Stavanger Bay at tara in this fateful hour

@Skellige, or any other of our pack. Set after Salt, as Doe/Doctor arrives at the bay. Slight PP - assuming Doe gets there first by running ahead.

There were four birds, all scuttling across the sand. White bird, white bird, grey bird, brown bird. Big birds, with red, red feet. Getting bigger and bigger as she streaked toward them, Skellige already far behind her.

The sands were shimmering, all white and gold, flying around her as she tore over them in her excitement. This was home. Those vivid blue waters, the scuttling crabs, the white-topped plumes of grass that stretched up taller than her head.

Shink fell to the ground and was caste aside, forgotten in favor of the landscape around her. She rolled around in the surf, romping happily through the waters, picking up long strings of seaweed and tugging them through the waves. The saline breeze was filling her nose with scents she'd never smelled before, and the water tasted like no water she'd ever known.

Doctor was thrilled with it all, her heart feeling as though it would swell right out of her chest. Eventually, she could could glory in it no longer, and the lissome wolf fell dizzily into the sand. I have missed sand so much, she thought, nuzzling her cheek further into the warm, smooth grains. Everything was so warm, so sweet-smelling. She was so tired... a nap sounded very nice - Would Skellige allow her to have a nap before she got around to blessing the land?

She opened a lazy eye to see if he'd caught up yet - so fierce had been her celebration that she did not even realize it'd only been a minute or two - when she saw something that made her heart skip a beat.

A wave was rising up, faster and faster onto the shore, and Shink was right there.

With a wordless cry, Doctor leapt to her paws and made a mad dash toward her friend. Before she could reach it, the white bone was already disappearing under the surf. Doctor made another angry sound as she crashed into the waters, coughing as the salty waves went up her nose. Still, she could not be dissuaded. The shewolf waded deeper and deeper, until her paws could no longer touch the ground, and she had to duck her head under the waves to see the ground -

There was a whole different world, under there. She could hardly see, but beneath the cerulean waves was a murky place she could never have imagined. Glittering particles swirled past her nose, casting a strange glow on the sandy bottom - and the sand here was different, too. Grainer, but infinitely more colorful. She stared in wonder at the rainbow beneath her paws, almost forgetting what she'd come here to do.

And there, just a little deeper than she was, a pearly white jawbone was floating peacefully in the current. Everything seems peaceful down here, she thought, paddling toward her dancing pup. Or... was it a pup? How could a bone be a pup? One from a herbivore, no less.

Stop that. You're down here - it must be important.

So Doctor grabbed the bone and let the water pull her back to the surface, where she was immediately bowled over by the pummeling waves. Panic set in almost at once - she'd never been so deep in water, so far from shore. The salt was in her nose, her mouth, her lungs, and she couldn't cough without dropping Shink -

Her paws touched the ground, followed rather violently by the rest of her body. She rolled awkwardly in the water for a few seconds before finding her legs, and then she dragged herself quickly from the surf, tail wagging madly as she found herself back on dry land.

"Whoa," she said, dizzy all over again.

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The youngest Cairn, pleasantly exhausted from challenging the current, licked scales from his salt-crusted, scarred lips as he bit into the fat snapper he’d caught. With Skellige back in his life, the subordinate male felt far more secure and was back to his old habits: fish, patrol, train, and occasionally remember to eat and sleep. Like Doctor, he saw the birds scuttling across the shoreline, but he paid them little mind — they were more trouble than they were worth, in terms of hunting. A gentle smile played about the pale wolf’s muzzle as he watched the funny little beast frolic in the shallows, trailing seaweed behind her like a bird who hadn’t quite figured out where to build a nest. Tattered ears fanned forward as she toppled into the sand, but as she did not appear to be in the throes of any physical distress — her lean flank still rose and fell, at least — he left her alone.

Then, with her muzzle gaping open as a distressed cry spilled from her lips, the odd little grey and white creature dashed toward the white bone fragment she’d forgotten in her mad rush to celebrate the sea — and now Szymon rose hesitantly to his paws, for unlike the Cairn brood she appeared clumsy and wayward in her frantically paddling strokes. Somewhat hesitantly — Szymon was not altogether fond of strangers — he picked up his unfinished meal and made his way to the shallows where, judging by the current, the little wolf would end up.

