Oystercatcher Tide Pools place your bets

"I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight!"

A quartet of wolves picked their way along the shore, raucous in their revelry and paying no mind to the seagulls that were still trying to sleep in the sandy hills to their right. Two women, almost identical in appearance, were almost shouting the words to their chosen song, playing up their expressions as they danced around a third and fourth wolves - two men - in what seemed to be a concerted effort to annoy them.

One man seemed unphased, and carried on as if there were not two harpies crowing in his ears. He did not even look as one of the women suddenly took up a passionate solo.

"Somewhere after midnight
In my wildest fantasy
Somewhere just beyond my reach
There's someone reaching back for me
Racing on the thunder and rising with the heat
It's gonna take a superman to sweep me off my feet!"

"As much as I'd love to listen to this all day, it looks like dinner has arrived. Let's pause the encore, shall we?" the man said dryly, fighting a smile.

The soloist made a noise of displeasure. "It's dinner and a show, Bron. You don't pause, you just enjoy." She cleared her throat as if getting ready to begin anew, but was halted by a look from her twin. They'd been travelling for several days without pause, and while there'd been plenty enough food to pick off the shore, they hadn't stopped for a real feast in some time. "Intermission!" she declared, bounding the rest of the way toward the pools up ahead. Her twin seemed to see it as a challenge, and the pair reached the pools long before the men, leaving poor Bron to enjoy the silence in their dust.

When the two pairs came back together, the twins were already picking through the tidepools, and the Soloist was shaking a small crab from her whiskers. Bron chuckled as it flew off, only to have her chase after it and pounce on it once more. But there was little excitement after that, and the quartet grew further and further apart as they perused the fine buffet laid out before them.

A steady rumble of beatitude was all that Komodo could offer the women for their raucous chorus. He was not a bard himself, nor a performer, so more often than not he acted as the audience rather than a willing participant in their zesty song and dance — but he was appreciative of their energy and vigor and the difference that it brought to each day. The more Komodo wayfared, the more Komodo realized that he need not waste time on the mundane and the monotonous; to have a traveling spirit meant to delight in things both beautiful in their simplicity and enchanting in their complexity. It was a lifestyle that revered the uncertainty of what tomorrow might bring, but the certainty of survival. The earthstalker liked most meeting those with a story to tell, or wisdom to impart, or the drive for enterprise; and he found these the trio of Sirimiri, Serein and Brontide fulfilled these wants greatly. The earthstalker stayed with the trio not out of necessity, but out of preference.

As the two meadowlarks wove in and out of their trajectory, singing in their ears as a bee would woo a flower, Komodo gave a chuffing laugh and shook his head. Then he settled his awareness on their coastal milieu, probing the landscape to find any sense of familiarity — he could not glean the summer’s hospitality amongst winter’s harsh cumbrance, but all he had ever known of this place was the frivolity of the warmer seasons, anyways. Komodo cut his gaze against the grayness of thick, briny air to see if he could see Wheeling Gull Isle amongst the mists — he couldn’t, and reasoned that they were still too far away [but inside he believed it was more likely that the sea swallowed had the land and reclaimed it with the very brine seas that had birthed them].

The twins ran ahead to raid the tidepools and the brute lumbered on alongside Brontide, stride intentional and low and jaguar-like. As close with the trio as he was, Komodo would always be the one not of their blood — a fact all four of them were more than happy to gloss over every time they met or decided to emigrate together. The earthstalker was a man of the gods and did not believe in coincidences, so when the power that be saw fit to reunite them, Komodo happily obliged in this divinity and followed them back into the lands he had so recently left. Allowing a trusting space to form between he and the others, Komodo began to pilfer through the shallow pools — the salt in which kept them from freezing over completely — peeling apart the small crustaceans with his incisors and imbibing upon the sweet flesh found within. 

When, by the good graces of every deity, Sirimiri and Serein stopped singing, Brontide assumed a melancholy expression and started his own solo, low and slow, his bass-baritone voice pitched to carry. He switched the song to a somber minor key, slowed down the tempo, and allowed his champagne eyes to drift easily from sister to sister as he solemnly sang:

“Where have all the good men gone,
and where are all the gods?
Where’s the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?
Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night, you toss and turn [and kick your long-suffering brother and beloved family friend]
while you dream of what you need — ”

The prolonged pause was dramatic, but it was also necessary after his rapid-fire ad lib.

