Wheeling Gull Isle santeria

@Coelacanth

Komodo had made it to the coast but it was not enough for him; the earthstalker had his sights set on something further than the shore.  It was a land that arose from the depths of the sea, just within his reach yet he was not able to grasp it. Brined currents stood sentry, the swells of which were timed so curiously with the placement of the sun in the sky. For a better part of the day, the mottled brute sat upon the western escarpments, high above the crashing of the waves, studying his subjected and attempting to understand its many wisdoms. When none revealed themselves to him, Komodo resigned himself to a baptism by fire, descended from the cliffs and traversed a beach that brought him to where tide kissed at the sand.

Without hesitation [but still with care], the shaman entered the water. The water that gurgled up from the deep ocean had not yet felt the touch of spring and immediately the man was struck by the chill of it. Komodo pushed on until he waded chest deep and his entire body felt weighted; and when he had to strain his neck to keep his visage above the channel’s waters, he kicked off the sand the methodical push-pull of swimming overtook his limbs. But the eremetic man was a forest wolf and not the most experienced swimmer; so the trek across the channel was an arduous one. Not once did he consider turning back, for he had already begun and Komodo was an all-or-nothing kind of man.

At last and with some difficulty, the channel had been crossed and finally Komodo hauled his corded frame from the waters, muscles fatigued but spirit buzzing with vitality. Thickset jaws were parted and tongue lolled out in an easy pant, the man swung his head to and fro, drinking in the fruits of his labor — the sight, smell and feel of the island beneath his paws. 

NOTE: In Coelacanth’s personal timeline, this takes place directly after this thread and some time before this thread.

The nameless, homeless stray slunk along the shoreline like a wounded, age-bent thing, hunch-spined and heavy-hearted. To an onlooker, her path might have appeared erratic and meandering, but she knew where she was going. Every step, no matter how deep its initial imprint, was erased from existence by the rush of the sea not a minute after its conception. They did not die, eroded by wind and time — they were unmade. They never lived. There was nothing left to tether the sheepdog to the earth. Her lambs had grown razor wire instead of wool and her blind devotion had bled her dry — but she should have felt free. She should have felt happy. She had done what she had been commanded to do: watch the cubs. Keep them safe.

When the atramentous waif reached the northern lip of the pinnipeds’ shoals approximately six hours and twenty-five miles later, she melted without hesitation into the evening tide. She did not swim so much as flow through the water, a literati painting come to life, and the bioluminescent plankton that gathered glowingly in her aphotic fur was mirrored in her limpid Neptune gaze. She grieved, and she gave that grief to the ocean, saline disappearing into saline before she had time to fully register its sting.

Dainty paws brushed the sandbar, frail as a promise, but the inkdark stray couldn’t summon the strength to leave her sanctuary behind. She submerged in the shallows with only her nose, eyes, and ears above water in true crocodilian fashion, momentarily blind to the hard-bitten figure that loomed just in front of her. When finally she blinked the tears from her eyes and noticed him, it was she who loomed — she rose from the water like a pelagic apparition, flecks of twinkling blue dappling her inky pelage. She said nothing — she merely waited to be wounded, her glistening eyes dimly expectant.

Komodo did not know how long he rested upon the beach — and he realized he must have actually fallen asleep upon the springtoasted sands — but the sun was gone and the beach, which had become his bed, had gone cold. So the leviathan collected his limbs beneath him and hauled his frame from the earth. He walked several paces forward but ended up sitting once more, staring at the expanse of stone and stunted trees that rose from the depths, tucked amongst the waves. He was in no hurry, had no placed to be, was there on his own accord; why should he rush to leave when the stars were beautiful and the sea was now stilled [having been conquered and humbled by his mighty paws]. 

The medicine man turned to face the ocean and was greeted by a sight most unexpected. There was another on this beach, so feathered and dark that she might have disappeared against the night sky if it weren’t for the bioluminescence lighting her fur. She was silent — so silent that no sound had heralded her arrive, not even the sounds of splashing. If the man was surprised, he did not show it. Komodo would come to recognize her soon enough; but at that moment the inky girl was a unnamed naiad rising from the waves, beckoning him ever closer; but he maintained his distance, hips planted firmed where they were. “my, my” he muttered, his voice rumbling from deep within his chest — and that was all he said.

“My, my,” was all he’d said — but the skittish vagrant reacted as though he’d struck her. The vivid asynchronicity of her tufted ears betrayed her uncertainty — the right swept out and down, miming an apology, while the left perked like an inverse, block letter exclamation point. A faint drawl blurred the male’s vowels into something slow and honeyed despite the gravelly nature of his timbre, and a tremulous pull of familiarity brought the finely drawn Groenendael’s timid auris dextra to stand at attention beside its mate.

