Sea Lion Shores and she won't wake for no shouting

@Revui
forward dated to the 11th!
64F, rainy, 2pm

the line of the coast is more familiar now. bays and cliffs and forest, all uniformly buried in the deluge. yunxu cuts a thin and wiry figure, windswept and bedraggled in the rain, fur flat to his skin. he snorts water irritably from the tip of his nose.

does it never stop raining here?

he’d expected leaving home would be unpleasant; it has been, in the expected ways. rain chasing him nonstop for seven days was hardly expected.

but worse has failed to stop him before. he sweeps along the coast, picks his delicate way over the rocks. the wind sends waves crashing over stone; the path is slick with rainwater and algae but yunxu moves with practiced ease, withstanding the seaspray with hunched shoulders and face half-turned from the shore.

the sea lions must be present for their scent to still be this strong. yunxu squints through the mist and cloud and into the rocky shoals, searching out their shapes. as familiar as the sea is, salt and sand and waves, this foreign shoreline isn’t quite the same.

The rain he had experienced in the Heartwood picked up over the course of the hour, becoming a full-tilt storm as he moseyed his way north, and when Revui hit the coastal edge of the world he was met with a torrent from the sky and raucous booming of the sea below. He was soaked through, colder than what he would expect from the season, and with no end in sight to the rain.

It wasn't pleasant but he wasn't mindful enough of the danger such weather posed. He moved for cover away from the cliffs all the same, his gunmetal coat closer to cast iron, darker along his shoulders where the rain soaked in steadily. As he descended from the cliffside towards the beach he expected to find some cover, and found nothing.

The sand flowed in dark brown bands across a corridor of emptiness; the sea rising in frothy waves against it, while a steady gale pulsed against his own momentum. Revui does not know what to expect here. It is an alienating space. Had he ever seen the ocean before, or the shoreline, like this? It does not feel familiar, but his periphery is blotted out by a storm front and the booming of the tide is, at times, deafening.

He spies something dark lurking alongside the sea spray, and chooses to investigate. The beastly man leaves a trail of deep-set prints in the wet soil as he goes, which are swept clear by the rushing wine-dark pulses of the ocean, licking at his heels.

what sea lions might be here are well and truly hidden, not like the seals on the bay’s shore. the water reaches underneath the rocks; with his injured shoulder, it is harder to justify slipping in after them. he dips his head, muzzle brushing along the jut of stone.

a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye.

the young shark turns.

the shape coming up through the sleeting rain tugs at some primal part of his brain before he can make out much of it. stonefaced, a cloudbank rolling in from the mountains. through the gloom, a pair of seaglass eyes –

– teeth snapping along the sunbrushed stony grey of a throat. the shocked gleam of gold as the ground crumbles, and a body falls away –

yunxu freezes, as if the leviathan will turn and leave if he sees nothing to chase. as if he’ll fade into the background if he’s still enough. the rolling waves come up to lap at his paws, threatening to pull him in.

the sea is furious today, as tossed by the wind and weather as it has been since he pulled himself from the water. his shoulder aches with the echo of owlglass’ teeth, and seawolf or not he knows full well the ocean will be happy to drag him under to join the last two it claimed.

he still prefers his chances with it than with the figure coming up the shore.

The figment is lost among the sheets of rain, greyed out more like it. The drops are constant enough to be like static and the figure he is trying to follow vanishes before his eyes. Revui pauses. He tries to scent the wind and tastes cold water at the back of his throat instead, having shorted rivulets of rain water up through his sinuses. It wasn't pleasant; he turns and gags, spitting a wad of something in to the hazy sand. It would have been enough of a window for his target to flee, had they been moving. In the next instant he is marching again, following the browned sand and the divots left behind by heavy paws - leaning to one side, likely from an injury. It could have been Sunhawk.

yunxu turns on his heel. with his head ducked down against the saltspray he picks up speed. he knows as he does it it’s not a smart idea. his paws slip on the rocks and if he isn’t careful he’ll break himself open on them. easy prey.

he manages to keep himself upright for a terrifying minute or so, sliding on thick algae and rocks slick with water. but his shoulder burns with every step and, eventually, the stretch of his leg breaks open the scab; a fresh wave of pain rises down to his toes, and his next step takes him slightly off balance.

his foot comes down awkwardly, and that’s all it takes. he doesn’t even have the chance to scramble for purchase. there’s a horrible moment where his heart rises into his throat, and it’s not that far a drop but all he can think of is his sunstriped opponent disappearing over the cliffside –

– and then he hits the ground hard, breath rushing from his lungs, his head thuds onto the sand. a wave crashes over him, and yunxu flinches back until his back hits the rocks, spluttering and spitting seawater with a new ache in his ribs to match his protesting shoulder.