Dragoncrest Cliffs skaikrasha, tristraka

The wind and the rain are starting to pick up! The dice say that you get to have a positive event. This takes place on the private beach. ♥

The skies above the northeastern swath of the Sequoia Coast are overcast, but not immensely so. Unlike last year’s rain heavy summer tempest, this storm is quieter. More insidious. She’s already wreaked havoc in the Coconut Grove, but that was just a whisper of her true intent — a hint of what she’s truly capable of. She strikes like a viper, moving almost lazily between her attacks, and with the snaketrees still smouldering she turns her eye on Undersea, Stormrift, Rusalka, and Drageda. She pushes the sea further up their shores, each crash of the waves seeming to sketch the high tide line a little further inland.

This time, her weapon is her breath — a mixture of briny seawater and sweet rain, with an electric current. The rain hasn’t become torrential yet. The wind? She’s testing you, gripping and shaking the trees, cracking her nails on the foundation of stone. She flings the sand like a goddess throwing a colossal tantrum, and she tries to shake you and make you look at her. Look, damn you!

She wants the sea to swallow up the shore, but asking the ocean to do her bidding is like trying to herd cats. What it does instead is swamp the secluded beach with frantically flopping fish (and a significant amount of flotsam, ranging from pieces of driftwood to clots of seaweed to an overabundance of crustaceans). It’s messy and unkempt, but overall, it’s a positive thing. The danger is in the whiplike, snaking currents that lurk beneath the surface, ready to swallow up any wolf who gets too close to the water’s edge.

posted by coelacanth.

Tux thought he had his eye on the storm, but with Rusalka appearing and amassing an army essentially overnight, he had turned his attention elsewhere.

What a mistake.

The clouds above were a sickening yellow-green, the ones on the horizon were black as night.  The wind was howling, and rain pelted from above. If he had any sense he would have hidden somewhere, but he was Tux, so of course he didn't.  

He sits as far away from the churning waves as he can manage.  When he and Kiwi natrona had been down here last, they'd had no luck finding food, but it turns out the sea was bountiful.  He came up to nose one of the wriggling fish, and skittered backwards as the punishing waves drew back onto the sand.

The days since Portia's disappearance swept by in a blur, with young Dacio's focus trained on the few relatives he had left. He did his best to keep close to Opalia, especially when their father ventured beyond Drageda's claim to look for the missing Fisa. Anxiety gripped him every time Dio announced his departure and his whole world was crumbling around him, yet somehow he still stood.

He wanted to be brave, but he was scared to be. He wanted to aid in the search for his dam, who he feared might have chosen to pursue Sequoia and the others. The thought tormented him: she could not surely choose natrona over her mate, her home, her children? Dacio, made restless by his woes, left the safety of Hougeda and stepped onto the sands. Having been so withdrawn from the pack over the past week, he was unaware of further unrest that was coming their way.

The wind whipped his fur as he strode into the open, and the biting cold made him wish he'd stayed curled up in the caves with his sister. But he pressed on, pastel gaze stealing a skyward glance to find dull overcast above. Dacio gritted his teeth and squinted against freezing rain, a charcoal ear trained on the ferocious waves that reached further up the beach than he'd ever seen before.

The familiar black-and-white form of Tux made him pause, and he held his breath to watch his cousin move in to investigate something on the sand as the tide reached out for him. Dacio barked out loud making a tentative step in the other boy's direction should the sea see fit to try devouring him.

The rain shifts, and a silhouette is barely discernable against the looming backdrop of the cliffs.  He narrows his eyes as he tries to figure out who is approaching him, and it is in that moment where he finds his legs being swept from beneath him.  The ocean is vicious in its churning, but within her embrace the world takes on a quietude.  Everything outside of the water sounds like it's coming from miles away.  It is only beautiful for a moment before he sucks in a breath of salt.  It stings his nose and his lungs, and panic begins to bleed into his movements as his thrashing limbs tread water.  

The storm batters him against the shore, and as his paws strike out against the stone and sand he instinctively twists his legs to hook his dewclaws in so when she pulls back against him, he remains on the shore.  His nose runs as he splutters, hacking up a stomachful of water.  Coughing, he drags himself further inland to where the water can't touch him, and he lays there miserably as he looks up at his friend.

It all happened so fast. Through the haze of falling rain, Dacio saw Tux turn his head in response to the young Gona's fearful bark. The beat of hope that coursed his veins was fleeting, however, as he froze in place at the sight of his cousin's pale paws being swept from under him.

"Tux!" Dacio cried out over the wind, over the thrum of his own pulse in his ears. He shifted on the spot, torn between a fierce desire to pull his comrade free of the waves and a need to preserve his own life. The waves could just as easily claim him too, should he be too bold.

Straining a whine, he watched pitifully from the shore as Tux disappeared from view and set about pacing anxiously, just out of sea's reach. Ears pressed forward, high atop his sodden crown, desperate to hear a response as he repeatedly called the bi-coloured Rauna's name.

The sea spat him out onto the sand and Dacio sprang forward to assist. Jaws parted, he reached for Tux' scruff to help pull him further from the waves, and slackened his grip to bump his snout reassuringly to a golden cheek when he felt certain they were out of immediate harm. "We can't stay here," he announced, making a careful sidestep while keeping his gaze fixed on his cousin's slumped figure, silently requesting that he follow him. 

Tux gathered shakily to his paws, padding carefully to pad alongside Dacio and together they ventured toward the caves to dry off wait out the worse of the storm. When the winds died down and the waves retreated, the boys plotted to see what sort of bounty that the sea had delivered to their shores