The Sentinels recurve

@Smokestep or @Eirlys?

Like the waves that battered the cliffs she paced upon, the dark girl's thoughts rampaged against the very walls of her being. Something winged and painful churned in her belly, threatening to bring up the seafare she'd wolfed down the night before.

"Moorhen," she said to the wind, her strong voice carrying the name out across the waters. It had been a long time since she'd tried to be Moorhen. Fen had not approved of the name, especially when the girl herself had trouble pronouncing it. Sif had been easier, and when she was Sif, life was easier. She had something good, something precious back in the valley. A family, a home. But although she knew they would be worrying about her, she could not bring herself to leave the ocean behind. Not when Isengrim had been found upon his shores. He could not tell her much without his tongue, and she had little enough to say to him - but he was her brother, her blood. And the sea...

The girl stopped upon a jagged portion of the cliff, looking out over the violent waters below her.

Who am I? Am I still just a seashell?

permission to forward date this to like the 2nd or 3rd

The seafarer could not have been more at home. Though he had been young when he had been pulled from the bay and the neighboring woodland, Smokestep almost knew the terrain in a spiritual manner. He could feel the crashing of the waves through the trunks of the trees. Though the sentinels were not his home, he knew that he was drawing closer, and so his pace increased.

Sandpiper would not be far behind him. The pale marauder did not worry about his sister; she was capable of handling anything that came her way. Their goal was the same: return home and reclaim the depths. Almost as though the woodland was listening to the thrum of his heart, a faint voice drifted through the length of the pirate's ears and he paused in his trek. The direction could not be discerned. The wind had carried the sound of the woman through a tangle of bark and wood before reaching Kingfisher. He did not hear the name that had been uttered, but then he did not care. The sound of the water was calling to his soul; two kindred spirits, beating against the land.

Pressing on through the trees, he could see that they began to thin out. His pace quickened as his paws beat against the earth. The boy sauntered on stilts up until he nearly lost himself to the cliffs that appeared – seemingly – out of nowhere. Halting abruptly, he gazed down the rocks and to the ocean below. The black rock was there somewhere and he would be sure to find it.

A scent pricked the inside of his nares and the seafarer turned his skull to find that he was not the only one to stand beside the cliffs and gaze upon the ocean. Even more shocking was that this wolf was marked with the ribs of his family. Mismatched eyes locked on the female and he chuffed quietly to sound his arrival.

“You're a Cairn, aren't ye lass?”

Permission granted!

The sea gave no answers, and only echoed back the dark girl's sentiments. The churning body of water had a way of magnifying anything on Sif's mind, to the point where even small emotions became deep and all-encompassing. Fen hadn't liked that. He hadn't liked her to go near the shores at all, but the old man had known better than to try and stop her.

It seemed that here, on her ancestral shores, this amplifying quality was all the more intense. Her stomach roiled with longing, ached with regrets, churned with bitterness. And in her heart, there was a sharper pain - hope. The girl was wrapped up in herself, so focused on the sea and on herself that she did not realize another had approached until he let out a quiet chuff.

Sif whirled into motion, all bristling fur and warning teeth. Even when she saw that the boy was not aggressive, she bristled, possessive of the place of her birth. And there he went talking of cairns, like the one she'd made for Fen. Are you a grave or a girl? he asked (or she thought he asked), and to that, the girl had no answer. Was he making fun of her?

"Do not mock," she growled, circling around the other so that she no longer had her back to the cliffs. She wanted the boy to go away - but until her wounds healed from her last fight, she wasn't very keen on starting another. Strong and robust though she was, the wound on her neck made it difficult to maneuver.

In a snap, the she-wolf curled her lip in a growl and pulled herself away from the edge of the cliff with a wariness. There was a sharp glint to her eyes that rang with the familiarity of the old sea salt himself. A curling smirk brought the corners of the boy's lips upward. He closed his crimson eye and peered at her through a ghostly silver orb. The marauder's head was canted just slightly to the left as he looked over the unfamiliar female. He wondered if she had misheard him for a moment, as her response seemed an odd one. The ghost lowered his head a bit and took a few steps forward.

“Aye, well sink me, then,” he jeered at her with a flash of yellowed canines. “It was just a question, lass. You've got the Cairn markings on your ribs, haven't ye?”

Prowling forward, he sniffed deeply to pull her scent, but she smelled nothing like someone who was devoted to the sea. His eyelid opened and he allowed his gaze to wander over her lackadaisically. The cocky smirk having made a permanent home on his dark lips. He wasn't quite sure why he would receive such a harsh welcome from such a fine miss, but he was more than positive that she shared his blood. He'd never seen the markings on another wolf outside their family line.

