Stavanger Bay she brought the sugar and the mint

Szymon ; song is a slightly edited version of Julep by the Punch Brothers

Doe bounded through the hulking clusters of pampas grass, eyes bright and tongue lolling. Every now and then, she would pause to let out a piping, two-toned bark; a - perhaps - cruel immitation of Sy's debhilitating stutter, but she sang it out with love and joy. It was a sound she'd come to associate with the pale wolf's name, and though she hadn't had much occasion to use it, the sound had passed her lips more often than any other, as of late.

But the name-sound would do no good if Sy did not know it, and so she called for him after each iteration, intent on finding the pretty wolf and enlisting his help in her next endeavor.

"Sy!" she called again, after another two-toned bark. And then, because she was already singing for him, she called out again in song: "I brought the sugar and the mint,
I brought the sugar and the mint
Now you bring the whiskey
and ask for his blessing
Say, Yes sir, I know she's
Heaven's julep..."

She hesistated for a moment, forgetting what she'd been doing before she began to sing, and then broke into an excited dance when she remembered. "Sy! Ka-ka'yi! Sy!" she sang, trotting along once more. Surely, he was around here somewhere!

Oh! I like this song a lot!

Left to his own devices, Szymon gave in to his tendency to keep to himself. He worked doggedly, patrolling the borders and building what caches he could, but eventually fell into his old habits — sleeping infrequently and eating alone to avoid attracting attention. He had not yet made the acquaintances of Arturo and Tetsubō, but he knew vaguely of their existence from their scents, comingled with those of Skellige and Doe. They would belong to Skellige and to the sea once the claim was made official, and Szymon would have to figure out how to interact with them. It was not a task he looked forward to. He had been the omega among his siblings, but although the desire to dominate and conquer sizzled and sputtered with fragile tenuousness instead of burning brightly in Szymon’s soul, he knew he would not be content bending his head to every wolf who crossed the borderlines.

A brightly piping, two-toned bark sounded then, warm with a lilting note of affection, and the voice that sounded forth was one that immediately caught Szymon’s attention. “Sy!” the Witch Doctor called out, and immediately the inky-ribbed wolf stopped his current activity — dragging long lengths of kelp up the beach to cover the caches as Doe had recommended — and swiveled his ears searchingly, auriferous eyes intently scanning the area. He moved toward the sound of her voice, tangled in a quietly rollicking song he had never heard, his paws moving more quickly as it became easier to pinpoint her location. “Sy! Ka-ka’yi! Sy!” came again the melodic, piping cry, and something clicked in the youngest Cairn’s mind as he connected the sound with himself. He thought himself incapable of creating such a sound for her — his low, guttural timber could not reach the avian heights Doe’s could — but perhaps in time, the right notes would come to him. Szymon had never composed anything before. His family created war and bloodshed, not beauty.

He wanted to call to her, but the reluctance to attract attention stayed his tongue. The idea of having a unique name for the female appealed to Szymon more than any other, aside from the clawing need to find and remain with his brother. Pitching his voice low, his head still canted below the crest of his shoulders and his ears cast uneasily to the sides of his narrow skull, he parted his jaws and howled — a quiet, clandestine sound that brushed the lowest notes in his register and climbed, sonorous and steady, a mirroring warmth and searching desire threading through his call. Doe? I’m coming. Where are you? He moved unerringly in her direction, pausing only to sing for her in turn, oddly emboldened that the first howl hadn’t choked in his throat.

The witch doctor's bounding ceased the moent she hear his tenuous response; she hadn't expected him to answer, and her heart soared as the call gathered strength. Search at an end, the fleet-footed witch gave up her bounding with a strangled yap of joy, and continued toward her quarry at a sprint.

Even when she reached the pale and pitch male, her paws would not give up the chase. Doe danced around the pale wolf until the butterflies migrated from her paws and took her heart on one last flight before settling down somewhere in her belly. All the while, a torrent of words poured from her mouth - in song, in breathless wonder - she praised his pretty voice, his brilliant coat, his pointed ears and yellow eyes. All too quick for even her to follow, but all still stemming from the heart.

Remembering herself, Doe turned in one quick circle and blinked her eyes hard.

