Stavanger Bay we gather in shadow and ash

This thread is MANDATORY for all Blackrock Depths members who wish to remain under Szymon and Doe’s leadership and any wolves who wish to automatically become part of Blackrock Depths following the fire. I have tagged everyone who has expressed interest, but I know several of you either have joining threads separate from this one or dated afterward, so feel free to ignore it if your character is joining via a different route.

This thread is backdated to January 1, 2017, just a few days after the fire.

@Rouge @Sage @Isengrim @Julep @Moorhen @Muses @Wuathila @Alttayih @Sadie @Coelacanth

Tragedy had befallen the wolves of Donnelaith and Blackrock Depths — without a sovereign at either helm, the duty fell to none other than Szymon to rally the peace-loving forest dwellers and the malevolent seawolves alike. He waited for the niggling, venomous voice he knew so well — “you are unfit,” it would say; “you are the weakest son,” — but somehow, that voice never came. It was Deirdre’s voice he heard, her mellifluous timbre urging him on: “you must,” she said simply, a thread of steel behind her gentle lilt, “for me and for Skellige, for our wolves, for the children, you must.” Whether the voice was truly prophetic or merely a coping mechanism to help Szymon bolster his fraying confidence, he squared his soot-smattered shoulders and drew a deep, steadying breath. He had no sense of it being too soon to take matters into his own jaws; every second that slipped by was a moment of opportunity for a usurper to challenge his claim. Ash-peppered lips curled, revealing a flash of brilliant white fangs at the very thought of losing all he’d worked so hard to defend — and in his moment of peril, he called upon the staying power of his spirit guide, the sea turtle.

Then, without preamble, he left the water’s edge. The rising sun of the new year was at his back as he desperately sought his wife, dirty and bedraggled as they all were. He found her with @Muses, tending to the children, and did not ask where she had been or when she had returned. “Doe,” he said without preamble, his bass timbre made husky and thick by the dangerous black smoke that had driven the wolves north. “I know you are w-w-weary.” So was he, evidently, for there was the pesky stutter when he most ardently needed it gone. Closing his golden eyes with exhaustion, he forced his next statement to some semblance of fluency, though it still hitched at the edges: “I need you — because you are my mate, and because you are Witch Doctor. I need you now, my lovely girl.” The Cairn way had not died or disappeared with Skellige — if anything, it was more important to commune with the Sea now, especially given that Szymon had offended Her.