Ravenshook Cliffs of salted crimes

whump time! ;-D i was going to make this read-only but decided to make it all welcome so if someone wants to jump in they can. this is forward dated to after he joins up with skellige also made a few assumptions. :0

 

Arturo was not a sea-faring man. Of course he heard of it and having subjugated himself to Skellige’s rule in the Bay he found his new home very close to it but his interaction with it prior was minimal. Limited to brief glimpses of it upon his scouting missions. Neither was he formidable at navigating sea cliffs either. In fact, he detested heights, much preferring the stability of solid ground beneath his paws as opposed to the crumbling path of sea worn rock. Yet, the gangster was curious and in his assurance that the treacherous terrain could hold him arrogant. From his current elevation a fall would hurt, certainly, but it would not be enough to kill him. Or so he believed.

The morning was warm, if not a bit too muggy for the coywolf’s personal taste but a nice, albeit briny wind off of the ocean breezed through the tendrils of his melanistic colored fur at times like a lover’s caress and at other times like a hurricane in a tunnel, causing Arturo to lean his weight towards the face of the cliff. Toppling down the side of the Ravenshook Cliffs was not something he desired to do, admittedly. His steps were careful and methodical, but he was not adept enough at navigating the treacherous terrain to be able to tell when a piece of path was ready to crumble at even the slightest pressure. Seagulls called out to one another from above, circling and complaining but Arturo paid the lesser creatures little mind as he focused upon the rocky path before him.

Arturo didn’t even realize that he’d step on the unstable part of the cliff until he felt the tremble beneath the weight of his right paw. Quickly, he drew it back as it threw him temporarily off balance. With his heart pounding in his ears, slicked back to his skull as they were he pressed himself against the cliff face, finding a small semblance of relief in the hard press of the uneven rock against his side as he watched part of the cliff give and crumble away to the ground below with trepidation in his fiery red-orange gaze. A deep breath was taken as he collected himself pondering if it was wise to retrace his steps. Except as he made to carefully twist his body so that he was facing the way he had climbed from — the path slick with sea brine and the wet droppings of the gulls — Arturo lost his footing. Though he scrambled to grasp upon the unyielding rock as gravity grasped him and deigned to yank him back down to the earth. He grappled to hoist himself back on the precipice but his claws found minimal purchase and without anything solid to hang on to Arturo lost the battle and fell from the overhang.

The cliff was not kind to Arturo as he crashed into it on his tumble back down to solid ground. Luck, however, appeared to favor the gangster that when he collided with the earth his body would be left sore and bruised but unbroken with shallow scrapes and cuts but nothing too mutilating that would leave scars upon the vain Fearghal. Physically, at least, for Arturo’s head smacked without grace against the hard earth as bits of rock and dust covered his body and the impact knocked him unconscious where he lay, a heap of richly colored fur that would in time mat with sticky blood from where it seeped from his shallow wounds.

The only indication given to the fact that he was still alive was the steady rise and fall of his shoulders with each breath he took perhaps giving the impression that he was sleeping if not for the wounds he bore and the pieces of broken rock around him.