Ocean's Breath Plateau dancing doe

joining/participation optional! nanta tag for visibility as she has a joining thread <3

screaming woke the first warrior from a fitful sleep. he had been dozing outside his own lodge, wanting to be available should @Rodyn or @Dutch need him for anything.
a child's screams. he first veered to the seal hunter shelters, assuring himself that his five young still slept between the homes.
and then he began to shout them awake. "@Sea Hunter, @Sirmiq, chagak, @Puffin, come with me. fast." he was certain @Marina would attend @Simbelmyne at this horrible time, and was thankful for it. @Kilalurak would stay behind to help mind the small children katmai, sirimiri, and kitimat,  and chakliux instructed his pale lookalike daughter to find valiant and @Nantahala, firmly insisting that they stay together and keep the young pups watched. @Ponderosa, @Raindrop, and @Silvertip were invited to the collection of wolves congregated at the seal hunter lodges, for moontide would do well to protect their core at this time.
@Taggak and @Tullik he bid go to their leader and to @Aditya. perhaps another patrol could be started in the opposite direction. they must waste no second of time.
their shadows whisked on swift feet. the seal hunter and his children would search as far as seaside moors, starting from the place of disturbed sand and wolven prints.
who would take a child?
who would ruin their peace again?
a second invasion had happened while they were away. dutch had come back horribly changed. now a thief stole the child of the panther. his lips twisted.
he thought darkly of the skin strip he had taken from marina's attacker, how it still twisted in the breeze outside their lodge. let a head join it there for a second trophy.

sirmiq was steadfast in his devotion to family, and so when his father awoke him and his siblings in a fret of panic, the boy did not question why. he did not need to inquire to the happenings to know he would follow chakliux with unwavering steps. 

whatever had occurred was a hateful act, this the boy could tell without any need for explanation. he could see it in the faces of his mothers. in the face of his father. 

he followed silently, a shadow to his father's steps. where directions were given, sirmiq sought to obey them without question.

A scream-

Screams had roused her from her sleep before, whether they be squeals of joy, a demand for attention, or a child irked by their sibling. She weathered the sharp pitch of their voices, working to hide the squinting of her eyes when they made her ears ache. As they grew, their voices changed- they became louder, but less shrill. They lost their gull-cries and had begun to develop (albeit with some breaks and cracks) their pre-teen voices.

But every mother knew the scream of peril. Every mother knew the sound that could make their heartbeat halt, blood frozen in their veins.

She had become accustomed to counting three children. With Katmai returned, she counted to four- but he was among the three she counted, now. It was Seelie, her little selkie, whose voice was the last trace left.

Three she left supervised, threatened with a trembling voice to stay put! as she brushed past any restraint, hastening to the shoreline where her child’s pawprints trailed, and disappeared. 

The tide would come, and hungrily sweep them away. She would only be able to count to three, again.

She wailed. Into the blustery winds she screamed, fur whipping about her strained features. Again and again she would scream senselessly into the winds until her voice grew hoarse. Only then would she allow herself to be guided back to her home, where she could collapse beneath the weight of a grief that had come to settle into her heart all too soon.

This was a dream he'd had before. Perhaps one he'd actively been dreaming, even as he woke to the distant scream of his daughter. Certainly, it took him no time at all to understand and react to the stimuli. He was on his paws already, racing ahead of Chakliux and then, defeated by his exhaustion, merely running alongside him toward the source of the noise.

The dark girl was nowhere to be seen.

For Dutch, there was little to be seen at all. Only his wife, silent for the ringing in his ears but visibly wailing with the grief he'd failed to save them from.

A towering feeling bubbled up in his throat, so unfamiliar to the panther that he could not name it before it overcame him. He tremored under the strength of his rage, alight with it and leveled by it all at once. But his numb paws pulled him forward, and the stiff muscles of his neck bent and twisted to lower his face to the sand. Leathery nares flared, blowing grains of sand and attracting others as he searched for the scent of an unfamiliar wolf.

He would find her. He had not guided Katmai all this way only to lose Seelie the next day.

