Stavanger Bay myself and the powers of darkness

@Skellige, whenever you're ready!

This was it - she'd collected the last of the things she would need. Two sea lion pups lay dead before her. She'd gotten the first one away with no trouble, but when she'd gone back for a second, an angry male had scored her shoulder. They were much faster than they looked; not faster than her, but dangerous if underestimated.

Still, a little blood was worth the end of her striving. Finally, she had all she needed to bless the land. To ask the sea to bless the land, said a small voice in the back of her mind. I can do nothing, after all. I am no witch.

A nervous whine broke the silence around her. The voice had been very rough and insistent since she'd met the shewolf from Donnelaith. Doe didn't know if it was the herbs, the Mayfair witch, or something else that had upset the balance of her mind, but something had certainly set her off. Gone was her sense of knowing that had kept her blissful and alive during the famine - and looking back, the knowing seemed like quite the opposite.

I was sick. Derranged, said the voice, but Doe pushed those thoughts away. This is all I can do. This is the only reason Skellige kept me, and I have to - I must continue to please him. I will get the blessing from the sea, no matter what I have to do. I will lay down my life for this pack!

At least, then, she would not have to live another day on her own.

But it was not the time to be thinking of such things. This was a joyous time - the pack was finally going to come together under the stars and receive unto themselvs the blessing that she'd long been preparing for. And her heart was still in it, she discovered, as she began to think of all that would come to pass. She was still joyful, still excited, still admiring of her master. It will please him, to hear of this, the voice agreed.

Decision made, Doe called her master by the name-sound she'd assigned him; a piping alarm call that was more akin to a fearful kitten calling its mother than a distinguished shewolf her alpha.

Perhaps if the great brute had known, the would have spoken to quell the inner turmoil that was plaguing the small animal. All of her hard work had not gone unnoticed; the more that he traversed along the bay and noted the caches of prey, he found himself pleased that the ocean had called such a capable young wolf to aid him in his conquest of the territory. But alas, the inky wraith was not a man of words, and so he had often allowed the witch doctor to flit about without showing her the true gratitude that he had felt toward all of her actions.
 
Doe had been a flighty little creature upon arrival, but she had done well at making the bay and the wolves within it, her home. She had worked hard to gather the appropriate herbs and items for their blessing, and she had dug the prey caches as she had promised him she would do. More than this, when Skellige had called on her for medical needs, she had come without question, eager to please him. The leviathan was a lucky man, for he had the unyielding support of a very capable wolf at his side.
 
Just as he had unspoken thoughts and worries, so did the witch doctor. The wraith had simply excused her strange behavior as that of the mystic mind. He did not know that she was troubled by her doubts and by something worse that seemed to ebb away at her very being. The fear of being alone was great, swallowing, like the deep of the ocean’s swell. Skellige had not ever found himself experiencing such a phobia. Once he had been banished from Warsaw, he had been so very driven by the action that loneliness had never been a thought to cross his mind. It had been his anger that had fueled him out of the mental clasps of fear. But even as he allowed his youngest sibling to endure beatings from the others, he would continue to be blissfully unaware that there were treacherous thoughts that sank into the mind of his witch doctor.
 
As he had made his rounds along the bay, there was a familiar noise that had sounded in the length of his ears; a pip that he had grown accustomed to being his summons from the wild-limbed wolf. Drawing the length of strides into longer ones and closing the distance that had stretched between them, the great ink-coated brute looked on her with the dark of his eyes and nodded his head in greeting to the wild witch. Something about her seemed far more eager than he could have recalled before, but then he did not know what good fortunes had fallen upon them.
 
“Doctor,” the timbre of his voice rumbled through the air, and though it was uncommon, a ghost of a smile tugged on the corners of the inky titan’s lips as he gazed on her figure. Instinct told him that their time would be coming, and that they had gathered with them a strong group of wolves; he would see the bay claimed soon enough.

