Blackfeather Woods the gull’s way and the whale’s way

@Astrid ♥

Miles away from the sea, in the bowels of a cave in the middle of a foreboding darkwood, the sheepdog listened to the distant sound of rain. She tiptoed to the maw of the Wolfskull but huddled in the dry dust, in the shadow of the incisors, as her slender muzzle quivered and watered. Part of the cause for her pytalism was fear, pure and simple — but the brunt of it was hunger, pure and simple. Her already gamine frame was gaunt and skeletal now, the lustrous quality of her fur dull and lank; she was a selkie’s daughter, deprived of the sea, and the hunger she felt went beyond a simple need for food. It was freedom she hungered for.

As a distant roll of thunder caused her skin to prickle with unease — she’d never really liked thunderstorms, but she wasn’t as troubled by them as some of her more domesticated brethren — she licked her lips nervously. Soft plip-plops of moisture dropped into the dust at her frightfully dirty paws, creating infinitesimal mushroom clouds that she regarded with terror. The moisture in the air made the scents around her that much more intense, and she felt suddenly that she would rather die than waste away another day in this foul prison. She could smell Abraxas and Atshen, and the woman who had shown her a deceptive sort of kindness, and she whipped around, but this time no wolf was regurgitated from the ‘Skull’s inner seams. Flinging her head up, her dry, cracked nostrils flaring, she leapt clear over the incisors like an agility hurdle and made her escape in not a proud sprint but a series of scuttling darts and pregnant pauses.

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Coelacanth hadn’t been on the lam for long, but already she was regretting her decision to R-U-N-N-O-F-T. The darkengrove was unsettling in daylight, but it was utterly terrifying at night. She didn’t have the faintest idea where she was, and every little sound spelled danger. Her lips trembled with longing and fear as she dipped her sharply tapered muzzle to drink from a stream lying just east of the Wolfskull, but just before they broke surface she paused. Distrust cricked her tiny body into a series of jutting angles as she curled her lips at the chill froth and her own reflection, backing away and veering sharply northwest. The scent of the Blackfeather wolves was everywhere, and it was hard to tell where it was thickest — but she knew that north meant the sea, and west meant away from the cave. With another quick glance skyward, she kept moving.