Cerulean Cape And maybe then we'll talk

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As much as Thresher wanted the whale to move, she couldn’t bring herself to touch it. Its skin should have been glossy and shiny, the way it looked when it breached out in the water, not dry and flecked with sand and drying salt. The smell it emitted was foul, but even worse yet was the fact that it still made her stomach clench; and beg for her to eat something. She eyed one of its flippers, ridged and wave-like in shape, and moved around to its fluke where she could see a bit of the white markings from its underside. While she had always wanted to see one so close, she had never wanted to see one as it lay, awaiting death. Was this what happened to all whales? Did they all suffer a death that was full of shame and privy to spectators as this?

She wanted to do something- but was surprised by the sudden sound of another wolf who’d uttered a note to get her attention. She skittered backwards, hiding temporarily behind the whale and of course, it allowed her to take shelter. She peeked around its barnacle-crusted chin to see a large male, with a sturdy, imposing frame looking down the way at both her and the whale. There was an authoritative way about him that Thresher was unfamiliar with, as her own father had been warm and had commanded respect by simply existing- at least, in Thresher’s eyes. The words he spoke upset her, but it wasn’t the fact that the whale wouldn’t feel much, but the fact that it didn’t want help. Thresher had yet to realize the truth- that the whale hadn’t been washed up by the storm, but that it had placed itself there to die.

She wanted to will it to live again, and finally gently, touched her nose to its cheek, just below its eye so that she could make eye contact with it. The creature regarded her from many miles away, or so it seemed, and simply seemed to accept the presence of another apex predator. If it feared her, it didn’t show it. But if it enjoyed her presence, it didn’t show that either. Thresher saw nothing in the whale’s eye, which blinked slowly. This wasn’t enough, though. What the stranger had said couldn’t be true, and she wouldn’t accept it as easily as he thought she might.

She had heard the humpbacks sing before, and had often sung back to them as they chased each other and leapt from the waters in the summer. She remembered that much, now. She remembered standing on a beach, with the land to her back and facing out to the deep ocean where the whales passed by, not in this inlet. She tilted her head back and did her best to remember the songs the whales had sung again, her voice high and clear, wavering and halting, occasionally dipping an octave before swooping back up again, questioningly. Out of breath, she lowered her muzzle and looked back at the whale, hopefully.

Any stare it had once had was gone; its half-lidded eyes were greyed and far away, and its sides had stopped moving, at last. Feeling powerless as a ripple of water in an ocean, she sank to the ground beside the deceased whale and placed her head on her forepaws. Now she was even more alone.

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