And he waited.

Szymon was, deep in the marrow of his bones, a kind and chivalrous thing — but the sea alone would dictate whether it swallowed the fledging witch doctor up or spat her back out again. Perhaps this was the little Mexican Wolf’s own personal version of the Drop — and so Szymon remained where he stood, sulphureous eyes blazing with a desire to aid that he couldn’t keep from feeling. However, when the sea spat the doctor back out, causing her to flounder awkwardly in the smaller breakers nearer to the shore, he placed himself between the sea and its most recent survivor — horizontally, of course, for it wasn’t wise to turn one’s back on the ocean — and followed her at a neat sidestep as she made her way a bit further up into the sand.

“Whoa,” she said, her eyes — a bright yellow like Szymon’s own — seeming to roll a bit dizzily.

Clumsily, Szymon placed his kill at her feet, nudging it toward her with a low rumble and a flick of his scarred muzzle. Eat. Eat and be welcome. His tail twitched with frenetic energy at being this close to the strange female, but the little witch doctor with her odd ears had passed the first test. He backed off a bit then, disliking the closeness that had come about due to his own brazenness, and lowered to his haunches to keep a close eye on the creature. It was for Skellige to judge the creature — Szymon had no way of knowing that she’d already been accepted by his swarthy titan of a brother, as the salt and sea had washed all traces of her previous haunts away. This, he felt, was as it should be — reborn by the sea, she might be a worthy ally for the eldest Cairn.

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Doctor was not unfamiliar with fish - there had been a thin, winding river near her pack's borders that was often filled with fish. In her experience, they tasted mostly of mud and the cold and something oily and unpleasant - she didn't like them. Not when there were other things to be had. But when she saw the fish - the fish first, not the stranger - all she knew was that it was food, and she came to realize all at once that it'd been far too long since her last real meal. She'd stuffed herself on plants and licked up the blood of... someone. But she hadn't had meat in a long time.

The partial fish was gone before she'd really tasted it, but when she paused to take in deep, gulping breaths, the taste of it exploded across her tongue. The meat was sweet and salty, like nothing she'd ever had before.

Doctor made a low sound of discontent - she wanted more - but ignored her aching belly in favor of the pale wolf standing near her. She did not know quite when he'd gotten there, but a voice whispered to her that he'd given her the fish, and had watched her while she ate it. The thought made her stomach twist and her hair stand on end, but she forced that away. The stranger had fed her, and maybe they could be friends.

But instead of speaking, all she could do was stare at him, mouth hanging open in silence. Her breaths came in uneasy pants, and slowly, the pale wolf disappeared as someone seemed to pull fog over her eyes, blocking everything but a dull gray color from her view. Doctor sank to the ground without realizing it, her front legs oddly splayed in her confusion.

"Rivvvr..." she croaked, taking deep, unsteady breaths. She could feel her whole body shaking, finally complaining after being ignored for so long.

After what felt like an eternity, but was really only a few seconds, the spell was over. She blinked sleepily up at the pale wolf, her tail wagging weakly over the sand.

"I'm Doe," she said to the wolf, a little bemused by her sudden ignorance of where she was or why she was lying down - or even who this wolf was. Still, it was only polite to introduce oneself. "Hail," she added, a little uncertain.

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The youngest Cairn watched quietly as the odd little creature took the fish in a series of gulps, his sulphureous eyes taking in at this closer vantage point her particulars — small in size, long legs, one flopped-over ear, and vivid yellow eyes. Her low murmur of discontent bade the outermost corners of Szymon’s lips to quirk upward in a half-grin of tacit understanding — he shifted his weight to the right, prepared to turn and fetch her another fish to satisfy her hunger — but in the next moment she turned her attention upon him fully. Well, not precisely fully. The grey and cream female’s mouth hung open as she stared, her breaths stuttered and staggered in an uneasy rhythm, and her stare became vacant and unseeing. She sank to the ground and uttered a word that, in this particular situation, made zero sense to Szymon.