As always, the sight of the leviathan awoke a slew of mixed emotions in her. Joy, foremost. Joy that she was still in his favor, and that she was not alone, but under the care of such a powerful king. Second, there was confusion - was he Riverbone or someone else? Who was she? (Doe remembered, upon being addressed, that she still had not told him her name.) Intermingled with those emotions were the more subtle ones - the love a wolf has for their alpha, the fear and reverence of a larger animal, the rising attraction to him as her Time grew near, and an overwhelming sense of guilt that she rarely allowed to rise to the surface of the very, very deep well that she was coming to recognize as her mind.

The guilt could wait a while longer, but Doe decided that her name probably couldn't; if she knew something that he did not, she might as well be lying.

"I have finished my preparations for the ceremony," she said without preamble, the pride she'd felt earlier dissolving as she prepared herself for a tough conversation. "If you have questions, I will do my best to answer them, but first..." Doe sucked in a breath and forced it back out. "You know that I am your vessel; you have honored me beyond all my expectations and have won my devotion when it was already freely given. But I have not been open with you - I do have a name."

The words pinned her ears back against her head, though experience told her that there would be no punshment for this. "I had trouble remembering before, but I know it, now. I was Doe, before these lands, and there are parts of me that still answer to that name."

Confession finished, Doe let out a heaving sigh of relief and took comfort in her alpha's nearness.

Good news was offered to the great leviathan and he looked down on the small witch with surprise on his features that she had been able to gather her things with such haste. Skellige was certainly lucky that the sea had blessed him with her presence, and with the light that shone inside of her. Before he was allowed to speak again, the witch doctor went on to admit that she had not been entirely truthful with him. The thought of the girl having spoken lies was almost absurd, but it did cause the titan’s pelt to bristle near his neck and shoulders and stand rigidly along his back. To withhold information was something that he would not accept.
 
As the flighty girl continued, though, she brought up the subject of her name, and how she had not fully offered him a sense of transparency when they had first happened upon each other. He met her words with heavily furrowed brows as his mind quickly attempted to mull over what it was that she was telling him. The wraith had not truly believed that she had come to him without a calling, but he had not anticipated that the sea would have made her Doe. Nevertheless, it was not his place to comment on how fitting the moniker was. He was there to accept it.
 
With a great sigh, the beast watched her and then nodded his head. “Doe,” he echoed in the quiet timbre of his voice. “I will call you whatever it is you wish to be called,” the leviathan then breathed with a soft shrug of his broad shoulders. “You have done well to prepare and I have seen the work you have performed here in the bay. Do not fret, little one,” and he extended his muzzle downward to rest atop her skull. The flighty nature of the girl had been concerning to the titan, but he had only wanted her to feel as though she belonged on the sands with the other Blackrock wolves. If she should feel as though her place was somewhere else, she need only speak to him.
 
“Now, tell me what you have prepared,” he then prompted with a short thump of his tail. His eyes were alight with the thirst of his homeland to see if the Doctor had managed to gather everything that was necessary for the blessing. Though Skellige was a towering monster of a man, he had more faith in her than he did in the other wolves of the pack; she was essential in his mind.

Kohl lids closed over yellows eyes at his acceptance. For a moment, Doe had felt his anger as surely as teeth at her throat - but he was truly a kind and generous leader, willing to pardon tresspasses when those trespassors were otherwise faithful. All was forgiven, and she had done well.

I would have done so much more to hear those words, and he has blessed me with them so freely, so frequently, marveled the shewolf, blinking up at her master with adoring eyes. Only for a moment, though - for there was much to speak about.

"I have gathered ripe fruits and made plum whiskey, which will help us hear what the sea has to say to us, and lead us on the path best pleasing to her," said the doctor, careful to use the feminine pronoun to name the sea - she had learned that most of the wolves around her thought of the cerulean waves as a woman, and a cruel one, at that. "We will line our borders with kelp and fashion a line in the sands made from the darkest shells and rocks - when it is finished, our border will be set, and the sea will know where to extend her blessings. Before she can do that, we will have to spill the innocent blood of these sea creatures and spread their essence across the land. No wolf will eat of it, but they will be brought back to the shores for the water to do what it wishes with them."

The sea had made the importance of this known to her - the ritual would be for naught if any of them took any of the pups for themselves.

