Stavanger Bay league of extraordinarily grumpy gentlemen

For @Rannoch! Tagging Skiggy and @Mannoah for reference. ♥
Being vague about wounds because spar is not done yet.

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Szymon’s steps were heavy with weariness. The past week had seen a redoubling of the black-banded Cairn’s efforts to stock the caches and refresh the territory borders; too, he had been preoccupied with making repeat trips to the gyrfalcons’ hillocks to pillage and plunder their rocky home. Plucking the feathers from the fat, downy creatures was annoying and exhausting — but Doe had mentioned briefly a desire to pad the den with something soft but easier to clean than sand, and he could deny her nothing. He found a sense of pride and pleasure in providing for her — a driving force that had encouraged him over the past several months to put on weight and muscle. His framework was and would always be sharp and angular, but he was made of stronger stuff now. Rarely did he slip into the habits of the skulking, jittery beast he had been when he first met his mate.

Sparring with Ragna, too, had been a fruitful experience; Szymon had been taken aback by the small female’s ferocity, though he really shouldn’t have been. It was evident from her fierceness and her adeptness at fishing that she was a sea wolf through and through, though he couldn’t fathom why she chose to live inland. Stretching his sore muscles, he yawned, dropping the bluefish he held so firmly within his jaws. It was an adult — a rare catch, and one to be proud of; he still bore the strikes of its sharp teeth on his forelegs, dried blood painting the frail scrapes a blackish maroon. Mindful of the sharp fins, he picked it back up, hooking the gills on his lower incisors like a proud trophy fisherman as he made his way toward Skellige’s den. The area was thick with the dark female’s scent and another unfamiliar smell besides — a young male cub, if Szymon’s nose wasn’t playing tricks on him. The fact that the boy presented a very real threat to Qilaq did not immediately occur to the golden-eyed Cairn, and he thought little of it.

“@Skellige,” he rumbled shortly, mainly to alert his older brother to his presence before his larger, more ferocious inverse ripped into him for lingering too close to his throne. He dropped the fish’s body at the Leviathan’s doorstep, craving the praise of the salt king for his superior catch but also desiring that the mahogany-eyed behemoth hasten his healing by eating the flesh provided by their roiling goddess.

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