"We're going to make the plum whiskey," she yapped, tongue lolling out as her body caught up to her mind. Only then did she pause to truly take in her quarry.

He smelled like the ocean, as always, but expecially so today. Doe's nose twitched in wonderment as she thought after what he might've been up to, but she decided not to ask. There will be time for that later, she thought, but not while there is work to be done. Still, curiosity burned through the butterflies still left in her stomach, and she gazed upon his guant features, wondering why she was bound to surround herself with such silent creatures.

He just needs a chance to be heard, she told herself firmly, remembering his howl.

It was a mystery even to Szymon that he could manage the guttural wildspeech without qualm, but faltered the moment he attempted more intricate speech patterns. All the right pieces were there — pronunciation, comprehension, cohesive thought — but even when he visualized the words and took deep, measured breaths to steady himself, all that came out was a staccato jumble. Even without remembering how a mild childhood stutter had earned him a sound beating — whether due to frustration on the listener’s part or mere cruelty — it seemed his body remembered for him. “The hell are you trying to do?” it balked in the rare moments he had the temerity to give the whole talking thing another go. “Get us killed?” And the tension in his muscles would lock like hands around his throat, and he would succeed at the word or stand there gasping in failure.

The flurry of smaller paws caught his attention soundly. Doe was coming to him. Because she’d been looking for him. Because she wanted to see him. The thought whirled around in his head like the little witch doctor herself, circles and circles and circles and the occasional spinning leap, until he was dizzy with thinking it. When she erupted upon the scene — dancing around him as though there were tiny lobsters nipping at her paws and only by remaining airborne could she evade them — he pirouetted to watch her, the corners of his ink-lined lips pulling upward until the smile grew so wide it split his jaw in two. His tongue lolled joyously from his lips as he caught her words with eager ears — too fast and too many to register in the rising tide of his exhilaration, but he would remember as many as he could catch later when he was alone — and his golden eyes were thrown wide and filled with wonder as he regarded her.

She spun a quick circle and blinked almost forcibly. Plum whiskey? thought the youngest Cairn to himself with faint bewilderment before recognition and understanding flashed across his face. It must have been a Witch Doctor’s errand. He’d make whatever she wanted him to, provided he got to watch and listen to her this way.

It was at this point that an idea occurred to him.

Experimentally, he touched the tip of his tongue to the roof of his mouth and set it free to coax the first syllable of her name from his idiot body and turn her name into a song all its own. Mixing languages, wildspeech and common speech, he successfully tricked himself in a way that wouldn’t have worked if her name had been anything more than one pesky consonant and a vowel that could go on forever if he wished it. “Dooooooooooe,” he howled at her. It was possibly quite a rude gesture to howl directly in a Witch Doctor’s face, but he was so overjoyed at the accomplishment that he dropped his voice low, hitting the deepest note of his lowest register, then let it climb the octave until his bass timbre climbed through the baritone notes and stopped just shy of a bright tenor. Running out of breath, he let his voice slide back down the scale and closed his eyes, reaching for one of the question words that he practiced night after night, hoping he would not be thwarted.

He held onto the curiosity in her eyes as he drew breath so hard his body quaked with it. “W-W-W-Where t-t-to?”

The sudden sound did indeed startle the fledgling doctor - her ears twitched uncontrollably for the duration of it and then for several moments after, and her eyes were comically round in her bewilderment. She'd never seen such behavior before, and while she was not quite worried about her friend, she was certainly confused.

But when the sound ended, and its full affect was upon her, she understood. All at once, she went completely still - ears and all - and stared up at the pale wolf before her.

"Ka-ka'yi!" she shot back in a near snicker, surprised and flattered by the gesture. You read my mind. How strange that you speak my name just as I am lamenting your silence. "You know just what to say," Doe said softly, darting her head forward to nuzzle her scabby nose at the joining of his neck and jaw. Once there, she lingered, pressing adoring licks to his salty fur, made sweet by her own scent of mint and sweet flowers - gathered for the plum whiskey, of course.

