Shimmering Sands [m] Hosts of the Air

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: Death, mild gore

The thief stood in shocked silence. At his feet lay the dark bundle of his prize, a young girl stirring faintly, but for the moment he had forgotten her. His eyes were wide, fixed ahead.

The scene before him was painted in blood. His brothers torn to crimson shreds and strewn across the sands. The scents of those responsible were lost beneath the thick, metallic stench of death — but he knew. Even before the pale warriors appeared as if summoned by his presence, he knew.

And he screamed, just as his brothers had.

...

Seelie was alone when she woke — or so she thought in those first moments. The girl blinked, feeling fogged as she sat up. Her head hurt terribly. And where was she? She —

she wasn't alone.

It was the bodies which first caught her gaze. In horror Seelie shrieked and stumbled away from them... only to trip over something still warm, something far too soft and slick for her liking. She looked down and screamed again into the ruined face of a dying man.

The man gurgled. Breathing hard now, overcome by her panic, Seelie ran. She didn't know where she was going. It didn't matter. She just needed to get away.

Home was close. Not quite on the horizon, but close. He knew the curve of the beach here; he knew the tall tall trees, and the familiar shapes of birds swooping overhead.

Raiyuk had spotted something else upon the sand and lingered close, curious at first, and then as he realized what the bundle was, he knew he could not leave. The girl woke without him noticing; he was minding one of the various shapes further along, murmuring words in his father's tongue.

When she roused, he had his back to her. When she began to gallop up the beach, Raiyuk realized that not all of the bodies here were empty husks, to be picked apart by the birds. That gave him hope; that meant something could be salvaged from whatever this was —!

He moved as swiftly as he could in pursuit, glad that he knew the terrain a little bit. Frustrated, too, when he realized his own camp was not far, but he could not exactly herd the frightened person towards it; he didn't know the beach that well.

He could only follow the hasted steps. Thankful for his training, and his good health, as he came close enough to sight her. Wait! He called.

Wait, let me help! But she was out of earshot by then, and he would have to suck in a breath to carry on the chase.

For some time now Chaudry had wandered up and down the coast, little direction in mind as he traveled West from his home, Eastwards to a pack, and the West once again to check for further settlements.

The scent of blood was first to hit his nose before his eyes ever laid upon the scene. Sands coated in blood, a group of men the victims. The scent of death was a familiar one, and Chaudry did not find himself phased.

He only inspected the scene momentarily, and coming across a scent that had begun to trail away from the area he followed it. His hulking form prepared for a fight, eyes that could only belong to his mother scanning for a perpetrator - or a survivor.

He'd lost the scent. There had been little enough to follow in the first place, but by now, he'd been tracking only a prayer for several hours. He turned and began taking the long way home, knowing that he had to check in but unwilling to leave any stone unturned. He searched even now, hopeless but still hoping.

A voice broke through his concentration. He lifted his head, and his dark ears swiveled in search of the source of the sound. It took him a long moment to realize he'd recognized the voice, though he could not yet put a name to it. The accent, at least, was one that he knew well.

Dutch lifted his head to give a brief howl, hoping the man would recognize his voice in turn. Then he hurried forth, picking up the pace to meet up with someone he knew must be a friend.

And then, picking up a decidedly more familiar scent, the panther charged ahead.

"Seelie!" he shouted, his heart pounding.

Wait!

Seelie!

Neither voice registered to the girl as familiar. Even so, the shock of hearing her own name shouted brought her to a trembling halt. Seelie flattened herself to the ground, pressing into the sands with her tufted black ears pinned to her skull in fear.

She didn't understand.

She didn't want to understand.

Overwhelmed, the girl buried her aching head between her own slender forelegs, wincing slightly as the wound at her crown bled anew. She paid it little mind, however. The pain was secondary; nothing but background noise to the unending shriek of fear and confusion which filled her thoughts. She wished they would leave, and leave her alone. She didn't want any of them.

She just wanted her mother.

His voice carried only so far, and he still plunged after the scattered steps he heard; but from another place among the pines came a shout, a call, and the stomping of feet as now a man charged after the path. Raiyuk did not know what to make of it, except to be put on-edge by the sight of a man chasing a girl. He should have recognized Dutch—in the heat of the moment though, Raiyuk made the choice to supplant the man's approach, to circumvent it by placing himself there as a wall instead.