Ah, sweet, sweet oxygen.

“You need a hero!
You’re holding out for a hero ‘til the end of the night,
only you’re twice as strong
and you’re three times as fast
and you’d bludgeon his ass in a fight.

You need a hero!
You’re holding out for a hero ‘til the morning light,
but you’re harpies for sure
and you sing out of tune
so you chase all the men [and the prey] out of sight!
Out of si — aughgrrrk!”

“Hurrur,” Serein proclaimed through a mouthful of Brontide’s face, her bottom canines hooked in the soft hollow at the juncture of jaw and throat and her upper ones gnawing somewhat ineffectually at his cheek. “Orrur hurrur rrum ur harrur.”

With perfect understanding, “Yeah? Look who’s talking,” Brontide rumbled, tipping his head and dipping his shoulder until she was forced to let go. Utterly unrepentant, he leapt at his littermate in an attempt to wrestle her down and drown her [just a little bit, of course] in one of the tide pools. She slipped easily out of reach, but he recovered neatly — he hadn’t been lying about the whole “three times as fast” bit — and managed to grab one hind leg in his mouth, tripping her. With a wicked grin, Serein latched onto one of his hind legs, and just like that they formed a wolf version of the ouroboros, tumbling harmlessly to the earth.

“Let go!” they growled in unison. “YOU let go!”

Sirimiri abandoned picking over the tide pools in favor of coming to watch Brontide's performance. She stood beside Komodo, tail wagging idly as she allowed the altered lyrics to wash over her. Her brother had always had a knack for keeping tune even while ad libbing - something Siri had always admired.

Of course, it ended the way these things usually did. Siri looked on with quiet disappointment as her siblings tussled. "I quite liked it," she said to Komodo, sounding vaguely distressed. Her expression, though, remained clear of all emotion, and a moment later, she'd returned to the tidepools, leaving the Earthstalker to untangle Bron and Ser. She hummed the song under her breath, trying to think of her own lines to substitute - but nothing much came to mind.

pls forgive me I can't make pretty posts like you guys

Komodo was a sober fellow — always had been, and likely always would be. His style of performance pertained to religion and pontifical ceremony only; there was chanting involved, but the words were given voice by the beast deep inside, inspired by his smokes and medicines and sacrificial trinkets. That was his place — upon the pulpit, communing the gods and requesting their favor. That was his art, and it came from the heart and was performed with a superabundance of passion. The singing and the dancing was best left to the women, for they sounded both better and looked better than males, and was quite endearing. Sure, in his travels he had known men to do this too, but he also knew then to have certain proclivities, and Komodo was certainly not a gay wolf.

Neither was Brontide, as the man was something of a lothario — but sometimes he wondered about the songful brute. 

With a tickled smirk painted upon his maw, Komodo followed Sirimiri’s gaze to watch as the ouroboros struggled and harmlessly gnawed upon each other. This was typical of the siblings and the playfulness of it all reminded the earthstalker of the tiny Coelacanth, after her feral tendencies had been cajoled into submission and she had recovered from whatever trauma had brought her to the island [he guessed she would never be able to speak more than simple words and hushes phrases, so he may never know]. At times he wondered what the sprite was doing, but felt confident that she was safe beside Stockholm — a man who was a stranger to him, but somehow he trusted implicitly.

Siri walked away to resume her pickings and Komodo strode lazily over to other two, standing abreast their tangled forms. He pressed his cedar-stained visage against Serein and gave her one, two nudges as if bestowing her endeavors with his silent support.   

Nonsense! Mixposts are bestposts.

Serein greeted Komodo’s encouraging nudges with a few hearty thumps of her tail — and when Brontide let go of her leg with an affronted, “You got sand in my eyes!” it was just an added bonus, really. She bounded lithely to her paws with a dismissive sniff, bored with the game, and flashed the Earthstalker a warm smile before sidling past him to join her twin. Brontide rolled more slowly to his feet, shaking the sand out of his fur and snorting to clear his nostrils. “How far to the island, Komodo?” he asked curiously, making his own way toward the tide pools with a companionable shoulder-to-shoulder nudge. He began to graze through them but found himself unimpressed with the sporadic rhythm of their foraging:

Walk. Stop. Snap. Swallow. Rinse and repeat.