Back to the cliff, Smokestep watched the girl, waiting for signs of a tell. His tail swung loosely behind him. The wind tugged at the ragged quills of hair that stood along his neck and shoulders. The marauder was definitely intrigued by this russet female. Her eyes shone like Skellige's. She must have been one of them.

Despite her command, the pale boy continued to look entirely too pleased with himself, his mis-matched eyes aglow with the kind of humor that only came from putting oneself above others. His yellowish grin, too, made the dark girl's gut burn with rage. But she was learning to hold her peace, and thus, did nothing more than narrow her eyes at his continued mirth. When he spoke again, her resolve not to fight almost broke - and would have, if not for hearing something that stopped her in her tracks.

Ribs. Markings. A ripple of understanding passed through the young shewolf, physically manifesting in a twitch of the skin on her back. Cairn. Not another word for a grave, but a name. Hers?

Burgundy eyes burned into the face of the boy, suspicious, desperate, angry. Was this a trick? Or had her family been here all this time? Was she only seeing things? She was at loath to breath life into anything that might be leading her on, but the boy was the same age as her, and she knew that she'd had more siblings. Ones that had disappeared before Doe's wrath had been revealed.

"Bror?" she asked abruptly. And then, in a more hesitant voice, "Son - son of Skellige?"

Something about what he said seemed to click with the dark female. He watched with a squinted expression, as her face changed through five stages of grief. His crooked smirk did not disappear. As each twitch of her features passed, the seafarer took another step closer. A smarter creature would have turned to provide some space. He cared very little for the disbelief that she may have been feeling. Kingfisher was more interested in how strong she was. He would need to test the very boundaries she would have built if he could have. First impressions were important, though. He didn't want to blow anything before it had a chance to truly begin.

The first thing she uttered was nonsense to him. His ears stiffened and stood alert. His eyes narrowed further on her face, boring into the muddy crimson of her gaze. She then seemed to gather some sense enough to ask him if he was the son of Skellige. Smokestep almost laughed, which would have been a cause of great offense. He wasn't fond of stupid questions, but he felt obligated to humor this one.

“Aye,” he drawled callously. “And ye must be Moorhen.”

For Skellige had not sent him or his sister without a clear set plan. They were to find their siblings and return them to the sea. Moorhen was said to be easiest; she was the only one who had inherited the rib markings of the Cairn bloodline. The boy did not believe he could have mistaken those eyes for having belonged to another soul. The child was one of Skellige. He wondered if it would have been wiser to have Sandpiper attempt to corral Moorhen. She was sharp, and sometimes she could clean up the messes that he created. He was not sure the curt female would have been ideal in his situation, though. He continued to take a few steps forward – carefully.

“I'm Kingfisher Cairn, lass. It's a pleasure to meet ye.”

The boy made a sound of affirmation - and then he used her birth name, and she knew it must be the truth. Yet, she did not know this boy. Sif had no memories of a pale boy - in her mind, all her siblings had been either dark or ruddy, and this boy was as pristine as snow. His mismatched eyes stood out to her, telling her she should remember, she should have noticed... but there was nothing familiar about him. She must have been young when he disappeared.

"Sif," she corrected. "Naame is Sif." Her spine stiffened, and she wondered what he must see in her. She was big and strong. Injured, but her fur was thick and had a healthy glow about it. Surely she could not be a disappointment. Surely, she was a worthy specimen... in body. "I don't... I don't learn tongue. Speak Northern," she said, feeling self conscious. She did not want to be thought of as unintelligent because of her stunted speech and heavy accent, even though she often felt it.

Her next words were carefully chosen, and she picked through them with all the precision she possessed. "Is he here? Skellige?" Fear and elation warred in her belly.

The ghost was not sure why he was surprised that she did not speak a common tongue. She cast aside her birth name and offered another one in its place: Sif. The pale Cairn canted his head to the right, just slightly and frowned at the she-wolf. It was the first time his twisting sneer had vanished from his features. For a moment, he could feel anger rise in his gut and burn the inside of his throat. He did not understand how she could simply abandon her birth name. The vagabond was not sure how she had come to be the way she was. His patience had waned slightly, but he moved to step forward one last time, leaving only a yard or so between them. His heterochromatic gaze remained locked on her face, her features, he was forcing himself to pick her apart in his mind.

“You've lost yer way, Moorhen,” he chided her in a softer tone. He shook his head just a few times, looking at her from under dark eyelashes. “You've stepped away from yer family name.” Saying it out loud was enough to make his gut churn, but he swallowed the venom and lifted his head upward. Kingfisher understood that she was not familiar with his tongue, but he didn't speak a lick of whatever she had tried to speak before. He wasn't about to try. His only goal would be to get her to understand him. To understand the shame she should feel.

