Wheeling Gull Isle yippee-ki-yay

The first of Undersea’s storm plot threads. Characters attempting to earn the Naturalist or Meteorologist trades, or those particularly attuned to nature, may feel free to start feeling that a storm is on the horizon.

Beneath the boughs of the ancient spruce, the sheepdog etched a roughhewn ring. Her restless circling had burned a perfect, pale halo around the mother tree, bright amongst the blue-green needles.

Coelacanth had wanted to strike out for the mainland immediately once @Thresher had turned up missing, but the needs of the remaining Five kept her tethered to Wheeling Gull Isle’s shores. It was her duty, but it wasn’t a chore; she loved all the island’s children with intrinsic fervor. The abundance of anxiety that coursed along every nerve lent her enough energy to care for her family and worry the weight off her bones. @Mur, Fern, Grayling, @Sixgill, and Koi were lovingly tended to by every loyal seawolf who had chosen to remain, and in truth, the little wolfdogs were probably more closely guarded than they wished to be. They were growing quickly, eager to wander and explore the glimmering unknown, but the former Aralez had placed a ban on wayfaring until Thresher was found.

The temperature had dipped severely since the first of December, and the spruce trembled as a particularly fierce wind winnowed through her shorter brethren and laced her gnarled trunk. She knew, though she would never tell a soul, that the wilds were keen to test her mettle; she could taste a heightened, bitter-metallic breath of saline and rain in the soil, on the wind. The Old Ones could feel it as keenly as their prickly Mother. Perhaps the most sensitive of the wild creatures, too, would be able to feel that faraway crackle of electricity along their guardhairs — but they were not as wise, nor as long-lived, as trees. The ancient spruce had seen many creatures come and go.

posted by coelacanth.