Chagak came at once, though he was still bleary-eyed from slumber. He hadn't heard the cry, and so at first, he thought they must be moving stores from high tide or chasing wild boar away from the caches. It took him long minutes to understand that something was very, very wrong.

He stuck close to Puffin, glancing over her head at Sirmiq as they ran. His father's expression scared him — not that he could ever be afraid of his father, but of whatever evil had put such a look into his eyes. Then it was Simbelmyne and Dutch who frightened him.

The seal hunter boy was as ready as he could be for battle. He would gladly fight for their family, no matter what the odds. But there was a feeling of misgiving in his chest for a thing he did not have the tools to understand. Who had taken Seelie? For what reason?

The lack of answers was somehow more chilling than the man Cen sneaking in to steal Brave One from their midst.

sorry

aditya didn't rouse quickly these days, but the shriek was like sudden cold water over his head - he woke with numb limbs and bristling fur, eyes widening in panic. there was much activity among the lodges, and above the din, he heard chakliux barking orders.

someone dead? or— he began to count his grandchildren and, just as simbelmyne had, found the number lacking.

seelie. who had taken her—and why?!

and dutch and katmai only just returned. . .

in a dazed fog, adi began to make his way to rodyn and the yearlings as instructed, but the steps felt difficult, as if his paws weighed a thousand pounds each. horror gripped his body in a vise; his chest ached, and—

oh, no, no, no, he muttered as his vision began to swim and darken, the world growing smaller and smaller around him. he sank to his knees, panting, trying to summon the strength to carry on, internally cursing himself:

damned if he'd die right now and make the already-fraught situation even more of a nightmare!

sorry didn't reply right away

Rodyn had been patrolling on the other end of thr pack lands. It was late amd he should have been asleep and yet he wasn't. And he didn't get there in time. Again.

Three times thr charm they say. He hadn't been able to save Samani, nor Ghelan and now he couldn't save seelie. Quiet precious Seelie.

He gritted his teeth and stared at the larger paws enveloping little ones. They were all tired. They just had members come back weakened. Who could he spare right now.

He gathered Tullik and Taggak and began a trek around to find someway, somw hint of where the girl had been taken.

Tragedy had stuck, three times over. Two children had disappeared, a young boy named Ghelan and now of Dutch’s own pups. 

Raindrop gather her children after the call, and made their way swiftly to where many wolves had gathered. She comforted her children, calming them. She took a moment to realize how fortunate she and her family were, that they were all together, but would they be safe?

She approached Chaklieux and Rodyn, “I will stay and help watch the remaining children. I will be here to comfort Simbelmyne. I will do my best to keep them safe.” Her voice was strong, reassuring. She truly had the heart of a mother, ready to defend the young lives that these couples, including herself and her mate, had worked so hard to bring to life. 

And soon, the search parties were off, fierce in their will to fight, to bring this evil doer to justice, to bring a child home.

At the urging of his father, Sea Hunter roused. Swiftly he was on his paws and pressing forward, uncertain but obedient.

He and his siblings asked no questions. The young seal hunter attempted to exchange glances with each of them as they assumed a search. Sea Hunter hadn't heard the scream that alerted their sire, but the nervous tension that spurred them into action was enough to indicate that something terrible had happened to their own.

He remained close to Sirmiq as they moved, a tufted ear trained on Chakliux for instruction.

Despite his youth, Kitimat was no child. He'd grown up quickly in the wake of his father and brother disappearing, and his mother's subsequent isolation—and this, too, would harden the young man into something more resembling the latter word.

He woke to the first scream, and in the scramble of pawsteps and commands and shouts, heard another, high and keening.

Mother.

Ignoring those herding him into the den with his siblings and the other pups—ignoring the stern instructions from her own mouth—Kitty instead burst into a gallop and raced toward his mother, sand flying as he skittered to a stop at her side.

There he would stand fast against her, reproach and admonition be damned. He would not leave her side until this situation was resolved and Seelie was returned home. . .and perhaps not even then.