The dark woman was not a Northerner. She had been born on the very bay that was nestled beyond the forest. The ghost did not understand how she had changed so very much in a single year – how she had lost so much of herself and who she was intended to be. He found himself grateful for having been swept away by his father and not left behind. The pale Cairn understood that she had missed every important lesson that Skellige had ever offered him. And she had missed out on more than just that.

Moorhen's question fell against his ears and he drew them forward, propping them upright. She wanted to know if Skellige was there. Smokestep blinked twice before responding with a simple and curt, “no.” He did not seem to know what he was to do at that point. For he feared that he could not rebuild his sister and that she had already been lost to different blood. Sandpiper had said it best: if they are Cairn, they will be there. If not, they're dead and not worth our name anyway. And again, he thought it might have been best to have the peppered woman at his side, if only for her level support.

Soft though they were, the boy's words caused Sif to bristle. Lost her way, had she? Until Fen, she'd never had a way. She had been a child, alone in the world, and she wasn't sorry she'd survived. Even if she'd taken a different name to do so. "No one to show me," the dark girl replied, and though speaking the words aloud made her heart ache in strange, half-remembered ways, none of that showed on her face. And, "What family?" she asked, not with disdain, but with deep exasperation. "Too young. All alone. I could not - could not taell him. Said Moohem. Fen did not like. Said Sif."

He was too close to her, but he was family, so the girl did no more than flash her teeth, her spine stiffening as if in preperation for a fight. She didn't want to fight Kingfisher, but proximity had almost always meant violence in the past, and she could not help but ready herself to receive and return it, even as she turned her face away in what she hoped was a disarming gesture.

"Haave you... see home?" she asked quietly, eyes seeking out the bay even though it could not be seen where they stood. She knew he had not made her home there, as it had been empty of all scents but hers and Isengrim's. "Isen is there." She wondered if he had been there for very long. They hadn't tried to communicate much past their initial hellos.

The girl – his sister – spewed reasoning behind why she had abandoned her given name and taken on the identity of Sif. He listened with a cold expression on his pale face. His long ears were pulled forward to capture every word that passed through her lips. He needed to know why she felt it was necessary to abandon who she was and to take on a different life. Moorhen had been destined for the sea. She had been born by the shores and she was intended to die by the shores. In spite of her sad childhood, Kingfisher could not forgive what had occurred. His brows narrowed on his forehead and he turned to look away from her. Gritting his teeth together, the pirate listened to the sound of the waters as they beat against the earth.

“Ye aren't a child anymore,” he growled softly. His heterochromatic gaze fell on her once more, harder than it had been before. “And ye surely can say more for yerself,” the pirate snipped. She would take some work to return to the glory of a Cairn. If she wished to shed the family name, he would quickly dispel her from the waterside and cast her from his mind. The seafarer had a feeling that she had been drawn back to the cliffs edge because of something instinctual inside of her. The water had beckoned and Moorhen had no choice but to answer.

Frowning at her question, the boy shook his head in response. “No. We – meself and Sandpiper – we've been travelin' together to get back home. To reclaim our home,” he answered finally with a confident nod of his crown. Smokestep had traveled a long way to return to the bay and he would not fail in his quest to reign over it once more. Surely, Moorhen would feel the same way about their home; she should want to return as much as any of them. The pale brute had his doubts about the dark-furred woman. Frowning thoughtfully, the boy cocked a single brow at her and nodded once. “What of Doe and Szymon?” For if Isengrim was there, surely his parents would be.

Sif's eyes narrowed at her brother - only just reunited and he was already getting on her nerves. Well, what do you expect? she wanted to ask, but sadly, could not. As much as she'd wished for a family, hers had left her behind. That was hardly her fault, was it? And at least she was here, unlike Julep. At least she had found him, and was standing here ready to learn. Certainly not a child - that much seemed clear to her.

But she did not have words to express this - at least not in his tongue. So she remained silent, eyes glinting in a way that would one day be dangerous with enough practice. It was only the mention of Doe and Szymon that drew her out of her mood. "Gone," she said stiffly, wishing the mention of Doe did not still stiffen her spine. "Long gone."

What did Kingfisher not understand about alone? She had been abandoned, and while she didn't necessarily blame anyone for that, or even resent it overmuch, she did think it was silly of her brother to expect any more than what he got with her. But that didn't matter - she was interested in the bay, and interested in her brothers, of course. But it wasn't as though she had no recourse here, either.

"Teach me," said Sif, drawing herself up. "Hep taake home. Be Caairn."

Gone. Long gone.