He kept his eye on a flock of oystercatchers engaged in a disagreement over — whatever birds got into disagreements about. The moment the opportunity presented itself, Brontide lunged, and although his teeth merely clipped the wing of one of the birds who’d fluttered too close, he was quick to lunge a second time, snapping its neck and ending its suffering. Unceremoniously, he flopped down to eat, spitting feathers but supremely pleased.

A soft snicker punctuated Brontide's complaint. She did not exactly take pleasure in her siblings' misery, but when they brought it on themselves, she certainly enjoyed observing the comeuppance. A little sand in the eye never hurt anyone, anyway.

Serein came to hide behind her, and Siri continued to browse idly while watching Bron out of the corner of her eye. Her head lifted when he caught the gull, and she blinked at him with a look of distant interest on her face. Would he share? The streamlined girl wandered nearer as she picked through the pools, leaving Serein to entreat sympathy from Komodo, the poor man. Siri, for her part, continued to look lost and vaguely troubled as her grazing brought her nearer and nearer to the Corten man.

Finally, when she was just close enough, she made a snap for the bird, dancing away with her head tossed high and a merry glint in her eyes whether or not she succeeded.

"Nah' much farther..." Komodo answered, but assumed this answer fell upon deaf ears. There was a commotion down the beach — Brontide had caught a seafowl — and Komodo was impressed with the man’s endeavors but continued his way across the tidal pools, plucking what he could from the waters. This soon dissolved into a fascination with the ocealife that existed in such tiny, aquatic worlds — how could they ever be happy in a domain so small, when they were aware of the full ocean that lay just beyond? He nosed them absentmindedly, watching the crabs scuttle away and the tiny fish flick their tails at him. 

Becoming bored, but not willing to join Sirimiri and Brontide’s play, the brute lumbered over to Serein and brushed up against her side and walked abreast the shewolf as she indulged. The angakkuq never ate much, really. It was a part of his austerity, and an aspect of his religion that he expected others to not understand. Komodo ate for sustenance, not for gluttony or hedonistic pleasures, and that did not require much.

“Ah’never could unnastan’ yer taste fer seafood,” he mentioned idly to the agouti girl, pawing at a spiny sea urchin and wondering what part of this would be considered appetizing. Though he spent significant time with the Cortens, their seafaring nature never truly rubbed off on him. Most of his education lay in forest shamanism, rather than oceanic zealotry, anyways.
  

Brontide slapped a heavy paw over his prize when Sirimiri made a bid for it, spitting a mouthful of feathers in her general direction — he’d heard that snicker! He was quick to relent, though. You couldn’t call Bron a particularly chivalrous male, but he was a softie when it came to his family. Tearing the carcass into two roughly equal portions, he tossed her the larger piece and continued his repast in one fluid motion. Grunting companionably at her, he asked, “What’re you thinking about?” It was never easy to tell with Sirimiri. She took after their mother, that way. He didn’t offer any leading questions — things like, “Think we’ll find the little’uns?” or, “Think we’ll stick around for awhile?” might derail her train of thought.

He did wonder, though.

“I heard you,” Serein assured Komodo, “and I’ll be the first to tell Brontide he needs to clean the sand out of his ears if he says you didn’t answer him.” They both knew the stormy-furred male wasn’t the type to nitpick, though, so the warm laugh that followed was not at her brother’s expense but at her own. She butted hard at the angakkuq’s shoulder with her muzzle when he pawed [albeit gently] at the urchin. “Don’t!” she warned with an alarmed bark. “Even if the spines don’t look terribly painful, they can still get stuck — do you really want us to take turns peeing on your paw?” Though she chided him, her eyes were gentle and her tone still bore the lightness of her laughter. “Anyway, I’m shocked and offended at your dislike of seafood,” she told him, obviously in jest, “as are all of my ancestors.”

A murmur of appreciation escaped Sirimiri as she descended upon the gull. Seafare would always be her favorite, but she'd been craving blood and warm meat, lately. The gull was not quite as satisfying as sea lion always was, but she knew better to dwell on it. Whatever her mother might predict, Sirimiri never trusted the Hunter's Moon to arrive until she saw it with her own two eyes.

