Ankyra Sound 별빛달빛

@Kjalarr ♡

NOTE: In Seelie’s personal timeline, this takes place after her thread with Rigr.

Immediately following the night of celebration, the little Groenendael traced the shoreline eastward. She bade farewell to the pinnipeds and their rocky shoals, danced her way across the mirror-like river delta, and looked with poignant fondness upon Marbas’ island. Restlessly she wandered the cape, nimble paws carrying her past a series of rocky cliffs as she chased a pod of dolphins, stopping only when territory borders forced her to. Kierkegaard’s scent drew her to the sirens’ hallowed ground; and yet, a pressing need to keep moving spurred her onward. At the eleventh hour she bathed in seawater set aglow by bioluminescent plankton — and just as the first glimmers of dawn began to outshine the glittering expanse of stars, the inky ingénue set her sights further north and turned away from the breathtaking radiance that surrounded her. With a single backward glance and a fierce ache in her heart for those she would leave behind — Doe, Marbas, Kierkegaard, Dagfinn, Starbuck, Szymon, and Chusi — Coelacanth left the Teekon Wilds entirely, intent on finding her wayward twin.

And she had failed.

The past four months had been the hardest of Coelacanth’s life — and the toll those months had taken was manifest in her waiflike thinness and the otherworldly sorrow that glimmered now in her bright seablue eyes. Catlike paws ghosted soundlessly along the riverbank, tracing a meandering path upstream; and this time, when she neared Kierkegaard’s home, she stopped. Tufted ears twisted gracefully upon her skull as she inhaled deeply, tasting brine and autumn leaves and only the faintest hint of wolfscent. Kierkegaard, she realized with a heavy heart, was not here. Worse, the territory borders appeared to have recently fallen into a state of disrepair. Meticulously minding them regardless, the atramentous sheepdog cross threaded her way down to the shore, wading into the glowing sea while her feathery fur formed an inkdark halo about her. Bioluminescent plankton turned the sea to crushed star sapphires, and she delighted in the beauty that surrounded her — but there was an untold story here and a sadness unspoken. Tipping her muzzle skyward just as a chill autumn rain began to fall, Coelacanth closed her eyes.