"We must be careful to return them to her without greed," she reiterated, knowing that Skellige would do what she could not and keep the other wolves in line. "By then, we will be fully opened by the plum whiskey, and the sea will call us to her - we will go into the waters, and there, she will provide us a feast. All that eat of it will be blessed, and she will protect our lands so long as we serve her."

She paused for a moment, here, to see if her master had anything to say. There was more to tell, of course. They would all be weakened by the ceremony, but perhaps she and him most of all. Gaining the blessing was worth it, of course, but this endeavor would not be without danger; they must be as prepared as possible, and for this reason, she had a strange request for the powerful wolf.

Skellige would never have realized that the young female did not know anything about the ways of the mystics; she spoke as though she had been given directions from the great body of water itself. As the titan drew his ears forward to capture everything she would say, he found himself growing proud of the slender woman. She had been found, somewhat scattered, on the cliffs and yet once she had been turned to the swell of the ocean, it had awakened something inside of her that boasted confidence and knowledge. He could not help but to believe that it was all meant to be and that her presence there was a blessing in itself to the wolves of the ocean.
 
The witch doctor spoke of plum whiskey and strings of kelp. Skellige held her gaze captive with his own while she continued to talk of their blessing and her many preparations. Though his expression was stern, there was an excitement that seemed to bubble from within his chest. They were drawing closer to their goal and he knew that it would not belong before they would be able to stake their claim on the bay. The great black rock beneath the waters had done well for him; the mystics had erected a landmark to sing praises to his occupying that stretch of sea. They would be satisfied with all that Doe had arranged for them, and he did not fear that they would deny a blessing to his lands.
 
Once the girl had finished her explanation, the wraith bobbed his head sagely and turned his vision toward the waters with a quiet sigh. He could not have imagined that the witch doctor would become so important to him, but she had. The strange quirks that she had provided were something of a comfort, and the brute felt as though his home had been planted on new sands. While he was capable of it, the girl would not see his rage on that day. Instead, he sought to offer her something more in return for all that she had done for the sea and for his legacy.
 
Turning the dark mahogany of his gaze back to the canary-eyed girl, he fixed her with a stare that spoke of the importance of his intentions. “You have done well to prepare for this ceremony, and I am pleased with all that you have accomplished,” he spoke to her in a grumbling voice and his eyes flashed for a moment on the slender form of the woman. “Your role here will be crucial at all times; you must understand this. As a witch doctor, you will be a great insight to the mystics, as will any others who are chosen by them. But you have shown great promise and I should ask you one thing; take the position of Atoll. You have earned it, even more than my own kin.”
 
As he bore into her with his gaze, he awaited the response that would follow. Surely, the woman would not deny him… she never had.

Warmth flooded the little woman at her king's praise. It soothed the sting of guilt and ache of loneliness in her breast, and bolstered her enough to ask the question that burned on her tongue. First, though, she pondered the meaning of his sudden request - or offer, perhaps, for his tone held something more than a command.

Atoll, she mouthed, testing the unknown word on her tongue before looking up at her master. "I am your vessel," she said with certainty, knowing that she would take on this role with the same fortitude she'd used to carry the title of witch doctor. "Tell me what it is to be Atoll; I will do my best to please you."

In her chest, the woman's heartbeat quickened, and a dim sense of excitment began to bloom. Atoll, she thought, still mulling it over. Something about it held promise, seemed right. As though she'd always known the word, even if she hadn't heard it before this day. Atoll. Atoll. A position; one she'd earned. She'd shown great promise, he'd said. Had pleased him with all that she accomplished.

Something deep inside the wolf began to bloom.

When is this even dated? Present day or back when we started?

let's bump it to present day for the sake of simplicity

There was a willingness about the girl – but then, there always had been. Since the day he had sighted her figure yelling to the waters, she had been one to push forward with determination and it had impressed the great king of the sea. There had been doubts, but he knew that her mistakes had been few and she had upheld the promise that she had made. In turn, the leviathan had given the girl a home. Since their predestined meeting, she had proven herself far more than he would have hoped. Her mark had been made on that land just as much as his own. Though the brute was hesitant to offer a role of leadership to any of the wolves he had gathered underneath him, there was a quiet whisper from the waves that spoke of the promise that Doe had. The witch doctor would excel as she had before.
 