"We have to get some plums," she said weakly, a little embarrassed by her actions. This was the wolf whose brood she would bear - that was already a given, in her eyes. But she had never courted anyone before; her first heat had been spent in the solitude of her wanderings, and her second was only just drawing near. She did not know how to gain Szymon's favor. That's a worry for another day, she told herself firmly, pressing on. "Overripe ones that have fallen from the tree and have bourne the heat of the sun. We will know the right ones by the sharp, sick smell they give off."

Doe’s touch was electric — the moment her nose made contact with the juncture of his throat and jaw, a place he habitually guarded as befitted his militant upbringing, he went completely still. The hammering of his heart at her nearness drummed all the faster at the sweet, lingering touch of her tongue upon his fur — a quaking overtook him, dizzying as her earlier circling, bewildering and addicting and exhilarating and terrifying all at once. Up until this point, Szymon had not allowed himself to touch the girl; a fear he could not fully understand had clamped iron hands around his guts and twisted cruelly at the thought of being turned away — or worse, doing something to defile or harm the bewitching creature. But she had broken the seal — she had crossed a line that no other wolf had crossed but for the sake of putting Szymon in his place — and he rumbled, low in his throat, a noise he’d never made before. A hum of pleasure with an undercurrent of possessiveness, perhaps of demand — Szymon couldn’t figure it out himself.

Doe was talking about plums now, and Szymon, wonderstruck, bestirred himself and attempted to catch up — he was always behind when it came to her. She smelled of mint and flowers. He wanted to lick where she had licked, to capture the taste of her mouth. Instead he nodded, hating the hesitation he felt when it came to touching her in turn. More than speaking, it was a fear he had yet to conquer. Perhaps the two of them were not so different in their inexperience. Swallowing hard, he offered her a low growl-whine — rrrrr-rummm — that bore all the affection he could muster. Someday, he promised, a mingled vow to himself as well as Doe, I will find the courage, and I will make you feel what I feel. The smile that shaped his ink-lined lips was touched with a self deprecating air as he nodded acquiescence, but although his auriferous eyes fixated intently upon her, he seemed rooted to the spot.

His eyes, bright and still, laid upon her for a seemingly endless moment. The once-familiar feeling of kinship rose up in her once again as she gazed back, unafraid to look into his stare; for there was no strife, here. No striving for dominance. In that moment, Doe felt the world shift and fall into place. Understanding hit her all at once, and for that moment, she knew who she was. What had happened to her. What she'd done. All that she'd lost. It was laid out before her like a winding path, and each mistake was a stone that led deeper into the valley where she'd been born.

And for the barest moment, it was beautiful. I'm Doe. I really am, and I know how I got here. I know how to get back! Riverbone - the real Riverbone - is still there, waiting for me. My brother, my mother, my family!

But it was only a moment. The path seemed to shift before her eyes, yet nothing truly changed - it was the same path, but she knew that it was not a journey to start, but one that she'd already finished. For when she looked over her shoulder, there was Szymon. There was Stavanger. There were waves still not played in, pups not yet born, and a story she burned to hear the end of.

A few rapid blinks brought her back to the beach, and the understanding slowly left her, until only a tendril of it was left - wispy and uncertain, but still a bright spot teasing at the back of her mind.

"I'll show you some of the fruit trees, and then we can meet back here and mix it all up," she explained, tail wagging with unexplainable happiness.

Well, perhaps not so unexplainable. For I have seen the future, she thought, and you and I are there.

Tail raised high like a flag in the air, Doe led the way to the farthest reaches of their territory, where a few fruit trees bore branches heavy with their burdens. As she had said, rotting fruit carpeted the ground closest to the trees, and littered the land at the border of Donnelaith. "Two or three mouthfuls each should do it," she chirped, picking up a limp, sticky plum. "Waiswa!" called the scrappy shewolf around the fruit, scooping up a few more before darting off.

Szymon was a creature who lived almost exclusively in the present. Recalling details from his past, though habitual and unavoidable, was a fleeting and businesslike thing — he did not relive the events that had caused many of his lingering neuroses and did not feel the disorientation that Doe sometimes did. The details, for Szymon, were concrete and indelible — not dynamic and transient. Too, looking too far into the future was folly for the browbeaten Cairn boy; it was something Skellige could afford to do, and something that Skellige was required to do as an aspiring Leviathan. But Szymon…it had been drummed into him from a very young age that he was a peon — undeniably useful but essentially expendable. He fought for his life because despite his avoidant nature, he possessed a fiery will to survive — perhaps for no other reason than to prove the others wrong.

