Stavanger Bay Rest My Dear

Words spilled from his lips faster than Smokestep had the chance to catch them, or at least to comprehend them. When he had finally pieced the bits and pieces together, he looked at Engel with a gaping jaw and his eyes trailed the edges of the shore in search of a body. Surely, if it was a beast from the waves that had taken her, they would not have left much behind. His pelt bristled and he shook his head. “Wot? Engel, mate… ye best be tellin’ me wot happened out thar,” he told the other wolf. The scout’s face was streaming tears and Smokestep was doing everything within his power to remain collected and reserved in the face of such a terrible accident. Something in the back of his mind pricked like a pin against his brain, but he tried his best to fight it away. Pacing in one spot for a few moments, Smokestep then looked to Engel and frowned.
 
“Was it a shark, lad?” he asked, desperation clinging to his tone. As much as he would have felt broken to find that a shark had pulled Awinita into the depths to devour her, there was another possibility that had burned inside of him in the form of a life-long brand. Skellige had always told stories about his sister Ksenia and her wicked ways. Smokestep’s aunt had taken the killer whale as her spirit guide and it acted as a measure of her wrath on difficult days. If an orca had come too close to shore and taken one of his crew, it was surely a sign that he had done something terribly wrong and the great ones would punish him for it.