“The wolves of these lands would call the position… Beta,” he remarked to her with a frown and a flick of his coral-colored tongue against his lips. “The Atoll will act as a form of leadership. As a witch doctor, I believe it is necessary for the mystics to have a powerful figure to commune with. I want the others to respect the great ones. Having you as our Atoll would help to ensure this.” The other role, that of Argosy had been a thought that weighed in his mind heavily. Arturo would have made a fine leader, and had aspired to his own pack, but Skellige was not certain that the Fearghal male was ready for it yet. There were still hesitations in the heart of the halfling about the culture of their pack.
 
Doe was not one for him to be concerned about. The ancient ones had already spoken their liking of her, and he was certain that this would not change for quite some time.

Beta? Me? Beta? The two words flickered back and forth in her mind, but never merged into one. Doe could not reconcile the image she had of herself with the image she'd had of her mother, sweet Hind, who had acted as beta to Riverbone and Mirage. Even when Riverbone had stated his intentions of fathering children on her, she had known that the sort of power his mate enjoyed would never be hers; she was for breeding, not for leadership.

And now her lord stood before her, strange words on his lips, and Doe could only nod. Atoll. Me. Atoll. Though the word was not one she'd known for long, already she could feel her old self slipping away, beads of water down a seabird's back. Atoll. He'd come to her with the request, the offer, the precious gift.

"Then I am Atoll," she said softly, staring up at her lord. A joy so great, so feirce it was almost sorrow tore through her, burned away the last, fraying edges of her old soul. Her old determination to please Skellige and to do well for the pack was only strengthened, and she looked at her Leviathan with a new but different level of respect as she began to voice what had been on her mind. "I think that we'd do well to invite Deirdre to the blessing. It would be good to have another healer nearby - the ceremony is taxing, especially so for you and for me," she explained, hoping that it would not cross him or any traditions she had missed. "And - if she will continue to come into the land freely... she might also do well to receive the blessing of the sea."

It was just a suspicion, as of yet, but Atoll had begun to think that Skellige might have designs on the younger girl. Perhaps she was the Mirage to his Riverbone. Perhaps she was the Doe. Either way, Atoll wanted the pale girl to be safe in their land, and she fear the fate of any stranger that entered without the sea's recognition and allowance. Once the land was blessed, it would belong only to the pack. Atoll felt that they could circumvent the danger this posed to Deirdre by washing her in the clensing ritual of the blessing.

There could not have been a better fit; Doe was the one who was destined to sit underneath him, and though he was not certain how she would handle the increase in her own power, he could assume that she would do it with tact, as she did most things. The great ones had spoken of her abilities and in due time, her strengths would be shown to him. In the meantime, she would prepare to take on the roll that he had gifted her. The expression on her narrow features seemed to be shocked and blessed. Certainly, she could not have been that surprised that he would offer her a promotion from within. The witch doctor had worked hard for what they were building, and he knew it was destined to be.
 
A verbal confirmation fell from her lips and she moved on to mention Deirdre in the blessing that they were to have. His long ears swiveled to meet her words and he narrowed his brows slightly at the thought of having the pale forest wolf join them on the sands for what was to be the most important night of the pack’s life. The witch doctor might have been correct in thinking that the nymph would do well to have the blessing of the ocean at her back. Of course, he was not certain that she would wish to visit on such a night. Nevertheless, if the witch doctor believed it to be for the better, he would not argue it. A slow nod fell from his skull and he glanced toward her. “I will request that she join us,” he spoke in a soft growl.
 
Coming to feel that his time with the slender girl was up, the swarthy brute fixed himself to leave. He did turn his skull once to look upon her, feeling a sense of pride. “You’ve done well,” he repeated himself somewhat stiffly. If he were a man of words, he would have told the girl that she had exceeded his expectations of her and that she was truly filling in the flesh of a worthy witch doctor. Skellige was not a beast so talented verbally. The repetition of his thanks was all that could be expected of the russet-eyed titan. With a flick of his tail, the leviathan set about to finish his own work.