Oystercatcher Tide Pools do not look for my heart anymore, the beasts have eaten it

It is high tide and the waves cover the pools beneath. Ksenia can see the depths of them when the crashing falls just right and the sun filters through the white caps. The depth of the sand is unknown to her and she doesn’t try to wade him and find something to satisfy the hunger brewing in her stomach. It had been days, maybe longer, since she’d had anything to feed the growling in her belly. It reminds her frequently she hasn’t fed and nothing she does can satiate the feeling. Attempts to fill herself with water only placate it long enough to get by in her search and, if she’s desperate enough, she’ll chew on a few sticks to bide the time.

Ksenia runs her tongue across her muzzle, the familiarity of salt clinging to her fur. She hasn’t spent much time away from the coast if she can help it. Saltwater courses her veins instead of blood and if Skellige is truly one of their own, he wouldn’t have traveled too far from the ocean. She never had much of a trail to go on, trusting what little information Ishild had given her and the ocean to lead the way. It had been sometime since she realized she’d been flying blind for the last several weeks, perhaps a month or more, but she knew her journey would not be in vain.

She knows she’ll return home, one day, stained in blood.

I am shamelessly going to steal this

There was a certain madness in his eyes. The inky savage took to the coast in a frenzy, but after an hour of searching, his rapid heart had slowed and his mind began to search for reason. Her scent was unmistakably carried by the wind - tainted in brine and salt, but still prevalent. Skellige would not have mistaken it for anything. It only made sense for the pale cunt to seek the coast. They were born to the ocean and they would die beside it. She was a Cairn. They did not wander far from their home. 

The waves sounded as they rolled to the shore quietly before being pulled back out. High tide, he observed with a thoughtful frown in the direction of the ocean. Furrowed brows creased his forehead for a moment before he lowered his muzzle to the sands and trotted forward, eyes peeled. The hunger in his gut made him short in temper and quicker to lash out. There was no logical presence in his mind. He needed to survive, not placate those around him. Though his regard for the pack wolves of the Teekon wilds was something that would certainly cause him trouble over time. 

His eyes locked on her. Instantly, his hackles rose and the fur along his spine prickled with an intense longing that he wasn't sure he could sate it. Skellige could scarcely believe it. Ksenia right before his very eyes... and without Jaglon. It was unimaginable. Fate.

Can't even let me get settled. :P

She had plenty of time to think about what she would do if—when, she's frequently had to remind herself—she finds him. It has been some time since she'd been on his trail and the last little while she'd been navigating blindly. Ishild's information has already run dry but Ksenia is far from giving up. She won't allow herself to return without something to show for it. Weary and hungry does not bode well with her either, and as a scent infiltrates her nose, she at first brushes it off as fantasy. She's distracted and tired and in that moment, on pause in her search and her brain is doing the best to keep her on track.

When the wind shifts, she loses the scent, and she confirms it had only been her imagination. However, it shifts in a big gust off the ocean water and she turns her head, avoiding the spray but through slitted eyes she sees a darkened figure against the background. Dark red eyes pierce through and her hackles raise, buffing up her shoulders. Ksenia doesn't move forward, doesn't growl, but her darkened lips lift to show her teeth. A warning, maybe. Most likely a threat. Either way, there's a satisfaction rumbling in her stomach.

"Dear brother," she says, despite the wind carrying her voice. He'd hear her. "I have missed you so."

I JUST LOVE YOU... and i was excited

Her voice reached his ears on the whisper of wind that carried it. The inky male’s chest tightened and he could feel his blood reaching a boil. She did not look any different. Her colorless figure, tinged in the salt from the ocean water, and her cold eyes. Skellige could scarcely breathe from the hatred that was rising in his gut and sitting at the back of his throat like bile.
 
It wasn’t enough that he had been banished from the islands because of his failed attempt to end her. How the pale woman had managed to find him, he didn’t know, but she had no place in the Teekon wilds. It had been made clear that Ksenia’s duties were to the Warsaw wolves. For only a fraction of a second, Skellige wondered how she had managed to slip away from their islands in search of him. After driving the thought through his mind several times, he cast it aside in anger. Drawing his dark gaze over her form, the inky Cairn wondered if Jaglon or any of the others were far behind her, or if they were waiting for him to be drawn out. Cautiously, the silver-ribbed savage took a plodding step forward; his legs quivered with the rage inside him.
 
“You should not be here,” he spat angrily at her, drawing his lips over his fangs in a show of aggression. “You’ve already taken Warsaw from me.” Would she not rest until she had taken everything else?

