Wheeling Gull Isle amongst the whales and the waves

@Coelacanth?

Komodo had been around — he had only become a little reclusive. A man of many passions, he put as much effort into seclusion as he did his customary conviviality, when he wanted to and when he was prone to it. It was always around this time, when mercury was in retrograde [ugh, the worst], that he found himself pulling back from others. He took to the cave nearest the center of the island, and brooded silently.

Alone here, he couldn’t help but muse upon how the little sheepdog had gone and taken a mate. Though her mate of choice was of the highest caliber, there was an interesting twinge in the earthstalker’s gut whenever he saw the girl cosseting and caressing the gampr. It didn't happen often, and he didn't really like it.

Komodo was not a man without faults. He has always been predisposed to jealousy  — jealousy of those who were better shamans, who could heal incredible wounds and glimpse visions that Komodo could never even dream of seeing; jealousy of different worldly cultures, and of those whoever’s life might seem more colorful at whatever time.

He wouldn’t say he was jealous of love or others' relationships per se, but he certainly was possessive of the women in his life [as he had been with aria, and the Corten twins… and Coelacanth, he now realized]. Now there were boundaries with the inky ingenue — and the brute had never done well with boundaries, anyway. Well, whatever they had been to each other, the dynamic had certainly changed and, somehow, the angakkuq understood that it was for the best. Their preferred lifestyles were not in alignment, not with her wishing to colonize the island once more, and he wishing to fall back into his cyclical habits of leaving, and then coming back, and then leaving again, and then coming back again. They were too diametrically opposed.

Even still, certainly with Undersea reformed, Komodo felt confident that the alpha pair might produce a litter — and Komodo found himself profoundly sad that it wasn’t his. Ultimately, however, Komodo was able to put the thought to the back of his mind. He focused his efforts on prayer and sacred dedication and found himself easily consumed by the fire of it. The prospect of obtaining more devotional supplies was what had pulled him from the cave that crisp early spring morning. The world was already buzzing with signs of life, awakening from the winter which crept ever-so-slowly into retreat; he loved it, and felted warmed by it [even though it was, for all intents and purposes, still very cold out].

The brute made to canter in the direction of the nearest beach, to see what the generous oceans had belched for him that day. When the currents warmed, the pelagic jetsam was at its most interesting and to pilfer through it was a real treat. Just the other day he had found a smooth nub of driftwood, and then a starfish — both had been stolen back to the cave and tucked away. As such, with ears and tail alert, he guided himself across the beach with his coal-tipped snout flush to the sands, seeking out anything and everything that interested him and might be of value as an offering to the gods.