Shimmering Sands glory awaits

@Cortland

 

Early morning sun streamed across a vast stretch of sea. The waters glittered at the touch of light. Overhead, scattered seagulls cried against the push of the wind. The harshness of their voices was lost against the roaring of the waves that crashed upon the shoreline.
 
Kodlak watched the tossing of the water for a time before he pressed onward, down the beach. He had followed the coast from the far west, trekking across rocky bluffs and jagged drops that would surely have led to his death if he had not been sure-footed and sturdy. Before that, the Nord had ventured from the far reaches of the northern mountains. His wayfaring had led him across many a diverse terrain. None could compare to Jorrvaskr, but none ever would.
 
The brute’s large paws sunk deep into the sands as he passed the ivory-flecked shore. His dusty frame stood as a small contrast against the bright glimmer of granules. Little life, he noted, but he could see what was beyond it; there was promise in the distance.

Heard this needed some attention! :)

From the wooded skirts of a vast and mighty shadewood, Bruxa emerged. She took measured steps into the sun, letting her eyes adjust to the outpouring of light before launching her pace into a foxtrot. She dashed across grass until it all turned to sand, and her steps grew jaunty as she picked her way across the unnatural-feeling surface. The fawn-like gait didn't match her dour expression.

Eventually her pads got used to it, or else she was simply too distracted by the might of the sea to notice anymore. She'd learned already not to taste the water, so she stayed away from it completely. Being doused didn't sound particularly appetizing either. Hunting here seemed out of the question if she wasn't willing to get wet, so she settled instead for searching for what kind of shelter came around here.

But as far as the yolk of her eyes could see, there was nothing but glimmering white-salt, sand, and water. At least it wasn't hot— she couldn't imagine this place in the summer. Her nose pointed towards a particular cluster of screeching seagulls, and when she looked back down the harpy found that she was approaching a tall, dust-grey figure in the distance. The social needs of her species urged her to continue towards him.

Yes, thank you very much for joining my thread.

While the Nord may have appeared to belong to the sands and the sea, he had never been graced with knowing how to call such a terrain his home. It was with wonderment that he stared into the rolling swell of ocean water, holding him rooted to his place for a short period of time before he was able to continue forward. Wanderlust had opened his eyes to many things that were not the northern tundra where he had hailed from. The longing for the frigid wastes of Jorrvaskr still lingered on in his chest, but Kodlak knew he was destined to stretch beyond what he knew.
 
The other wolf caught his attention once he had turned back to his path. The Nord froze his tracks for a moment before continuing along, keeping his posture friendly and lacking aggression. The saline breeze pulled at the dusty coat along his back, spraying him with a fresh line of sea water that reached down to his pink flesh. A shiver stretched down the length of his burly frame. “Greetings,” the Wuuthrad barked to the stranger up ahead.

Bruxa tried to take in what she could of the male before she was noticed. She searched hawkishly for any weaknesses or malformations, but found none before a great, seaborn gaze turned to set her in its sights. She gave pause too, watching the lie of his hackles as his coat, frothing with salt, rippled tenuously in the breeze. "Salutations, stranger," the woodwitch addressed him neutrally, padding forward as a tentative dominance began to present itself in the way she pressed her ears forward and eyed him baldly.  

She was the kind to take advantage where allowed— and if no one else would command the space, then Bruxa surely would. That being said, it was evident to a trained eye that she was only ravaging for boundaries, if there were any to be found. She came close to smell him, but stood back enough so that she might avoid his teeth if presented.

She snorted out the access of sea-smell and salt, learning rather quickly that he belonged here about as much as she did. "You look well enough," she commented after a beat, though it was unclear if she was actually talking to him or not. "Bachelor life suiting you?" Now she was talking to him, peering up with hard, shrewd, electric eyes.

The savage woman seemed to return his greeting with a quick snap of her hawkish gaze. Kodlak followed her movements carefully, allowing for each step to become a permanent memory in his mind. The careful swing of his skull to follow her seemed to nonchalant, but there was tact within the glimmer of his sea swell gaze. The Nord knew only that there were some out there who spoke of vile things, and they were easy to tell apart from the good folk. He knew also that there were those who regarded others with a forked tongue and seemed to dwell in a place of goodness, but they were false and foul things. The Wuuthrad did not know which of these the woman was, but he was still wary of the way she spoke to him and the manner in which she drew herself to his frame with such boldness.
 
“I was intended for it,” he answered her in a deep-throated timbre of a voice. There was a ghost of a smile that played coyly at the edges of his dark lips. It seemed to dance for a moment in an upward position before it returned to a grizzled line. “And what of you, shield maiden? What has this life intended for the likes of you?” The Nord cast his tossing sea foam gaze to the woman with a curious intensity. He was not afraid to meet her nerve, nor was he intimidated by the citrine of her sharp gaze. It was a matter of toying on the line of polite and brash, but he had danced that very line for a long time.

Bruxa made an irritated noise, sucking in sharply on her fangs as she tsked at his answer. It had been a fair response, certainly one that would have amused a less prickly and selective she-wolf; but the harpy was only annoyed. "That is no life," she sniffed tartly. He was quite clearly made for just about anything. The male was a warrior; a virile ranger and a northman who appeared both capable and comfortable in his solitude. He was handsome and rich in a mile of strengths, but was he fit for the tether of a natal lifestyle? She thought not. To her he seemed taken with wanderlust; a trait Bruxa could not appreciate, let alone tolerate.

To his credit, she was mildly surprised that he engaged the conversation further, and not being inclined to withhold her own ambitions, Bruxa answered readily. "I am intended for godhood," the hellcat decreed boldly. She looked out towards the water. "For a legacy as immutable as the mountains and as endless as the sea." Her words sounded less like prophecy or grandeur and more like quiet self-assuredness; a deep-rooted certainty that this was her most base and beatific reason for existing. Piercing as daggers, she returned her eyes to him.

By now she'd given him a lenient margin of space. She was a lioness that understood she was in the presence of a full-maned lion— and was therefore unlikely to best him in a one-on-one— but her chin lifted proudly at her admittance, and it was clear that by no means had her dominant mien diminished despite their silent truce. "I need only find blood worth my liege, and a domain in which to kindle my fire."