“Rivvvr…”

The female began to tremble, and Szymon became truly worried now, his jaw set in an uneasy frown as his own body responded to her with characteristic nervousness. Ears fanning back against his head, he turned his head toward the ocean as his shoulders rolled beneath his salt-crusted pelage in an uneasy shrug. Yet he could not help the turn of his eyes toward her despite his physical effort to look away; he felt an odd possessiveness toward her. He had fed her and had witnessed her plight, and now he was responsible for her — if something happened to her, it would be his fault. A tremor danced its way down his spine, causing his tail to quirk at what seemed an impossible angle before it resumed its agitated twitching. Only when the female blinked up at him, truly seeing him, her tail feebly wriggling a swirled pattern on the sand, did he sigh his relief.

“I’m Doe. Hail.”

You worried me, Doe, thought the pallid male, swallowing hard against the coal lump that lodged in his throat at the thought of having to introduce himself in turn. His throat worked reflexively as he glanced out over the ocean, taking what respite he could from the nearness of the sea. “S-S-S — ” he faltered, the muscles in his throat and torso locking up as he prepared to spit his name out by force alone. “S-S-Szy — m-mon.” It wasn’t as bad as it normally would have been, but as he licked his scarred lips uneasily, he turned to the female to search her face for any sign of obvious revulsion at his verbal ineptitude.

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Doe gazed up at the pale wolf, tracking over his narrow features, sliding down the dark marking on his sides, the luminous yellow of his eyes. Pretty, she thought, still somewhat dazed. He was a pretty wolf, with a pretty pelt, pretty eyes, pretty markings. She liked the narrowness of his muzzle - not like a coywolf's, but very much like her own countenance at the same time.

"I like you," she said to Sy - having forgotten or perhaps ignored the rest of his name. Her tail wagged a little more feircely as she realized that she did. "My name's Doe. Or Doctor, I think. Doctor Doe, maybe."

Sand flew up around her as her tail wagged faster still. All at once, she sprang to her feet, spininng in the air even as she bounded away, stopping several feet from her new friend and slapping her paws to the ground in a playful bow. Come and get me, Sy, she panted, forgetting her fatigue once again. She would sleep when she was dead - for now, the hysterical energy of almost dying, finally eating, nearly fainting, and meeting this new friend was fueling her movements. Doctor felt as though she could run for days and never tire, although, if she had tried to do so, she would've found herself collapsing after half a mile or so.

But for play, Doe always had energy.

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The female did not recoil from him, her eyes roving over his body and face with what Szymon considered a rather pleased expression; he would never have been able to read her thoughts, and could not link her warm appraisal as being a result of his appearance, but he understood that she had accepted him. A low rumble of gratitude crooned from his scarred lips as his frame relaxed slightly, but he was befuddled anew by her candor. She…liked him? Unaccustomed to being complimented so baldly — or being complimented at all — Szymon blinked in surprise as his tall ears fanned back against his skull and thrust forward again. Perhaps he had heard incorrectly, or perhaps she was still disoriented from being bowled over by the surf. She introduced herself again, giving a second name — or was it a title? — this time around, and Szymon felt this confirmed his suspicions that she’d been knocked around which must have rattled her marbles.

Still, being liked by her, whether by accident or in earnest, was something he selfishly hoarded away in the deepest recesses of his heart.

Her tail began to whip about like a live thing, and Szymon regarded her with a quirk of his lips that revealed another half-grin — but when she bounded away, spinning like a top in midair, he felt his lean frame jerk forward in involuntary protest. Don’t go! Fortunately the little Witch Doctor paused only a short distance away, her forelegs beating a muted tattoo on the sand as she bowed to him in play. His body longed to remember what his mind had been forced to forget — the games of Szymon’s childhood normally ended in him being bloody or bruised in some way. They were tests more than games, and far from harmless. Whoa, he thought to himself, as dizzy as Doe had been when first encountered with the heavy hand of the sea.

Doe? I don’t — I don’t know how, he stammered desperately, his thoughts flitting uneasily through his mind. Tentatively, moving his legs as though they were made of wood instead of flesh and bone, he dipped into a hesitant bow of his own. Is this what I’m supposed to do? The loll of her tongue and bright expression in her eyes begged him to chase her. He searched his mind for what to do next. Had the roles been reversed and had Doe been Jaglon, the chase would inevitably end in Szymon getting away or getting the sod kicked out of him. He wouldn’t kick the sod out of Doe; he wouldn’t hurt her. Right? Szymon thought to himself, unable to fully trust that he could reverse what was first nature for the Cairn brood.

