Stavanger Bay everyone, step aside; this is the last warning

The scrappy little witch doctor was many things — a mystic, peering at the real world through a shifting veil of fog; a supplicant of Skellige, as fanatically devoted as Szymon himself; and yes, perhaps a selfish girl, focused on those things and people that afforded her the greatest pleasure and entertainment — but Szymon belonged to her like a too-snug glove or a stiff new pair of shoes. The fit may have initially been imperfect, but he had stretched to suit her needs and, in that way, had become wholly, uniquely hers in a way no other wolf could claim. He was tailored for her. It was not something he voluntarily chose — she had happened to him — and he could not articulate what she was to him with the same eloquence that she found in her moment of clarity. What he felt was possession and protectiveness — a skip of heart similar to that which Skellige felt for Deirdre, with the same lack of understanding; the Cairn boys had not been raised to express love — though perhaps as his worldview expanded, they could learn.

It was pride that swelled Szymon’s breast as he watched the rapt attention with which Doe examined the first of her gifts; her scab-prickled nose brushed the spotted hide with uninhibited reverence, and then she turned her brilliant lemon eyes to his, luminescent and liquid with emotion. Szymon dragged air slowly into his lungs, blowing it out on a shaky sigh at the look in those eyes, and shifted his lean, angular shoulders in a bashful shrug as she thanked him. He canted his narrow head to look obliquely at her with a smile of fond amusement — it was a gift that paled, he thought, in comparison to what she gave him. Still, he could not negate the effort that getting and preparing the gift had taken, so he accepted her thanks with another roughhewn chuckle. “Good,” he said playfully in response to her soft musing. Other wolves would perhaps give her gifts like these in the future — perhaps even the greatest gifts a male could give a female, if Skellige and the Sea so wished it — but they would not see her face the way it was now, open and clear and just a little bit awestruck. Szymon was the first.

Had Szymon been privy to Doe’s realization, he would have negated it immediately — though he would have been wholly unable to articulate why. The golden-eyed Cairn was raised for a life of war; Doe would perhaps never know how fulfilling he found it to provide something other than an extra set of fangs and an extra warm body to pit against the foes of the lofty Cairns. Her eager taking gave his giving — and his life — a new layer of meaning. It was clear that he found her nearness gift enough, for as she pushed her muzzle into his fur, all the tension in his body melted away and he crooned to her lovingly — a sound no other wolf had heard him make. He watched with rapt amusement as she fell to the warm-blooded meat with a will, finding it interesting to note that she tore into it with far more gusto than she did the oceanic fare he normally brought her — and understanding bloomed suddenly in his golden eyes. She was not a wolf of the sea — that much had been apparent since the first day she’d almost drowned at his feet. Perhaps her palate was more suited to the beasts of the land.

Hunkering down beside his Chosen One, the inky-ribbed Cairn helped to clean up the last of the meat, pushing the spindly leg bones toward her just in case she wanted to chew on them in the near future. “Y-You — ” he stammered out, his tongue working clumsily to encapsulate the joy he felt in that moment. He fell short, of course. Compliments were new for him, and they felt untutored and puerile when they fell from his lips. “Your t-turn,” was what he fell back on. With mock demand, he nosed at her neck and shoulder, butting her insistently as though to demand his surprise.