"Blood," she said easily when Bron asked what she was thinking about. And then, peripherally, "Sex. It's that time of year." Which meant she had a big decision to make. Likely, she'd make the same decision she'd made every year: to wait and see. And waiting inevitably led to inaction, which meant she would be a bachelorette for the forseeable future. That suited her just fine. But she still thought about it, and there was nothing wrong with that, was there?

Her eyes travelled to Serein, who was busy cosying up to the Earthstalker. She looked, perhaps, a little longer than usually before turning her gaze - fond but oddly serene - to her brother. Thoughts drifted to the smattering of tiny Cortens he'd undoubtedly left in a long trail behind them, but she knew better than to bring that up. "I wonder if those two kids will end up like us," she added, assuming she didn't need to name their niece and nephew for Bron to know who she was talking about. Her eyes regained their merry glimmer, after a moment. "Our line will die out if all of us inherit the wandering spirit of the Cortens." Which was sad, really, because Sirimiri thought it was a lovely trait.

 

I may or may not be nursing a bottle wine, i’m sorry lol

Serein’s bark of admonition was almost enough to make Komodo jump. His entire form tensed, and then almost immediately broke its stiffness with a rumble of laughter and a shake of his head. Then, with a swat of the paw, the threatening urchin was removed from the vicinity and the man glanced towards the sandy fae, face writ with uncharacteristic bravado. “Ha!” he called out, puffing out the creamy chestnut hues of his chest. “Yah think ah’ couldn’t fix ol’ urchin-paw sin’drome? ” At this, Komodo narrowed his molten gaze and looked upon the mistral girl with a faux-critical demeanor. When did she become the nurse in their quartet? 

“Ah’ll tell yuh — peein’ on it shore aint th’answer. ” 

There was a glimmer in Komodo’s eye that hinted at his jest and general good-naturedness. He felt at ease with the Cortens; specifically these three, seeing as this was their… third [fourth?] expedition together. The brute found that their company nurtured him and he humored their playful natures, though singing along with their endless nursery rhymes was never on the barter table. It mostly manifested in harmless flirting and playing with the woman, really — they were receptive to it, and Bron didn’t mind, so no harm, no foul. “Uh’course, y’know…” he drawled, rolling his salmon-pink tongue against the roof of his mouth and throwing Serein a twist of a smile. “ Now tha’ ah’ think uh’it, there migh' be nothin' that ah can’t heal.” Komodo released a bark of laughter and trotted towards where Sirimiri and Brontide feasted, before he could be subjected to Serein’s backlash for such gasconade.

Komodo did not need to hear Bron and Siri’s conversation to know what they were talking about. Mating season was in full force, now that the winter was just beginning to break, and the change in the air weighed heavily upon his subconscious. The man had always been driven by his instincts, and such a philosophy did not allow for much self-restraint. He had his fair share of bitches in heat, and probably had children out there too, some where, but the earthstalker chose not to think about it too much. Rabbitholes such as that could drive a man loony.  Coming up upon the two siblings, who had since finished their feathered meal, he let his roughhewn tone weave into the conversation and interject. “Might nah’ be such uh bad thang —“ he began, drawing up beside them and making light of the concept of the entire lineage of Cortens dying off. “seein' as y’all are nothin’ but noise.” which was funny because those little sheepdogs were both mutes, and couldn’t make a single peep at all.

“Yeah,” Brontide said simply in return to his sister’s straightforward reply, easing back from his kill to scratch at an itch behind one tattered ear. His gaze followed Sirimiri’s, and a bemused smile played about the corner of his mouth as he watched Serein and Komodo.

His ears pricked forward at the other male’s wisecracking, and his eyes narrowed in an expression of cool displeasure. His grin, though, was utterly genuine. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said blithely, utterly untroubled. “There’s enough of us sticking around on the island to keep us from ever running out. I never could understand why Tow and Kamala stopped after one litter, but there’s always Chelan and Catori’s kids. I wonder if either of them have settled down yet.” Yawning widely, Brontide rose and shook feathers and sand from his stormy fur. “If we were really worried, there’s always Aunt Turnstone’s line. Bet the Meares bunch’d ship a few puppies to Vargas Island if we ever suffered a shortage.”

Serein laughed, rubbing a cheek against her twin’s shoulder as she joined the trio. “You’re stuck with our ‘noise’ for a long time to come, Komodo,” she told him plainly.