Without Szymon’s realizing it, Doe had become another reason — a greater one. It was not a conscious decision, and he would likely not realize the place she had sequestered in his heart until his life was indeed threatened in some way — but it dashed a latent splash of kerosene on the flicker of tenacity that burned steadily within his soul. She would, in time, teach him how to regard time in a different way — she would color his past and illuminate his future in a way he was, as yet, helpless to comprehend.

“Mmm,” he murmured his agreement, his scarred muzzle canting in an acquiescent nod as a smile settled upon his kohl-lined lips. The Cairn boy followed his Witch Doctor to the outskirts of the bay, regarding the fruit trees with a keen eye. He breathed deeply of the scent, recalling her description and striving to match the real thing to her words: “We will know the right ones by the sharp, sick smell they give off.” A grimace crossed his features as the sour, uniquely fermented scent rooted itself in his sentience, sneezing his distaste of it — but he willingly moved forward, readily bending his head to fill his mouth with the plums to carry them back to the agreed upon meeting spot. Licking his lips, another moue shaped his pallid features at the sticky juice, but he wasted no time in taking another two trips as he’d been instructed.

When they had a sizeable pile of the fetid fruits, Doe dug a quick hole in the sand and lined it with kelp she'd gathered earlier. This was necessary, to keep the fluid from draining too quickly from the mixture. A small portion of the plums went next, followed by a few sprigs of mint and Jimson weed, more plums, more herbs, and so on until the plums and Jimson weed were gone.

"This is what will allow us to know the will of the sea, and to hear him clearly," she explained to her companion as she covered up the hole with more kelp and sand. "It's mostly finished, at this point, but it will gain potency as time goes on. It is important that we have the ceremony soon, so that it will not harm us when we ingest it - but if it does, a white wolf from Donnelaith has helped me get the antidote."

She paused for a moment, ears flickering as she searched for nearby sounds. "Her name's Deirdre. Have you met her? She... speaks well of Skellige," the doctor said coyly, not quite brave enough to fully imply what she suspected. With any luck, Szymon would understand her. "That was the plum whiskey - do you want me to show you how to make mint julep? It's just a treat, not for the ceremony."

Szymon curled his haunches beneath his lean frame, watching Doe — Doctor Doe, in this particular moment — work. She sealed the sand with kelp, creating a bowl from the flesh of the earth itself, and he watched with a keen eye as she layered plums, mint, and Jimson weed in an ambrosial concoction that teased at his senses. Jimson weed and mint were familiar to the boy, who had learned medicine partially because he was often the one in need of patching up. Fortunately, he had never had to be on the receiving end of the herb’s hallucinogenic properties. He had been bloodied and bruised, but never so gravely wounded that he needed to be put under during a healing. His eyes flicked nervously to the female, but she seemed to have a solid understanding of the plum whiskey’s potential dangers.

“ — but if it does, a white wolf from Donnelaith has helped me get the antidote.”

A white wolf from Donnelaith. Unbeknownst to Szymon, there were several wolves fitting this description — but he knew of only one, and thus he mouthed the name as Doe pronounced it. Deirdre. Szymon had been half mad with panic when he’d first met the white witch of the wood, but he remembered her green eyes plainly. He nodded when Doe asked of her, a grin of understanding playing about his kohl-lined lips. The warmth that had leapt from Deirdre’s tongue upon pronouncing the Leviathan’s name still rang in his ears. Though he did not understand the relationship fully, not being one to pry, it was clear that the trillium-cloaked daughter of Donnelaith bore a deeper understanding and affection for Skellige than most.

And that, to Szymon, was fine — so long as Skellige wished it so.

Would Skellige, Szymon wondered, have qualms against the growing friendship between the Witch Doctor and her — what? he taunted himself. Errand boy, protector, acolyte — what am I to be to you, Doe? What am I to be to anyone? It was a dark thought, the sort that often ran circles around Szymon’s mind, and he didn’t even bat an eyelash. “J-J-Ju — l-l-l-lep?” repeated the auriferous-eyed male, his throat locking around the word and shaking it from his jaws in a fit of strangles. He recalled her song from earlier and hummed it, finding the melody itself far safer than the words.