He was still fighting against the sand, then the scramble of the forest underheel, as he tried to gain ground. Thankfully the girl had stopped! She looked stricken. It was as if all the color had been pulled from her; and she sank, and in that moment Raiyuk did not know what to do or how to help, but he moved to be there in case of danger.

What had happened? She reeked of death. Nervous to even look away from her in case the girl should dissolve in to the earth, Raiyuk dared a glance, and saw the charging panther he knew from his father's lodge. There was no time to be apologetic—he didn't feel sorry for his choice regardless—and above all, he still did not know what had happened.

cameooo

From the beaches where the scent had run cold, came a siren’s wail. With several packmates including her husband out searching, she stayed behind to watch over Kiti, Katmai, and Siri. But when she could find a faithful and skilled puppysitter to relieve her, she set her course for the beach. 

Her eyes shimmered with tears as she sang, day after day, a dirge for her lost daughter. Some part of her hoped that her sweet Selkie-girl would find her way home. 

Dutch, still healing, had left too. With her heart full of conflicting, she sang a mournful tune to the wind until her voice because hoarse. 

She would sing her daughter songs every night- until she could sing no more.

I don't really see a place for him here anymore, so I'm going to have Chaudry exit :)

It only took a short moment for the mountain man to change his mind.

Maman was waiting, he could not waste time with the feeble issues of other's - let alone those who were dead.

With a final wrinkle of his nose at the sight of bodies, Chaudry continued down his initial path.

He saw a body moving ahead of him, too large to be his young daughter. For a moment, it seemed likely this was her kidnapper, but Dutch knew him as soon as he drew close enough to draw in his scent. Relief filled him, though not as strongly as it would have had Raiyuk's father been among them. Still — it was always good to have a seal hunter on your side.

The young man was faster than him. Dutch lagged behind, to his great shame, and the chase had ended by the time he caught up. Breathing deeply, the panther closed in. His eyes were only for his daughter, but he touched his nose briefly to Raiyuk's shoulder as he passed — a wordless thank you, as he could only imagine the young man was here to help. He trusted without asking that Raiyuk would watch over them while he calmed his daughter and assessed her condition.

"I am here, bachchi," he murmured to her, hoping that the term of endearment would be familiar to her even if his voice and his scent still were not. "Where are you hurt?" he asked.

Last for me, Seelie is powerplayable from here!

White-hot pain flashed through her skull; it was too much, all the movement and voices and the striking note of familiarity among the confusion. At first Seelie didn't move. She tried to disappear there on the ground, for all the good it did her.

Then, finally, she realized: it was him, her father, he was here and maybe that meant she would be safe. Seelie looked up, searching with tearful eyes for her mother. But she didn't see her — only an unfamiliar young man standing protectively nearby.

The girl tried to speak, to ask after her mother, but the words wouldn't come. Instead she looked to Dutch and started to cry. Fog gathered behind her eyes; eventually the tears would taper off, giving way to a distant look. Seelie still would not speak, could not — but she would let her father guide her home.

Dutch came and went, and Raiyuk paced. He didn't know this was one of the weald's children, or what had brought them out here to a place of much death. He peered upon the reunion a moment before casting his attention back the way he had come, where he knew the dead sat.

There was another scent, one of the mountains and hills, which he only noticed now as it was fading. Was that the perpetrator - here to finish the job, or revisit the scene?

He would return to figure out this puzzle. For now, what mattered was that Dutch and the girl return home safely.

She needn't speak; Dutch knew at once that there was one remedy to her pain.

"You are safe," he told her again, further gentling his voice as he came close enough to hold her to his chest. "We will rest just a moment, and then we will bring you home to your mother. All you need to do is breathe."

And, for a while, it seemed almost too much of a task for her. But she managed it, and after a time, they set off toward Moontide once more.

Dutch looked more fully at Raiyuk, then.

"Thank you, mera bhai," he said with utmost sincerity, gratitude shining in his eyes. Though he still viewed Raiyuk as something of a child, he addressed him now as an equal. "We may never know all that you have done on this day. But for everything that did not come to pass — I thank you. A thousand times would not be enough."

They began to move out and Raiyuk lingered only a moment longer with his focus elsewhere. As Dutch spoke, he hurried to follow and gave the man a sheepish look. What had he walked in to? Now was not the time to ask.

He kept pace until the beach came in to view again, and then hurried to where his gifts had been stashed with his camp; then was on the trail home behind Dutch and the girl.