The little stray drew back hesitantly, settling her frail weight upon her hindquarters in preparation to whirl and flee. Emotive Neptune eyes, dappled with turquoise and limpid with the last of her tears, curiously traced the heavy, masculine planes of his face — but when shy cerulean clashed sharply with observant orange, they danced flightily askance. More distance, begged her aching heart, and she withdrew another step despite the nagging sensation that he was significant in a way she could not yet define.

There was no reason the ingénue should remember him — she had already forgotten herself.

To the angakkuq's dismay, the girl without words backpedaled a step into the lapping tide, seemingly to return to the depths from whence she came. Perhaps he had come on too strong, he wondered; Komodo had a penchant for doing so, but the man lived a straightforward life and reflect those values in his manner of speech. He never meant to offend, and actually found that most reacted quite favorably to his candor; but he could adapt. "Easy, big ears." he intoned in a lackadaisical modulation [momentarily referencing those big sodden ears, swept down, back and tucked tight against her skull], and he hoped he could put the gamine girl at ease — he wasn't done meeting her yet.

A silence settled around them, albeit for a moment, and allowed the medicine man a chance to observe his atramentous subject. He was stoic and unmoving as he did so, save for his gaze [guilded with gold leaf] which traced a path over her gamine frame and pointed features. At the moment, Komodo had no recognition of her but piece by piece, the past began to unveils itself — from the liveliness of her eyes [which jumped with her own unconscious familiarity] to her apparent affinity and comfort with the aegis of the sea. The brute's tongue traced the outline of his mouth as his thoughts stirred and he tried to make sense of them. Familiarity was a foreign concept to the vagrant, whose feet and mind itched for new things, new places, new wolves... despite this, any sense of acquaintanceship was a novelty that he was happy to entertain. Before long, it all began to make sense: the dark fur, their oceanside milieu, the curious silence.... finally, he knew. 

"Do you remember me..." he drawled with a cant of his head "...Coelacanth?"  If she did not, it would be no matter. The sheepdog had only been a pup, after all.

Okay, so, “big ears” is officially one of my favorite nicknames for Seelie.

The little stray had all but decided to make her escape. It was better that way. Safer. A furtive turn of her head lent the angakkuq a glimpse of her delicate profile, markedly different from the full-blooded wolves who inhabited these wilds, and betrayed her inclination to flee. “Easy, big ears,” the medicine man murmured, and the inspiration for that term of address was again brought to the forefront as the “big ears” in question folded uncertainly and sprang forward with a timid shimmy of the lost dog’s half-submerged hindquarters. Strangely ensnared by the husky steadiness of his voice, she found herself rooted to the spot — and her Neptune eyes bore a sliver of whalebone white as she glanced nervously awry. His wordless appraisal of her made her nervous; she was nobody’s dog and nobody’s daughter. What could he possibly want with her?

“Do you remember me…”

The waif’s denial was automatic, her slim, tapered muzzle dipping apologetically as she shook her head.

“…Coelacanth?”

The inkdark vagrant — Coelacanth — backpedaled furiously, reeling under the force of her shock, uncharacteristically graceless. She did remember — suddenly, irrevocably — and her lissome limbs buckled, churning up sand and seawater as a glowing cloud of dinoflagellates billowed blue around her. Before her stood the Earthstalker — a wolf who had been integral in Riptide’s successful recovery from injury the previous year. Seelie had been only about six months old at the time, but she’d been old enough to know that without Komodo, Riptide might not have survived. It had taken all of Kirynnae and Komodo’s combined efforts to restore Corten’s son to good health despite his robust constitution. The shaman had been an unexpected ally in a dark and frightening time, and — just like now — his timing had been impeccable.

“Komodo,” she thought, recognition blooming fully in her shimmering cerulean gaze, accompanied by a bashful flutter of her sumi-e brush tail — but the joy she felt crumpled beneath the weight of the past ten months. They were heavy, relentless months, filled with loss after loss after loss — one of which would perhaps be noticeable to the angakkuq. She and Amoxtli had always been inseparable, but the embodiment of yin was all darkness without the sunshine her willowy Tervuren twin had brought to her life.

The tiny Groenendael cross ghosted nearer, dainty paws emerging from the shallows to take residence on the soft, almond-colored sand. It was Marbas’ island, but she would forgive the Earthshaker. She wanted badly to be comforted, but she remained where she stood with her wordless lips atremble and new tears gathering in her pelagic eyes. A tilt of her delicate head asked what her voice could not: why are you here?