I brought the sugar and the mint,
I brought the sugar and the mint.
Now you bring the whiskey
and ask for his blessing,
say, “Yes, sir, I know she’s
heaven’s julep…”

The tune of the song erased the lingering tendrils of discomfort that always gripped her while he struggled to speak. Ears twitching in wild joy at his parroting, Doe let her tongue loll out for a moment in a wolfish smile before explaining. "It's for big bad wolves who won't take their medicine. My mother used to mix it when any of us got sick - the herbs that heal us can be bitter, but mint julep is good and sweet," she said to the pale wolf, making her way toward the narrow opening that she'd begun to dig into a proper den. The entrance was small enough that no one but Riptide would be able to follow her quickly, and while she wished that she could keep out the disturbing witch as well, she could fit through a smaller crevice. It would have to do.

She fetched what she needed from her stores - lemongrass, mostly, but also the peels of a few riper, less ravaged plums that she'd eaten a little earlier - and squeezed back out into the open, heading back to where she'd left the mint and sweet flowers that marked where they'd buried the plums. Doe spat out her burden, licking her chops appreciatively at the lingering taste of the lemongrass. "You had a concave bit of wood the other day, didn't you?" she asked of her companion, recalling that he'd held something fitting the discription when Skellige had told her about the blessing of his homelands. "We soak these in fresh water - the lemongras and mint need to be chewed a bit to open them up - and when the water is red, it's ready."

It was not much of a lesson - she'd learned it when she was just a pup. "No one's sick right now, but it's always good to have on-hand," she said, peering over at Szymon to see what - if anything - he thought of the lesson. "Especially since it's common to have it at weddings and other celebrations, where I come from."

Szymon listened without interrupting as he followed Doe to the den she had begun to dig. He had never heard of easing the bitter taste of herbs via a sweeter substance; in Warsaw, a sick wolf ate or drank what he or she was told without question, no matter the taste. A sick wolf was next door to a dead wolf, and a dead wolf was of no use to the pack. When she emerged, his heart drummed an uncomfortable double beat that echoed in the wide sweeps of his tail upon seeing her again; he bent his muzzle to the ingredients she presented to investigate their scent and appearance and nodded at her question.

The cache where he’d stored his odds and ends — the wooden items, those skulls and feathers he could find, and any other Witch Doctor-y items he came across — was near to hers in case she had need of anything therein, and he offered a low, growling chuff as he turned, his intent to retrieve the “bowl” she’d asked for. He gripped it gingerly in his jaws, canting his head at an awkward horizontal angle to fill it with fresh water from an inland source, and walked slowly back with it. Somewhat clumsily, he set it down again, a few droplets of the water sloshing over the side, but most of it remaining where he hoped she could use it. “Mm?” he questioned her, his bass timbre quirking with an upward inflection. “Is that enough?” What a wonder that single syllable was — within it, Szymon could place a question or an answer.

He wondered about the traditions from Doe’s natal pack — he had never been present at a wedding, and had never known wolves to celebrate their mateship by anything other than…well, consummating the marriage, to put it delicately. None of his siblings had chosen to share their lives with others; and of course, his parents were already bonded and settled by the time Szymon came along. Where did she come from? And what did they celebrate there? He found himself uncommonly curious — not because the information was something he could use or wield, but because he was simply, frivolously, innocuously curious for the simple joy of knowing. It was odd, recognizing that quality in himself. Speaking again so soon seemed to be too difficult for him to encounter, so he hummed for her again, moving his muzzle toward the lemongrass or mint, nodding his willingness to help out — chewing was something he was more than capable of.

I just meant that the size of the hole is comparable to Doe's or Arturo's size - I don't know if he's actually been in there (he certainly hasn't IC), but the two of them are the only ones who would fit through the entrance, I think.

Already chewing on a prickly blade of lemongrass, Doe nodded her approval as Sy returned bearing water. It would evaporate in time, so she'd have to add water to it every now and then, but this was a good amount to start with.