The boy prowls closer in the background, arriving just in time -- just within earshot -- to hear the fate of his family. Gone. Long gone. Isengrim swallows stiffly, casting his eyes out to where the water churns and back again to the cousins before him. He knew that the sea had called his parents home, he had known it when they left all those months ago. Yet, it does nothing to settle the ache within him the premature kismet his parents succumbed to, brings. That is a fresh wound, unable to scar over whilst he lingers on the banks of their former home.

Steadily, the boy travels further towards the duo, coming to a halt only a foot away from Moorhen, yet far enough away from the yearling he identifies as a relative of his. It is likely they grew up in the Depths around the same time, yet, Isengrim can do little to recall the other boy -- both as a child or a man. Looking to his sister, he snorts in the direction of the other, beckoning an answer to the name -- the identity -- of the pale-strike man.

A Cairn, he thinks with a crooked, devilish grin; tail swishing ever so slightly as the mere idea of reunion passes through his mind. In a way, as far-fetched as it is, perhaps the rejoining of the Cairn clan would be the thing to bring Julep home -- something he yearned for more than food in his stomach or air in his lungs.

The young pirate too stiffened at the mention of Szymon and Doe having abandoned their home. Smokestep was certain that Skellige would punish his younger brother severely for having left, in spite of the circumstances that fueled it. Already, he could feel the shame of their actions as it seeped through him, and the pallid young man did not like it. His lip curled and he snorted, turning his gaze away from the muddy female. Only once did his tail lash from side to side before it fell against to rest between his hocks. When he did turn back to face Moorhen, his smile had faded and his expression seemed colder than it had before. He could not help but to feel the disappointment that Skellige would have had for his family and his most trusted wolves. His father's time had passed on the bay, though, and it was time for a different Cairn to reign.

The girl seemed interested; she wanted to know of her family and know what it meant to carry the blood of the Cairn line in her body. He regarded her with a careful and calculated stare before he nodded his head slowly and gestured with the length of his muzzle at their home below. “Aye,” he mused softly before locking his gaze with her own. He would be willing to accept her into his crew and help her grow to her full potential, but there was one rule of the pirates that he could not spare her from. “Ye join me crew and ye best understand it's a blood oath. Do ye understand, Moorhen? Once a member of the crew, always a member of the crew.” Smokestep did not pull his gaze from her own as he relayed this information. She might have struggled to understand, but he needed her to know.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kingfisher spotted the approaching figure. He was draped in grey and black with the yellow optics that was common in their kind. The pirate drew himself upward and eyed the other wolf with a careful inspection. Moorhen had mentioned that Isengrim was still there. This must have been the young Cairn. The smug grin on the dark-furred male brought a squint to the seafarer's gaze, but if this was his family, then he would need to show him the way. “Ye too, lad,” he growled, gesturing at the young shadowy figure with a sweep of his muzzle.

Sif didn't know much, but she knew oath, and she knew always. These words appealed to her in their own way. She wanted something solid, something real - but part of her felt that Kingfisher had not known her long enough to be extracting promises. She blinked at him, and for a moment, saw not her long-lost brother, but a stranger from another world. She thought of Wardruna and Poet, and even the sullen Addie.

Solid. Real.

Without another word, Sif turned and began to trot away, her paws taking her quickly from the scene. Isengrim could stay or go - she just needed to get home already. The dark girl had been gone long enough, and the sea would still be here when she returned. Hopefully, Kingfisher and his oaths would be gone.

@Isengrim - if you want an actual thread with Isengrim and Smokestep I'm okay with that but I'm gonna close this out.

It became evident to him that Moorhen was no longer a Cairn.

The pale young wolf looked at his sister with a glimmer of disgust in the two colors of his gaze. Skellige had wanted a reunion of his children; he had wanted the Cairn bloodline to lead the bay again, but Smokestep would be disappointing his father again and again. Still, this new pack would be his, and he would not have the likes of Moorhen in it. She seemed to understand what he had required of her and she had made the decision to decline. The fur along his neck and shoulders rose in a fit of fiery rage that churned within his gut, curling his lip over yellowed fangs.

Moorhen would not see this; she had already turned away from him. Her legs carried her away from the edges of the ocean and inland toward whatever home she would conjure for herself. Though she had soft hopes that Kingfisher would be gone if she should return, the young corsair had no intention of ever leaving his father's land again. The bay would belong to Ironsea, and Moorhen Cairn would not have a place on his crew – she would no longer have a place as his sister.

The pale lad watched her retreat until her dark shape was out of his line of sight. When he could no longer smell her on the wind, he turned to find Sandpiper once more. Smokestep would relay this information to his sister and he would tell his closest companion that Moorhen lived no more; there was only Sif. Sif was not a Cairn.