Gilded Bay Deep Dark Unknown

For @Valiant

Salt air. The rush and crash of rolling water. A chill breeze ruffling through the fur on her nape. Pebbles and coarse sand beneath her paws. Freedom. 

Part of the Rain wolf had longed for a pack, and still did. But at heart she was a wild creature. After her recent endeavor with the Moonsong wolves, questions were left reeling in her head. Were they right for her? And if she did join them, would they accept her need to be as free as she is now?

Such a question was not on her mind, in this very moment. As the sun began to set, she reveled in the purity of her atmosphere. The rushing water swept in and up over many shallow pools, filling them with water from the sea. Tail high in excitement, the water loving female clambered her way over a stony patch way with uncanny boldness and dexterity. 

Peering down into the depths of the pool of her choice, she nipped and pawed at the water. Reaching, searching for hidden trinkets it may yield inside.

The isbjørn stalked the coast, restless, his mind turning over the words of a story from his youth.

I am the cat that walks by myself. All places are the alike to me.

I will not come.

But Valiant had not even been invited. Somewhere along the line, he'd gotten the idea that Dutch didn't want to be followed into the village Moonsong. That left the isbjørn to make his own way; to assimilate into Moontide or seek out a different place.

Or to wander, as he had always done.

Today, his traveling did not feel like exploration. It did not feel like a journey. He merely walked, and looked without seeing at the pebbly shores and the dreary horizon. He was waiting, he thought, for something to catch his interest, but there was nothing new under the sun — and, moreover, there was nothing that belonged to him, and nothing he belonged to. He had been raised on the tundra, but not born there. He had been born to the willows, but those memories were painful. And there was the sea — so many of his family loved the sea. But he did not have the experiences they did. He did not have the saltwater in his blood.

So lost was he in the absence of thought that he did not notice, at first, when he came across another. Rose gold eyes listlessly tracked the motion of that distant figure, and gradually, Valiant became aware that he was watching a woman as she frolicked.

And that he should probably stop.

Instead, his paws carried him closer.

"Did you drop something?" he asked, still watching her play in the water.

Play? It very well could be called that, as it might appear in the eyes of another. And while Aliki did take enjoyment from dipping her muzzle and paws repeatedly in and out of the water, it served a greater purpose.

Her gray and black fur was disheveled. Spiked hackles on end, windswept against the natural line of her backbone. Making her appear wilder than she already was. She scooped up her paw, coming out with only a few grains and pebbles. She had been hoping for a shelled snack, or even a discarded trinket of the sea. No such luck.

So engrossed was she, that she did not notice the other wolf until they spoke up. At his voice, she snapped her dark head up suddenly. Fixing him with an intense stare, one paw raised, it was clear he had taken her by surprised. 

However, she was far from alarmed. He didn't seem to be a threat. "No. I am still searching for something that catches my eye." She provided simply.

The words lanced through Valiant like reedgrass in a hurricane — how something so innocuous could be made into a weapon by this internal storm was something that never ceased to amaze him. Dutch liked to say he was sensitive. Perhaps he was. Either way —

"Me too," he agreed, edging closer with great care. The wet stones were slippery, and yet cut into his paws like jagged shards of glass. He eyed the woman's paw pads and decided that his superior weight was to blame for this injustice. It would heal either way, though. He pressed on, until he could look down into the tidepool across from her. As the swirling sand and silt settled, he caught sight of a small, swimming minnow. Try saying that three times fast. It was liver-colored, plain and drab, but when the sun caught its scales the isbjørn saw the rainbow.

"Is it for something in particular?" he wondered. "Or are you just passin' time?"

The white and gray stranger moved closer, daring to brave the jagged rocks. He paid with cuts to his paw pads. Aliki eyed them, as if sensing he were unaccustomed to such an...unforgiving surface.

The minnow in the pool was hardly worth her attention, but she followed it's movements without any interest. "Just passing time. The water may hide many wonders and I may like to see what this land can offer." Suggesting, that she was relatively knew.

Now, on to him. Intense but not unfriendly, she turned. "What do you search for?"

A day at the beach wasn't the worst way to spend a day. Valiant watched the fish, too, and then lifted his head to look out at the waves for a moment, measuring the tide. His gaze snapped back to the woman when she spoke, and he flashed a little smile, as if sharing between them an inside joke.

"I'll know it when I see it," he replied, his tone mild.

His steps were surer as he moved from this tidepool to the next, passing by the woman with a brief glance that invited her along. He didn't stray far, however, and at the next pool, he got down onto his belly to examine its contents just a little more closely. A tiny crab scuttled out of his reach, into one of the jagged crevices that dug so cleverly between his toes. Nearer to him, the tentacles of an anemone swayed with the rippling waters.

"I dare you to eat that thing," he said, pointing to the smaller of the two.