"Careful - cuts your tongue," she warned, working her tongue and letting the chewed grass fall into the dish. She dropped a few of the dry flowers in, along with the peels and the already-chewed mint she'd gotten to before Sy's reapperance. There was really nothing else to it - sometimes, her mother had made it alcoholic to better soothe her patients, but Doe found no need for that when her patients would already be under the influence of the plum whiskey. After the ceremony, she'd add chewed snakeroot to mint julep, and they'd celebrate the blessing with this mixture while healing their minds and bodies at the same time.

She hadn't really needed help for any of this - she was sure her Sy knew that, by now. But Skellige had placed the sweet boy at her beck and call, and why shouldn't she take advantage of that to steal him away and bask in his company and attention? When all affairs were settled, they so would they settle, and marry, become mates, bear strong, healthy boys. It was right that she spend her days with him, now. There was still so much of him she had to learn, and he could not know her completely by now, either.

But there will be time for that, she thought in leisurely joy, scooting toward the palid male and letting her side press lightly against his. She turned her head and licked at a creamy shoulder, noticing for the first time the wispy streaks of ginger that lightly dappled his coat. Her tail wagged at this new discovery, and her mind's image of him grew all the more handsome. Helpless to her affection, she began to groom his salt-encrusted pelt.

Oh! I fixed it. Sorry about that ♥ I also have never had lemongrass, so that’s why Szymon can’t figure out how to describe it — mwahaha. Using my character’s ignorance to cover my own!

Gingerly, Szymon took a blade of lemongrass into his mouth as Doe had done, his tongue touching carefully the prickly plant as he worked it cautiously between his molars. The flavor was initially somewhat bitter or sour in the way that most plants seemed to be to his taste buds, primed as they were to blood and pelagic fare, but this plant was unlike anything he had ever tasted before and he found himself helpless to describe it. He didn’t quite know how long to chew it, but he watched as she unfurled a coiled ball of the stuff onto the dish and used his best judgment to create something that resembled the same texture. A low murmur of wordless pleasure slipped from his jaws as she leaned against him; bending his muzzle, he dropped the small parcel of plant material into the dish with the rest.

Then, licking his scarred lips — the flavor was refreshing, he decided, if wholly unfamiliar — he responded to her touch in the only way he could. Tremors slid down his spine and fluttered through his tail in an electrical current of twitching at the touch of her tongue upon his fur; he found himself frozen in wonder as she groomed him, not yet trusting himself to groom her back. What he did was almost involuntary as he used the close proximity she had provided to investigate the creamy fur that lined her tender throat. That she would put herself in such a vulnerable position floored him — although he had given her the same trust, he thought himself a monster. He was a Cairn, bred and raised to kill and conquer — and though his heart had never really been in it, he remained very good at what he did. The thought of his muzzle, which had bathed in the blood of Warsaw’s invaders, being so close to Doe’s precious neck was almost painful.

“Doe,” he rumbled, the one foolproof word he could produce with ease, drawing out the vowel into an appreciative hum. There was witchcraft in the touch of her tongue, in her nearness, and, by all the seven Seas, he hoped she had set a timer for the julep because he’d already forgotten about it.

Do you want to keep going here or should we fade soon? Up to you.

When his shoulder was as sparkly clean as she could make it, her grooming turned to sharp nibbling. You can't just boss him around and chew on him and expect him to stick around, the sensible voice warned her. Doe studiously ignored it - she had a feeling that she could do just that.

But I shouldn't, she thought to herself, allowing herself one more teasing bite before she pulled away.

"That's all," she sighed, nosing the dish to indicate the topic of the conversation - because there was nothing left to do with the various concotions, but she would gladly go back to chewing on him, if he asked. "Can I help you with anything?"

She probably wouldn't help. She would probably do her best to derail his project and monopolize his attention. It vexed the doctor to let anything that was not her occupy Szymon's time, even if it was something that she wholeheartedly supported. Things like hunting, marking borders, and even mint julep. There was a voice - not quite sensible, but not poisonous, either - that was telling her that she was the most important thing and doesn't he know that? and please don't leave, not yet not yet -

Doe stared down at her paws, allowing the sensible voice to chide her. There are more important things right now, but you don't have to be afraid. It is good and right to do your separate duties, and there will be time later on for lounging in the sun.

