Coconut Grove don't you ever tame your demons

@Hatshepsut

The trek had been long enough to pull them from the elk forests and down to the coast. Very little conversation had been passed between the two wolves, but the dark wraith had decided that he was not opposed to her companionship. The exotic way that she spoke, and even the manner in which she walked, suggested that she was from a faraway place. He could never dream what her home land had been, but the same could be said for his own native land. In spite of the fact that he had found the ocean once more – in the Teekon Wilds – Skellige knew that there was a monumental difference in the nature of those lands when compared to his own. Warsaw was and always would be his rightful domain, but he knew he was never to return there. His mother and wicked sister had made sure of that.
 
The sand was welcome to his paws, like the touch of an old friend. There was a warmth from the glow of sun overhead. It touched the ink in his pelt and seemed to be swallowed up. There was a small littering of tropical trees that had sprouted from the ground near the shore. The wraith’s dark gaze followed the trailing of sand as it met with the ocean. In a short breath, he turned his skull to peer at the golden woman who – he hoped – had not gotten far.

She has traveled with the man to the sea, as she said she would. With no promise of joining him, Hatshepsut finds solace in his silent company, for it complements her own, and a comfortable quietude do they travel, the she-wolf finding his bearing a comfort to her. His steps she matched with his own despite her smaller stature, determined not to be left behind by the brute.

The exotic locale rather takes the Egyptian's breath away, but she steels herself against an open reaction of delight. The man's eyes she meets; Hatshepsut steps closer and appraises the things over which his piercing gaze has trailed. "It is a lovely vision."

The woman of the sands emerged not long after he had. His gaze followed as her eyes trailed the pale sands and the tropical trees that littered the shoreline. The golden woman did well at concealing her delight upon arriving there, and so Skellige watched her intently, hoping to catch some sort of elation that would express her love of the land. It was foolish of him, really; he was the one born of ocean waters and salt, not she. The female who had trailed with him was a creature of a different land, but he hoped that sharing his with her would bring a form of familiarity. If anything, perhaps she could show him the sands that she spoke of.
 
The remark that fell from her lips startled the wraith from his thoughts and he looked to her gaze with a firm nod of his skull. “It is… everything,” he breathed in a ragged breath. Without the water and the sands, he would have been lost. The titan certainly would have found a less fitting demise if he had not found the sea. After his banishment, the beast had sought nothing but the familiar pull of the tide. To him, it truly was the world.

The man is overcome by the beauty of the water. Hatshepsut understands this, for when the pillars of Karnak rear before her, it is the same emotion she feels, the same knowingness, the same restfulness that grips the great man alongside her. While she is not a creature of many words, she offers him a smile and glides away to inspect the odd fruits upon the ground, their scent tempting but their wards forbidding.

"Is it here that you plan to settle?" the Regent inquires, gesturing to the pale sand against which the blue water laps. Despite her dislike of the ocean, the Egyptian steps toward it all the same, inquiring and interested.

The inquiry that touched his ears forced them to swivel atop his crown. The wraith turned his skull to meet her gaze and he frowned. The grove had been a place he had easily considered, but his ambitions and the strange attachment he had formed to the bay would not allow him to rationalize it. Shaking his inky head in response, the sea king turned his muzzle down the shoreline and he gazed at some distant expanse of land.
 
“There is a bay, further down the shore,” he explained quietly, the timbre of his voice hitting the air with a peculiar force. “It is nestled on the other side of the woods. Two stone walls protect it.” That… that was where he wished to stake his claim. The wraith could not have imagined a better land. The rolling of the sands could be found nearly anywhere on the edge of the ocean waters, but it was only in the bay that he truly felt at peace.
 
“And where will you settle?” the salt-spattered king inquired of his present company.

A bay. Hatshepsut did not know this word, but would not show her ignorance and ask the man for clarification. Instead, she searched for a picture of what he meant within his description of stone and of forest, and found it to be pleasing indeed. Hatshepsut takes a moment to file away the image and then rolls one slim shoulder in response to the brute's inquiry.

"For now, I know not. And to settle, one must first gather followers," Hatshepsut lilts. There is a desire that courses suddenly within her, and it is born of a hunger long neglected. But it is not the fullness of it she wishes, only the physicality of a quick dance without the attachment of expectation. 

She shows none of this to the man, save for a wan smile that she turns again toward the waves.

The dark of his gaze watched as she rolled her slender shoulder to his question, and his lips quivered in a frown. Her vision was pulled away from the stretch of shoreline and focused on him once more as she parted her mouth to answer his query. It was, perhaps, an answer that he should have expected. One that spoke of her quiet and reclusive nature. Skellige liked her for this very reason. She had an air of mystery about her, where he was fully transparent, and he wondered what her past had done to her to create such an aura around her being. Her final remark brought a ghostly smile to the wraith’s features and he chuckled quietly.
 
“They will come,” he spoke with certainty, as though the sea itself had told him that he would reign on the shore. “Followers will not be difficult. The sea will speak to them, and they will come.” Perhaps it would be foolish to have such blind faith in the nature of the stretching waters, but there was something in his devotedness that had managed to sway the opinion of others. Skellige did not expect this woman to know in the same sense that he did, but he did wish for her to see that there were things beyond them. Whether or not she believed in fate or destiny, some were meant for more than what they were given.
 
Drawing the darkness of his eyes toward her, the leviathan breathed outward through his nares. “You will be welcome, should you choose to take these sands as a home.” The offer was one that was not extended to anyone, and should she decline him, he would not fault her for it. It would stand for as long as she called the wilds her home.