He wouldn’t know until he tried, though. Testing her, Szymon took a teasing step forward, lowering his body to the ground to pounce.

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Tail lashing madly in the air, Doe held her bow for several long moments, waiting for Sy to come and play. The pale wolf, however, looked more uncertain than ever, and Doctor nearly stood and moved toward him, longing to ease whatever anxiety had plagued him. But then, a bit stilted, he began to respond, and Doe's tail lashed more fervently than ever in silent encouragement. You can do this! she wanted to say. Please, please do this. She wanted so badly to be interacted with, acknowledged.

And then - hallelujah! He feinted toward her, a glint coming into his bright yellow eyes. Yes! Doe thought triumphantly, overdoing her reaction, just a bit. She leapt up with a sharp, joyful yap, twisting in midair like a bird readying for flight. The landing was light and short-lived, as she sprang toward the other wolf as soon as her paws touched the ground before dashing the other way once again, never stopping to wonder what had made him so uncertain. He wanted to play, now, and that was what mattered - for she was a fickle and slef-centered creature, at heart, despite they joy she found in caring for others.

Within leaping distance, Doe paused, slapping the ground once again. Is that all you've got?

Thoughts of danger did not cross her mind. Sy was her friend. She didn't have words to describe pain that might come from him - such things did not exist in the world that she lived in.

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The joy in Doe’s eyes was worth the indecision Szymon felt. Encouraged by the lash of her tail and her quicksilver body darting in and then away, he moved with her — a beat behind, perhaps, like a dancer who isn’t quite sure whether he is performing the steps correctly, but he was doing his best. She spun in the air like a leaf on the wind and he merely watched her until she landed, but before he could really register that she was not a leaf but merely a creature of the earth, she was away again. Her paws, he felt, were hollow-boned like a sparrow’s — and he couldn’t let her fly away. He wouldn’t.

She bowed before him, slapping the ground again, and Szymon’s lip curled as a playful growl rumbled like the crash of waves upon the shore as his own tail lashed the air. His lean haunches bunched beneath him as he leapt forward, snapping teasingly in her general direction — but he was pulling his punches even then, aiming at air. If he touched her, perhaps she would disappear. He felt there was something about the little wolf despite her obvious resilience and desire to play that was fragile and meant to be kept separate from the likes of his clumsy, worthless self.

Darting after her upon paws that were fleet and more than accustomed to the rigors of sprinting on deep sand, Szymon chased the sparrow with a veneer of clumsy protectiveness blunting the severity of his lunges and feints. I like you, the thought came quite suddenly, and warm fingers of joy threaded through his lean musculature as he forgot to worry and brood in favor of simply enjoying the game.

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Fade after your post?

Exhaustion was inevitable, considering all that had come about. Her sides were heaving in exertion when she finally admitted defeat and flopped down on the warm, plush sand. Doe laid on her side and craned her neck toward Sy, her chin resting sleepily on her chest in an effort to keep her head up. Come here, she said with her eyes, gazing with soft affection at the pretty wolf. She gave a sharp chirp of invitation before attempting the classic sphinx pose - and only succeeding in attaining something part-way in between.

She was tired, and she would be falling asleep very soon with or without her new favorite companion.

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When the little Witch Doctor flopped down on her side in the sand, her flank rising and falling with a reassuringly steady rhythm, Szymon felt an odd sense of relief. Play was, for him, a quite stressful undertaking. Although he would grow accustomed to it in time, he found it put his nerves on pins and needles as he tried to strike a delicate balance between chasing Doe and trying his damnedest not to touch her. The invitation in her golden eyes bade a low rumble to groan good-naturedly from his jaws as he sank to the sand beside her, inching closer and closer with wary glances at her prone form to be sure he was indeed welcome. He circled her smaller body with his, not touching her, but hovering close enough that if danger arose he would be able to meet it with fangs blazing. He would let no one disturb her rest — and he kept one eye on her and one eye on the horizon as she slipped deeper and deeper into slumber.

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