It was clear that at first she did not remember — and Komodo began to prepare himself for a reintroduction — but then, with a rush and a start, she did remember! The girl [nay, young woman] stumbled in the shallows under the weight of her recollection and the shaman couldn’t help but feel a sharp grin stitch across his maw, enthused by the reaction he elicited from the silken yearling. Her movements were emotive and finespun even in their haste, so much so that the man found himself wondering how he had not recognized her immediately; she still seemed the lively thing she was from her youth. 

Though she reeled, the scene was still relatively muted; silence only broken when a solitary, hearty chuckle rose from the brute’s tongue. ”It’s great to see yah,” he drawled laughingly, rising upon travelhardened limbs to meet her down the beach, closer to the waves — the man slowed to a halt, leaving a stretch of sands between their beings. He would let her come to him; she seemed such a skittish little thing, and he would be loathe to scare her off so soon.

Komodo was not a man to stay in one place for too long; as such, it was not often that he got to follow up with his patients — or, in this case, his patients’ family. “How’ve you been?” he inquired sincerely, his thick northern’s tail making wide, low sweeps behind him. Coelacanth had always been something of a mystery to him; she had been silenced long before their paths intertwined upon Riptide’s coast. She had been nothing more than a young girl, and he nothing more than a transient shaman [hired to use his medicines and sapience to mend her grandfather’s wounds] so their interactions had been few… but still, there remained a great affinity. 

“How’s that old man of yours? Still kicking, is he?” Komodo lifted his head and tested the air with several audible sniffs, just case the rest of the family was nearby… The family had been intact when he parted, and had heard no news on them on the road, so the earthstalker saw no reason for them to be together now. However, the air smelled of nothing but brine [and distinctly of [i]her]... but nothing else. His gaze slid back to meet hers, full of questioning. She was alone.

“C’mere” he invited with a strong burr, as if she were still the young girl he knew all those months ago.

This got away from me; I’m sorry.

A soft, involuntary trembling took up residence in Coelacanth’s hummingbird fragile musculature, and she had little choice but to succumb to it — the seas were still winter-frigid and she’d walked away the last vestiges of daylight. Hope bloomed when Komodo approached her, but it plateaued when he seemed content to leave what seemed to Seelie an insurmountable stretch of distance between them. Her interaction with Thexxan had been largely dissatisfying because of her deep-seated need to be touched and talked to in order to feel real — would it replay itself now with her erstwhile friend? “How’ve you been?” the medicine man questioned, his roughhewn tone rife with sincerity, and she focused her attention on her sand-dappled toes with a sigh that dipped her shoulders low and emptied her lungs. Her gamine framework, compiled with her pointedly dejected posture and the shivering that wouldn’t quit, conveyed what she couldn’t say:

I am sad; I am cold; I am lonely.

At that rather inopportune moment, her empty stomach decided to cast a vote of its own with a disgruntled, gurgling rumble. When was the last time she’d eaten? She couldn’t remember. All of the food she’d managed to happen upon or catch had been given to her lambs, and while she’d consumed enough to sustain the illusion of life, she was essentially wasting away. Tilting her head to the side, she shimmied her hips to approach him at a bashful diagonal, making her apology clear in the way she angled her graceful neck and entreatingly lifted a paw. She hadn’t meant to complain! She was still so grateful to find him here.

“How’s that old man of yours? Still kicking, is he?”

“Yes, yes!” bespoke a sprightly nod and a tattoo of dainty forepaws.

A glimmer of true joy cut through the weary sorrow that had chased the light from Seelie’s Neptune eyes; she had visited Vargas Island last autumn and her grandfather had been hale and hearty despite his advanced age. She knew he would soon pass on, but she did not greet this fact with any particular sense of dread. Corten’s legacy had been carried on through four generations now and Riptide had lived to see his firstborn son ascend the throne. Furthermore, he had lived to see the birth and rearing of Crosscurrent’s heir: Undertow’s son Chelan. Komodo had met Chelan, and although the fiery-eyed yearling had objected to the medicine man’s aid at first, he had grown to regard the angakkuq with the same respect and gratitude Coelacanth now displayed. All of the Cortens had thought well of the Earthstalker for his personality as much as his service and it must be admitted that several of the females had made their liking quite plain.

One thing was for certain: Komodo had never been left wanting for company during his stay.