She was right. Doe was always right.

We could fade here and have another? :o I can start one if you wanna?

The grooming soon turned to nibbling, and the difference in sensation aroused a dangerous urge to turn around and respond in kind. Szymon quelled it, a rumbling groan of a growl falling like water from his jaws — but he was disappointed, perhaps unreasonably so, when she stopped herself with one last teasing bite. “Can I help you with anything?” came her innocuous question, and he hummed, low in his throat. Yeah, he thought with a teasing playfulness he found impossible to express verbally, keep biting my shoulder. The lowest ranking male of his natal pack, he had never experienced the attention of a female — or of any creature, really — in quite the way Doe tended to him now. Selfishly, he wished she was not the Witch Doctor, responsible for the spiritual, mental, and physical health of every wolf loyal to Skellige — absurdly, he wished she would never have the need to tend any wolf’s wounds but his own — and he drew a deep breath as he paused, registering that thought.

It was not, he knew, an appropriate or acceptable thought to have.

But Doe was his — wasn’t she? The Sea had delivered her quite literally to him, even if she had met Skellige first. Searching his memories, Szymon could find no indication that Skellige wanted to keep the little shale-and-sand female for himself — but if, at any point, his brother decided that she could not belong to Szymon lest she belong less to the pack because of it…

No. No. There were reasons. The Sea had given Doe back when She could very easily have kept the Witch Doctor for Herself; and Szymon had been there to fortify her with an offering of food. His weak and fluttering tongue could pronounce only one word without fail and it was her name. And they shared a skill set, although Szymon had yet to prove himself in the Teekon Wilds. He was accustomed to serving the Witch Doctors of Warsaw — accustomed to the gathering of materials and herbs that would heal the body and mind — and he was an expert angler, as good as Jagoda, he often thought. Surely all of this meant that Doe belonged to him more than she belonged to any other wolf; and although Szymon was willing to share her — begrudingly — with Skellige’s wolves, it ought to be Szymon she came home to and trusted to share her burdens. Without quite realizing it, he had already devoted himself to her in so many ways.

It wasn’t easy to be selfish. Growing up as he had, Szymon had had so many things taken from him — and over time, he had perhaps allowed it to happen simply out of habit. Things didn’t belong to Szymon Cairn. Not normally, anyway. Though he wanted to spend the rest of the day simply reveling in the feel of Doe’s body against his, he needed time and space to untangle at least some of these thoughts and feelings — and so, very gently, he rubbed his cheek against hers, figuring that if they were already physically touching, this didn’t count as overstepping his boundaries. His golden eyes caught hers, then flicked back toward the territory with as much wordless eloquence as he could muster. A reluctant whine spilled from his jaws as he pressed the tip of his nose to the juncture of her chin and throat — he didn’t want to leave — but he shifted away from her, giving her time to do the same so that she would not topple into the dust, and stretched his forelegs with the obvious intention of rising.

I have to go; I have to train. I have to earn the right to touch you — to keep you. He thought so many things at her, knowing she couldn’t hear them, but the growl that hummed quietly, scraping the lowest note in his bass register, was a promise that no matter how far he strayed, she was his compass now.

Yes, yes - please! Tag me when you're ready!

Despite his trouble forming words, Szymon had an wide spectrum of other sounds to choose from. Doe leaned her head against his neck to better hear the orchestra of hums and growls, feeling that if she could just listen a little harder, sink in a little deeper, they would knit themselves together and become a language all their own.

As it was, she almost didn't recognize his farewell, and looked up at him in wooly-eyed confusion as he stretched and and made himself otherwise ready for departure. Recognition truly hit when he stood, a low sound in the back of his throat that promised to see her again - and something else.

Ears flickering in confusion, Doe caught his tail between her teeth as he turned to go, letting it slip through her jaws like water when he moved away. He would be back, but when? Where was he going? Could she come with? I want him to stay - why is he leaving? Questions swirled through her mind, but she kept them hidden in her throat. If he wanted me to come, he would have asked me. Somehow, he would make sure I knew. And this was not a goodbye, but a see-you-later. He'll be back.

She called his name-sound once - not a summons, this time, but a promise of her own.

I'll be waiting.