Stavanger Bay Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy

At length, Szymon stirred — he could not remember whether he’d slipped gracefully into slumber or dropped to the earth like an anvil, unconscious in the wake of Doe’s warm mastery over him. He did remember, though, how sensation after sensation had battered his body like a warhammer until waves of pleasure had broken over him in a whirling maelstrom, turning the Sea to fire before his eyes. He moved gingerly, one foreleg knotted beneath him with an uncomfortable sensation of pins and needles, and arranged his limbs into some semblance of order — and he looked at the woman tucked against his side, knowing her to be his now in a way that no other wolf could claim. Smoothing a soft lick against her crown, washing her face in a slow sweep of kisses, he sang to her:

“I’ve been
out on the ocean,
sailing alone,
traveling nowhere.

You’ve been
running on hard ground;
with just you around,
your heartbeat’s the only sound.

Now I know
that I was destined to find
the sound of your heart beats with mine —

and someday,
the crash of the waves may be far away,
but I will sail in your eyes —

to be by your side,
I’d leave the ocean behind.”

“The ocean” in this case was purely metaphorical — but even the Sea-sworn Cairn was helpless to deny the fool his feelings made of him. In this moment, in this place, he thought he’d willingly follow the coy little female anywhere — but their fanatic loyalty to Skellige and Szymon’s love for the ocean tied them firmly to the bay territory. As his low bass timbre faded into silence, he nosed at the bulb of one oversized ear. “Doe,” he whispered, carefully conjuring what words of devotion he could remember and breathing life into them so delicately that even his impediment could not interfere, “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, now and forever.”