“You’re right, I shouldn’t be,” she says in a huff. Irritation evident but, this time, isn’t directed at her brother. Pale eyes glance away, looking at the ocean, but the sun shines bright against the surface so much she has to divert her gaze. She squints and shies away, looking elsewhere away from the coast. Her sigh exhales enough that rattles her body, hungry and famished, and even his single step forward doesn’t rattle her. Eventually, she allows her light gaze to find his features that show nothing but angry and hatred while her own has considerably softened.

Ksenia’s ears fall back against her head and she frowns, taking another step to close the distance.

“I shouldn’t be here anymore than you should,” she says, “mom does nothing but talk about the mistake she made since she banished you.” 

She swallows a lump she forms in her throat and her head turns in a way that flashes the scar along her neck. Ksenia only catches a glimpse of it when she’s quenching her thirst, but for those around her it’s a reminder and even if she doesn’t see it often, she’s always aware of its presence. Her pale, silvered eyes turn to her brother then, pleading, as her own form reduces in his sight.

For a moment in time, her words actually struck him. He peered at her, his position aggressive, and listened to the lies that fell from her lips. But Skellige’s desires were enough to cloud his judgement for a moment in time. She was right in the sense that they did not belong there. They were Cairn children; they belonged to the battlegrounds of Warsaw. Ksenia truly appeared to be perturbed by both of their positions there. The inky brute took a step towards her with caution on his face. The scar that he had adorned her with caught his gaze and in a heartbeat’s time, the dark-furred Cairn shook himself and again placed distance between them. He would not be lured by her sultry words; Jaglon had already fallen to such tricks.
 
“Mother despises me, Ksenia. Her love for you is unquestionable. You were always her favorite,” he growled quietly, flattening his ears to his skull. The carnal fury that he felt in his stomach was enough to make him ill. His attempted murder of the pale woman before him had sent their mother into a fit. The banishment that he had received was only issued due to the pleas of their father. Had it not been for Bronislav, Skellige would have been killed.
 
Casting his gaze to cover the area in a sweeping motion, the dark-furred male then returned it to his sister and it simmered there. “Where are the others?” he demanded with a throaty bark. If Ksenia was there, the other Cairn children could not be far.

The conflict of Skellige races across his face and she feels the pull of a smile only behind her eyes while the rest of her remains stoic enough to hide it. Her ears droop once he backs up, losing the line of faith she thought she’d been able to hook into him. Ksenia doesn’t allow the distance to remain and quickly, what he’d retracted, she opposed with a few steps forward in desperation. 

“You don’t get it,” she says, a throaty cry held back and she struggles to keep her silvered gaze upon his anger. “She won’t—she didn’t give me Alpha.” She strains against an urge to sob, shaking head and exhaling a deep breath. Ksenia lifts her head and grinds her teeth, expecting pity to be displayed across his face. Wiith one final persuasive push:  “After what yo—” she sucks in a breath—“happened, she doesn’t think I’m fit.”

There was a peculiar kind of desperation to Ksenia. Skellige watched her with narrowed mahogany eyes and tight lips as she proceeded to explain to him the falls of Warsaw politics. A curling smile began to wind gently to his leathery lips. Mother did not think that her favorite pupil was fit to lead the islands? It would have been impossible to hide his elation at this news. The woman did not seem to want a distance between them, but the dark-pelted titan felt it wise. The more steps she placed in his direction, the further he seemed to want to be from her. But he was still captivated by her words for the time being. Long ears were pricked to every rise and fall of her voice.
 
“… she doesn’t think I’m fit.”
 
Suddenly, all of his aggression seemed to rise to the surface and he took a threatening step forward, snapping his teeth mere inches from her face. “Because you aren’t,” he spat. “And you still haven’t answered my question. Where are the others?” His face was stern now. The fur along his shoulders and neck seemed to rise threateningly towards the icy she-wolf. No matter the circumstances, Skellige refused to believe that Ksenia had travelled alone.

He keeps the distance between them no matter how many steps she makes. He will cross the earth like that while she spends for life searching for him. He'll always keep ahead of her, never quite close enough for her to reach, and she frowns. Even making herself seem smaller and weaker, something that leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, doesn't quite pull it off. He believes her, on a superficial level, but his baser instincts keep him grounded even if he doesn't realize it. She can hear the skepticism in his voice while he doesn't know he's doing it. Ksenia only knows she has to reach that level and build a bridge to gain his trust. 

