek the Witch Doctor for assistance, or to find out if she may need you to gather herbs. She’s… peculiar, but the sea has already spoken their intentions for her.” The instructions were simple and there were no doubts about Szymon’s capabilities in performing the tasks. Skellige knew that his role there would be monumental if they were to succeed.

The youngest Cairn awaited quietly, expectantly, the command of his brother; he would keep an eye out for the Witch Doctor in question, and in the meanwhile he would train and fortify the territory borders. It was not so different from his life in Warsaw, but Szymon bristled at the thought of lesser wolves — wolves who were not of the coveted Cairn blood — usurping his place. Flexing his paws, he fixed his sulphureous eyes upon Skellige’s face with new determination; he turned, seizing a length of ropelike kelp from the golden granules at their feet, and shook his head briefly from left to right — a swift maneuver that rocked the slight weight of his body to his hindquarters. Done correctly, it could snap a spine or break a neck. Jaws flexed as Szymon ground the kelp between his teeth and jerked, spitting the green and brown flecks onto the earth as he scratched a wide swath in the sand. At home, he had snapped bone and crushed throats with the same efficiency, and as he turned to look his brother in the eye — his narrow skull still held respectfully beneath the line of his shoulders in deference to the eldest Cairn — Szymon confirmed what Skellige already understood.

Szymon was still a Cairn. He would do anything required to build the regime here.

A low, guttural howl scraped the bottom of the bass register as Szymon proclaimed his brother’s status as Leviathan; it was not a voice pitched to carry — not yet, not until things were firmly set in motion — but in action and in the incontestable language of wildspeech, Szymon accepted Skellige’s leadership and pledged his willingness.

Our sea king, who art before me,
dreaded be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on these shores as in Warsaw.

There was no question that the pallid boy would follow Skellige. The leviathan knew better than to doubt the youngest Cairn – his devotions had always been true, and had always lingered on the inky titan as opposed to their pale sister. Their family was a hydra of sorts; cut off one head and two replace it. However, there were ties between members that were stronger than others. It was evident by the look in the pale golden eyes of Szymon that he would be there to stay. In this, the great sea king could have no doubts. His eyes burned into the face of his brother as the young boy reared his head back and sang to the heavens of their intentions. It would be known by all of those around them that the bay belonged to the eldest Cairn. While his pride had caused him to falter many times in the past, it would not take advantage of him in his claiming of the throne.
 
The sea had always wanted him beside her; she had sent whispers to him in his travels and lured him to her breast. It had not been Ksenia who had been beckoned to the bay, but he – Skellige – and that was proof enough of his rightful ownership to wear the crown of Leviathan.
 
The wraith felt a rumbling in his chest, and the breeze with her brine lifted the fur along his neck and shoulders until he loomed like a shadow on the shore. Throwing his head back, the brute called to the skies and to the forceful waves. This empire will be mine. The depths will know my claim. All of his previous rage and hatred for Warsaw had become minute. Skellige was exactly where he needed to be.  

A fierce and vicious snarl curled the lip of the youngest Cairn, who felt the monster within him gnash its teeth deliciously at the sound of Skellige’s voice. It was the voice of a wolf accustomed to living seaside — it caught the tradewinds and billowed skyward, floating over the surface of the wave-rippled surface and diving below. The lash of Szymon’s tail was a wild, frenetic thing as he eagerly reached up to clasp his eldest brother’s chin and lower jaw between his teeth in a wordless sign of respect and triumph. And then, facing the Sea they both loved, Szymon threw back his head — keeping the crown of his head at a respectful parallel with his brother’s lower jaw — and howled, scraping the bottom of his bass register and pouring the whole of his heart into this cry. With Skellige leading the cry and leading the pack, the last reserves of doubt fissured away from Szymon’s tortured heart.

This land was a new beginning for the eldest Cairn. Could it be a new beginning for the youngest as well? He had spent his life crushed beneath the boot heel and raked by the fangs of his siblings — a late bloomer, a failed experiment, perhaps — but for the first time he felt there was something in the air here, something that could be combed from the gold of these shores, that would transform him and lift him up again. Butting his shoulder against Skellige’s with a hopeful, toothy smile, Szymon sang again the proclamation that was Skellige’s claim and then dared his brother’s ire with a sharp nip to the older wolf’s chest. “Are you a fool land wolf? No? Then come back home,” bespoke the wicked gleam of his eyes, and Szymon darted toward the roiling Sea. He had been too long without Her arms around him.