Ankyra Sound new leaf, wild world

The wind and the rain are starting to pick up! The dice say that you get to have a positive event. I think something is borked in your forum, so I hope this goes through. D: Sorry it took me so long to get these started!

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 Sound 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.

The wolf had not noticed when the wind began to pick up, but he was asleep by the mouth of the caves; it wasn't until sharp rain began to sluice from above that he finally woke up from whatever stupor had claimed him. As Firefly got to his feet he felt the heavy gusts of wind buffeting at his broad shoulders and struggled, working his way through the cove until the beach yawned in front of him. It probably wasn't the best idea to creep along the sand where the raging sea could move against him — but he was intrigued by the indomitable weather and wanted to understand it in the moment. He came to an abrupt stop upon realizing that the sea was being driven further up the beach than what was typical; so he sank back, awed by the powerful display that swept across his new home.

He awoke from his slumber, deep in the Grotto, to the sound of howling winds moving sonorously through the craggy tunnels. Mwe lay there for some moments, enjoying the sound that was so much like the voices of his kin— the whispered, fevered howls of ghosts that had come before him, before them all. When the unnerving music proved to be relentless, the large male rose to his feet and stretched before navigating his way through the caverns.

Mwe stood at the Grotto's mouth and watched the swelling ocean with a sort of fearful awe— so impressed by its power and the swath of flopping fish it left behind that he only gave his present pack mate a brief nod of acknowledgement.

Unlike his companions, content to watch the mighty storm hack and slash at their beachfront manor, Svalinn saw vulnerable fish and it was nearly impossible for him to remain at bay - as competitively voracious as his appetite was these days. He charged out into the storm from the battered treeline, difficult to see from the Grotto, but clearly some foolish blob in the distance, just bobbing precariously back and forth as it struggled for... something... before making a hunched, defeated-looking retreat back into the trees.

Svalinn panted quietly as he recovered from his run out on the exposed beach; his foray into the high winds and whipping rain proving fruitful, as he now sat with a long, slender fish wriggling in dying flops at his fat paws. Forgetting that he was soaking wet and had nearly lost his ankles to no more than a few inches of rushing tide water, Svalinn dug into his hard-fought meal and tuned out the hissy storm.

Firefly did not look away from the rolling storm for a while; he did not hear the approach of Mwe on the sand, too fixated on the booming of the ocean and the crashing of the waves, the sluice of rain that fell across them all. Then, as a third body swept by him and out towards the sea, Firefly's attention switched and followed the buttercream boy as he assailed one of the loose chunks of detritus. It wasn't until the boy had returned along the sand and plopped down to feast that Firefly realized what was happening - that the sea was being syphoned of its gifts. That there was now free access to those daring enough to tempt the storm.

It was then that the man looked to Mwe, gaze fiendish despite their chill, and the spell was broken. He was not going to let the boy have all the fun — and so he tore across the sand, leaving gouges in the wet surface as his reaching steps fought against the tension of the beach as well as the storm's gale; he dove for the different shapes until his teeth sank through the flesh of a fish, but it was torn from him just as swiftly as the air current changed direction. He wheeled about for a moment with fish blood trailing down his chin, and tried again, again, again, not to grab and run but to maim, and see how many he could catch before the weather turned even more dangerous.