"Home, I suppose," she says quietly. It's the truth, as much as she doesn't like it (at least as far as she is aware) but her reward would out weigh the risk if she can pull a veil across his eyes. Being in his presence without the back up of her own minions put her in a line of danger but they would more difficult to control in her lies. "Mom wants you to come home. She isn't mad at you anymore, she—"

Ksenia closes her eyes and takes a long breath. Where she mimics the struggle of admitting her failures, the lie is just as difficult. Her wishful frown remains on her features and she lifts one paw to shorten their distance but she doesn't take the step forward and instead allows herself to back up instead. 

"She's ordered me to find you. If I want any life on the islands, I have to bring you back home."

There was a breath of hesitation when the woman spoke of their siblings being home on the islands. The wraith eyed her with a skeptical expression, but held his silence for the time being. It was almost impossible for the dark wolf to believe that she had wandered in search of him without anyone else. She was a wicked and smart woman; he knew her to be diplomatic at times and a precocious fighter. The thought of besting her sat inside of him like an itch under the skin. No matter how much he scratched, it would bring him very little relief. As much as the dark brute wanted to turn and simply leave his sister behind, her words were tantalizing to him, and he wanted to hear more of what she had to say.
 
When she spoke of their mother wanting him to return, the boy felt his heart beat in a strange manner. She was drawing excitement from him at the prospect of leading their old home. The pale-eyed woman knew how to draw out the things he desired most, and her words were always sweet and sincere. The thought of her was sickening to him. Skellige knew that if he should return to Warsaw, Ksenia would be dead. The wraith knew that he did not trust her far enough to simply drop his ambitions and return to their home. She was a diplomat in the same sense that he was a tactician… and he was always watching for when he would be flanked by his opponent.
 
It was the woman’s last remark that caught Skellige off guard. His ears flattened and he canted his head to the right out of confusion. The bemused expression on his face would have appeared comical were it not for the swift transition into unbridled anger. He shook his skull from side and to side and huffed through his nares. “But why would I want to give you a life on the islands, Ksenia?” he inquired to her. A dark and throaty chuckle followed the question that had fallen from his lips. “I tried to take your life once. Why should I follow you to return it?” No, his drive and longing to rule the lands that they called home was great, but not as great as his hatred for the pale witch. If remaining in the Teekon Wilds meant that she would be refused a life on Warsaw, he would do it.
 
In the back of the beast’s mind, he drew upon a thought. Should he accomplish his goal of building a new empire on the shores of the wilds, there was a chance that he would be able to raise his army so that he could return to his home and take it by force. Should this be accomplished, he would bathe in the blood of the woman who stood before him, and he would wear her fur on his skull.

At this point, Ksenia knows there's nothing left to say. If she pushes, he'll catch on and see through everything she's done so far when she has him on the line now. Let him go, think about it—maybe find him later, somewhere nearby—and pick up then. She can let it go now for a little while, let him think about the things she's said. She can tell him the same things over and over until she's blue in the face and it'll do little good. 

Ksenia takes a long breath and searches him over, his array of emotions quiet and subtle, but there nonetheless. The woman retreats a few steps and puts the wanted space back between them before she let's defeat display on her features. It's soft, and barely there, as if she's thankful she doesn't have to grovel anymore to a brother she hates. Her eyes narrow, and watch for a moment longer. 

"You know, you're right," she says with a sneer, lifting her lip. "I may not be fit to lead the islands but neither are you." Her life in Warsaw might be lost but giving him the satisfaction of keeping him away might win over. Her head shakes with disappointment, tucking herself back inward, before she turns to abandon him by the coast.

The pale witch eyed him carefully, and though he felt his skin prick at the thought of her inner dialogue, he remained silent throughout her inspection of his features. There was a hardness to him that had only intensified since his banishment; he had very little to lose and even less holding him back. Still, the curiosity that burned in his gut would not allow him to simply end his sister where she stood. It infuriated him, but forced him to hold his ground, and though he tried to swallow it… Skellige remained where he stood with rigid limbs and a cold expression.
 
Finally, and for a fraction of a moment, he caught a glimpse of the true ice queen that he had come to know as his sister. The curling of her lip and the snide comment that slid from between her vile fangs roused the hackles along his back and spine. She did not leave him time for a retaliation, though. Her comments had been made, and she turned to leave him there without so much as another word.
 
The dark light of his gaze followed her until she had disappeared from sight. Though he worried, Skellige found a peculiar determination in the arrival of Ksenia; it would bring him closer to his reign. Tossing his tail, the wraith turned his figure in the opposing direction and sauntered off toward the bay.