Ankyra Sound gulper shark

sobeille could hear the distant lash of the waves between the gathering silence in the cavern. she read the stranger’s face like a starveling disciple; the awe and wonder, the shift of her jaw as she made to speak and yet could not.

she walked among the ruins of this old civilization, each step pronounced with a small cloud of dust. she’d visited here many times, but always alone.

what kind of place do you t’ink dis was? sobeille finally ventured, standing before the toppled bones with an air of quiet severity.

the question felt as thought it could mean anything.

a home, a church, a hideaway.

it was everything. it held things that had come long before either of them had been made flesh and she figured that it might be here long after them too. her silence was thoughtful, not avoidant.

the dust lifted like spores into the air. she inhaled finally at last, sucked in that ancient life so it would live in her lungs.

a heart. and the bones, all the bones! and a heart needs blood to pump.

a heart?

sobeille tried to imagine what the cistern was like in the height of its occupant’s power. the bustle of bodies, the salt-and-iron tang of blood. each darkened room an atrium, and the altar its gurgling center.

she marveled this stranger’s mind and not for the first time wished there was some way to assume the vantage point of the viewer: to see as they see, and feel as they felt.

a rare grin dogged her cut face. my maman would like you. she turned back to the fountstone, pressing a paw delicately into the settled dust. would you like to meet ‘er?

if you want to start a follow up, feel free to PP dogfish following!

dogfish was suddenly aware that was the first time anyone in her life had ever uttered such a thing.

back home, no one’s mother but her own liked her. not for any grave wrongdoing but for her simple contentment to follow and be molded rather than do the molding herself. yet she felt like it had done her real good here. felt like it meant she wasn’t stuck in old ways. she could see more that way, do more that way.

yes. a simple but certain answer. her tail waved once and twice behind her. a soft inhale of the dust once more.

no sooner did the invitation leave sobeille's lips did she hold her breath for fear of rejection -- but the stranger seemed to breathe in the sanctity of this place, and unfurled a single response that had sobeille's blood rush with buzzing warmth.

ok, it be dis way. sobeille instructed, motioning to the exit. they'd crawl out the throat of the tunnel and climb the jagged stairs marking the cliff's promontory. here, sobeille would pause and ask: what be your name?

her name!

it was so simple and yet she had felt as if they flew past it so quickly. bonded by this altar, bonded by the sea and the skies. her cheeks felt hot now and she introduced herself with a humble lining of embarrassment.

dogfish. because she had not stayed around long enough to earn a better one. she sounded like a pup in title still.

and you?

she lifted herself up over a ledge. unable to compete with the grace of the coastal woods woman who had been here before.

another nail in the coffin when it came to sobeille's conviction this meet was fated; the girl had a name awash in marine tradition.

i be sobeille. if it was strange custom to name one's daughter after a spiny shark, sobeille did not know. she had been raised, after all, alongside wolves like njord and meerkat, whose children ran the gamut from swordfish to stingray.

clearing the ledge alongside her grey counterpart, sobeille lead them out into the light where the sea's roars rose to meet them.

fade here or w ur post? <3