“C’mere,” he bade her. She needed no other invitation. Like a small black cannonball, she bounded toward him, but she pulled the punch of her inertia at the very last second, settling timidly against his chest and tucking her muzzle against his throat with a quavering sigh and a litany of woeful whisper-whines.

please never apologize for being you <3

Within a moment, the lithe sheepdog was at his side — so near that for a moment’s time, Komodo felt as if even his stocky musculature might be pushed over by the gentle intensity of it. But the brute steeled himself and pushed back against her, a rumble of sincere platitude roiling from deep within his ribcage; his sonorous nonverbals contrasted greatly by the featherlight breaths and sighs that emanated from the girl. He listened to all she had to say, letting the fluidity of her nearness stoke something deep within him.

With a sideline glance, Komodo attempted to look upon the wisp of smoke at his side — the angle wouldn’t afford his gaze any purchase, but he found that he didn’t need it. Coelacanth was quite a distinguishable and memorable-looking lass, all thin and long-legged as she was. Looked the way she did as a cub, but grown and filled out — and nothing like her pureblooded brethren, with whom the angakkuq had grown close. It had fascinated him at first, and though the brute would loathe to admit it now, there was more than one occasion he sat back and simply observed Coelacanth and Amoxtli to more deeply understand the dogness in them. 

At that moment, he felt no such need.

“Yer hungry,” his gravelly alto asserted — the tender growl of her stomach had not surpassed his ears, and the man couldn’t ignore the wasted figure that tucked up against him. He would catch her a meal — this, she did not have a choice in — and then they would talk as best they could. The man was interested to know what Seelie had made of herself… and, of course, how she had come to be so far from home.

Throughout the first paragraph I just thought of the line in that Rent song where Mimi is talking about her father’s hands.

Komodo was stalwart, the supple steel of his musculature idyllic. With all four paws, Coelacanth strained against the soft sand in an attempt to bring herself closer — closer — closer still to the angakkuq. Trembling from the tip of her nose to the tip of her tail, from the tufts of her ears to the tips of her toes, Seelie burrowed into the wolf who remembered her and who called her by name. Four paws became three as she lifted one foreleg; became two as she lifted the other. She settled her weight daintily upon her haunches to push her velveteen crown into the crook of his throat and cling to him with a timorous clasp of her feathered forelegs. He knew her grandfather and grandmother, her aunts and uncles, her cousins. He knew her father and he knew Amoxtli, and he must know that she was only half a soul without her twin!

From some far off place, Coelacanth dimly heard the Earthstalker mention her hunger — but it didn’t matter. What mattered was the bristle of his coarse ruff against the sleek velvet of her tear-dampened cheeks, the warm solidness of him, the nickname that he’d given her when she was a fawn-fragile six month old that he uttered now with such poignant familiarity. Her stomach was empty, but her heart was so full!

Still, tangled in with the joy of their reunion was a deep-seated fear bred from experience: he would leave her as all the others had left her. If Amoxtli could, anyone could — and she had not yet found the magical formula to make them come back anymore than she had found the mystical concoction to make them stay. Coelacanth would never be able to tell Komodo what it cost her to unhook her delicate limbs from the slope of his neck and crest of his shoulders, to take a step back and rekindle the distance that separated them, to sit alone in the sand and simply look at him. She was a deeply despondent creature in the wake of her most recent failure, and she was afraid — so afraid! — that he, too, would leave her if she let herself love him too much. But she did love him. It was in her nature to give more than she’d ever hope to get.

Forlorn, the tiny Groenendael reneged on her resolution to stand strong and keep her distance, tucking herself once more beneath his chin with what was probably annoying insistence.

Komodo was not a young man. With more than four years of life under his belt, he had seen much, heard much — learned much. There was little rhyme or reasons to where he ventured; electing to let the world steer him as it may. He couldn't remember wher he had been born, and though the brute possessed a tracker’s nose, even he would not be able to find it. Vestiges of his mother and his father rarely came to mind, as he left their fealty the moment his age would allow such a thing... but he remembered them being kind and he knew they were strong and, hopefully, hale in their elderly age. 

Ever since the he left, the earthstalker had never stopped moving. 

Long swathes of travel were punctuated with brief periods of activity — usually a patient requiring long-term care, or a lady with glassy, fluttering eyes — but he would always move on, eventually. It’s how it had been with Riptide and his family; his pack. Once the man had convalesced to a point where the angakkuq felt comfortable leaving him in the care of Kirynnae. It wasn’t that the past was bad, but there was a certain comfort that came with relying on no one but himself. Still, the rush of seeing Coelacanth, such an obscure part of his story; it felt good. 

