Stavanger Bay at tara in this fateful hour

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The youngest Cairn, pleasantly exhausted from challenging the current, licked scales from his salt-crusted, scarred lips as he bit into the fat snapper he’d caught. With Skellige back in his life, the subordinate male felt far more secure and was back to his old habits: fish, patrol, train, and occasionally remember to eat and sleep. Like Doctor, he saw the birds scuttling across the shoreline, but he paid them little mind — they were more trouble than they were worth, in terms of hunting. A gentle smile played about the pale wolf’s muzzle as he watched the funny little beast frolic in the shallows, trailing seaweed behind her like a bird who hadn’t quite figured out where to build a nest. Tattered ears fanned forward as she toppled into the sand, but as she did not appear to be in the throes of any physical distress — her lean flank still rose and fell, at least — he left her alone.

Then, with her muzzle gaping open as a distressed cry spilled from her lips, the odd little grey and white creature dashed toward the white bone fragment she’d forgotten in her mad rush to celebrate the sea — and now Szymon rose hesitantly to his paws, for unlike the Cairn brood she appeared clumsy and wayward in her frantically paddling strokes. Somewhat hesitantly — Szymon was not altogether fond of strangers — he picked up his unfinished meal and made his way to the shallows where, judging by the current, the little wolf would end up.

And he waited.

Szymon was, deep in the marrow of his bones, a kind and chivalrous thing — but the sea alone would dictate whether it swallowed the fledging witch doctor up or spat her back out again. Perhaps this was the little Mexican Wolf’s own personal version of the Drop — and so Szymon remained where he stood, sulphureous eyes blazing with a desire to aid that he couldn’t keep from feeling. However, when the sea spat the doctor back out, causing her to flounder awkwardly in the smaller breakers nearer to the shore, he placed himself between the sea and its most recent survivor — horizontally, of course, for it wasn’t wise to turn one’s back on the ocean — and followed her at a neat sidestep as she made her way a bit further up into the sand.

“Whoa,” she said, her eyes — a bright yellow like Szymon’s own — seeming to roll a bit dizzily.

Clumsily, Szymon placed his kill at her feet, nudging it toward her with a low rumble and a flick of his scarred muzzle. Eat. Eat and be welcome. His tail twitched with frenetic energy at being this close to the strange female, but the little witch doctor with her odd ears had passed the first test. He backed off a bit then, disliking the closeness that had come about due to his own brazenness, and lowered to his haunches to keep a close eye on the creature. It was for Skellige to judge the creature — Szymon had no way of knowing that she’d already been accepted by his swarthy titan of a brother, as the salt and sea had washed all traces of her previous haunts away. This, he felt, was as it should be — reborn by the sea, she might be a worthy ally for the eldest Cairn.

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