Her twiggy arms clasped about his corded neck and the brute let his nacaret eyes slip shut and his low grumble of beatitude thrum deeper, the push of her silken visage like music against his own, their hearts beating a drumline within their chests — but all too soon the feathered naiad released her embrace and darted away. One eye opened, then two and then he was watching her, who was looking at him, and they stayed that way for a moment, communicating in her own indelible, voiceless language. Why? spoke an inquisitive cant of his head and upswing of his ears. If she was afraid of him, she needn’t be. 

His query was answered with zest and zeal and their distinct forms alighted once more. Unable to maintain the silence, Komodo released a hearty laugh and returned her warmth. ”Y’never grew into your ears,” he mentioned, finding his customary low alto with ease.  ”Big — like your father’s.” The brute nibbled at the tips of her tufted ears affectionately. It was the feature that distinguished her most from the rest of Riptide’s flock — the angakkuq had never the pleasure of meeting her canine mother and Riptide did have big ears... but nothing like that.

i couldn’t help it lol

[chortles!] Seelie has tufted ears, but nobody else in her family does — not even Amoxtli. ♥

An involuntary croon of pleasure ran its way up and down the column of Coelacanth’s throat as Komodo enveloped her in warmth. The sound didn’t waver in pitch, for there was no melody to speak of — it was akin to a kitten’s purr, the flutter of book pages beneath a knowing thumb, the thrum of a hummingbird’s wings — but when the angakkuq began to preen at the tufted tips of her feathered ears the purring heightened in intensity and she seemed to swoon. It had been so long since she’d been the one being cared for instead of the one doing all the caring, and she basked in the sensation, sinking to her belly in the sand and melting into a soft, pliable puddle of ink and feathers. She fixed him with a worshipful stare, Neptune eyes luminous and nascent in their renewed joy — there was a touch of melancholy there, but there always was. Always would be. Hers was a dog’s personality, and they were made to embody emotion — on the same day, in the same hour, she might scrape the sodden underbelly of utter despair and soar high above the earth on wings of joy. It was simply the way of things for a sensitive creature like Coelacanth.

The girl returned his affections in kind, smelting into an atramentous puddle at his feet. The corners of his lips pulled upwards at such a reaction and, reluctant to let her descent throw his ministrations, the brute brought low his head and neck and continued to preen the feathered ear, moving from the tufted tip to the arced base. She tasted of salt, the richness of her coat still encumbered with the heaviness of the seawater. His had been, too; but his feral genes produced a coat that beaded and repelled water rather than absorbed it. A trait as unfamiliar as hers only further ensorcelled the angakkuq and he could not pull away.

So he didn’t! Instead, the brute allowed his legs to fold ‘neath him and he took up residence upon the ground, abreast the puddle that lived and breathed and crooned next to him. He could feel the drumbeat of his pulse thrum through his veins, rushed, then stilled, then rushed once more only to still again. It was foreign to a sang-froid man; this type of uncontrolled physical reaction, but he played into it easily. Lifting an arm over the girl’s gamine withers, he drew her into a close embrace and held her there as long as the flighty dove would allow him. 

The action was less amorous [thought there would always be a part of the man that would never not think of women this carnal way, and this young girl was the cream of such a crop] and more of revelry in familiarity. There was a neediness that emanated unbidden from Coelacanth — and he was willing to provide such comforts. Not only for her, but for him as well. “Stay.”  The mandate came gruffly, softly, reverberating amongst his vocal chords with sincerity and command. She did not seem like she was was keen on leaving, but he wanted the affirmation. If she stayed, food would come — he would make sure of it — but for the time being, it seemed the sheepdog was far more nurtured by his presence.

“Stay,” he bade her, but he didn’t need to — the clasp of his sturdy, sand-flecked foreleg fit snugly against the scalloped blades of her rib cage, drawing her near. The contented purr that hummed in her throat emanated out in rhythmic waves that spoke of comfort and peace, but soon enough the heaviness of sleep drew gradually and inexorably over her like a warm blanket. The purring slowed to a soft, sporadic ticking, and the blink of her bright cerulean eyes became prolonged and delayed until her eyes stayed closed longer than they remained open. Her first instinct was to fight against the vulnerability — her obsessive sheepdog’s mind told her that she had so much to do, still! — but it manifested itself in a small, insignificant way: a quick, distracted flick of one feathered forepaw and a brief tensing of her gamine musculature. Just before dropping off completely, she gave one violent twitch, her muzzle tilting up as though to reassure herself that the weight of Komodo’s arm and the warmth of his presence was indeed real and wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon — and she stayed that way, gazing upon him, until finally her Neptune eyes closed fully and she drifted into sleep.