Stavanger Bay run doe run

Was going to make it read-only, but I know Skellige has told a lot of the pack to help her out if they can. Anyone want to collect some black rocks for the blessing? (Backdated to before 'myself and the powers of darkness')

The pile of rocks grew ever bigger, but it was still not big enough. Like a wind-up toy, Doe stalked out again after each return, sometimes stopping to pant tiredly on her mass of black rocks, and sometimes losing herself entirely to the exhaustion that always seemed to plague her these days. When she stopped to think about it, she knew that she was not completely recovered from the famine just yet; a fish and a few giant, snapping sea spiders didn't add up to much in the grand scheme of things.

I thought it was enough to keep me going, she thought desperately, fighting against her wordly body in a vain attempt to answer the call of the sea. I need to get many, many more of these stones - enough to surround the territory without break. If I don't, we will never be safe...

She struggled to her feet, urged on by the savage need to protect and obey. She was the only thing standing between her fledgling pack and safety; it was her duty to press on.

Another rock. Another rock. She gathered them until her mouth was full; sometimes with seaweed to protect the edge on her teeth, and sometimes with the dark-colored shells and jagged stones digging deep cuts into her tonge and cheeks. It's only flesh, but this is bigger. Another rock, another rock. The sea would tell her when she had enough.

Szymon had been given his own responsibilities by the Leviathan, and there was nothing he liked better than the command to, “Seek the Witch Doctor for assistance, or to find out if she may need you to gather herbs.” He had been preoccupied with border marking, however, which required its own wealth of physical stamina and speed to catch prey and mark the borders in blood. Tufts of his fur and spatters of his own blood from torn nails or gums due to scratching open trees or leaving his mark on what stones he could find were small potatoes compared to what he had before him, though, and it was perhaps this vehemence that he not be the lowest rung of the ladder that drove him so doggedly. Leokadia was here now, and Szymon had convinced himself that he would best his littermate in battle this time — he was something different now. Something more.

He was training on this day: in his jaws, he held the battered leather from the corpse of a beached creature of the sea — whale or shark, it was impossible to tell at this point, for it had been picked over and was now just a trellis of bones, mostly rib cage, with strips of leather hide here and there. Szymon held the leather within his teeth and threw his weight back against it, thrashing his head from side to side to fortify the muscles in his neck, shoulders, and back. Fighting weariness from his earlier endeavors in fighting the current, Szymon humped his spine, digging his paws into the sand and curling his toes, until a soft breeze brought him the metallic scent of blood — and the salt and cinnamon mixture of allure that was Doe.

The dread and rage he felt at the thought of Doe being bloodied by any creature swept through Szymon like a wildfire; it was similar to the rush of adrenaline he could not help but feel when fighting alongside his brother, but with a new, poignant venom for which he had no explanation. He threw down the hide, his lips already curling up over his fangs, and barreled down the beach on his long seafarer’s legs — only to find Doe, alone, carrying stone after stone despite the lean and hungry way her shale and sand-patterned pelt clung to her weary muscles.

Irrationally, the youngest Cairn was annoyed that she should undertake this task alone, without taking the time to rest or feed her body adequately — despite the fact that he was no different, working himself ragged and often too neurotic to find the time and privacy to sleep or eat. He strode over to her quietly, a rumble like a distant hurricane at sea curling his tongue and burning his throat as his sides heaved exertion. He could remember to breathe now that he knew she was not under abject duress. Drawing breath, very quietly, “D-D-D — ” he stammered, his ire growing at his inability to unfurl clearly the word that was her name. He wanted her to stop — but had not the power to command her.

Turning, he fetched from a nearby cache the odd combination of a sculpin and a moderately sized ground squirrel, he dropped them at her feet and nosed them toward her. The unsullied baritone of his voice rasped, scraping the lowest notes of his register in a pleading groan-growl. Please eat. Please rest. Demonstrating his willingness to help, he dipped his muzzle and gingerly lifted one of the stones, his eyes suggestively moving from Doe to the surf and turf meal he’d set before her as a heavy breath swelled his upper lip commonly, ballooning it out into a reassuring chuff.

The pale boy was ever dilligent in his duties; Doe knew that Skellige had asked him to aide her, and thus far, Szymon had never failed to come to her rescue - whether she called him or not. Her tail waggedweakly at his approached, though her happniess at seeing him faded when she felt the state of his temper and saw the frustration in his citrine gaze. At once, she dropped the mouthful of stones she'd been carrying and met him in his journey toward her, her nose roving over the thicker fur around his neck before she determined that there was not very much wrong with him; nothing that wasn't wrong with her.

But when he spoke to her - tried to - and she pulled back to see the trail of red she'd left on his fur, she found the source of his concern. Oh, she thought, overwhelmed by his care. He's worried about me.

Thankful beyond speech for his attentions, Doe fell back on her haunches and gazed up at him, only to see him disappear. This didn't bother her very much - the way he darted away suggested that he'd be back quickly, and she hardly had time to miss him before the pretty male was back again, bearing gifts this time. She watched him as he readily plucked up her cargo, peering solictiously between herself and the meal he'd presented her. It took another moment still before she could tear her eyes away from him, but when she did, she was quick to take up his offer.

When she had finished the squirrl, she nosed the fish in his direction, speaking before he had time to deny her.

"When the land is blessed, you will have to teach me to fish," she said teasingly. "Then I can scold you for forgetting yourself - and especially for scolding me while your own stomach growls."

Szymon placed the stone carefully upon the pile with the others, and when he returned to Doe’s side and regarded the fish she nosed toward him, he lifted a skeptical brow — but the teasing note in her voice rendered him helpless. “Doooooe,” he whine-howled softly, a lilting note that rose and fell like ocean waves but remained in the bass register he found most comfortable. He would work himself ragged for her and for Skellige, but there was something more pressing that he wanted to accomplish at this particular moment. He swallowed the sculpin with a snap and a gulp before attempting what he found nearly impossible, grinning at her observation of his own clamoring stomach, and hesitated only briefly before stepping forward, closing the distance between them with quiet purpose. Between them lay the safety zone Szymon usually enforced — about a foot of space that he didn’t dare cross over.

Swallowing hard, he inched forward upon legs that shook most unbecomingly, calling to mind the desperate dread he’d felt when he’d thought she was injured — the lightning rod that had nearly shattered his spine the day she’d broken through his defenses and nuzzled at his neck — the strange longing he’d felt to taste the feathers of her fur and the corners of her mouth — and he touched Doe for the first time of his own deliberate volition. Stretching his neck out, he searchingly brushed the fur of her shoulder with the bridge of his muzzle, noticing for the first time at this close proximity the dusky russet guard hairs. Without asking permission or giving himself the chance to question his decision, he furrowed a trench through her lovely grey fur and tucked his muzzle chastely against the nape of her neck. The base of her upright ear was very near to his muzzle — experimentally, he rumbled, the sound bubbling up through his throat and leaving his lips in a low undercurrent of sound.

“What are you doing?!” his body demanded then. Szymon’s first overtures of physical affection had, in truth, only lasted a few seconds — but each one felt prolonged; he had felt brilliantly languid, devoid of shame and rich with discovery, but the muscle memory of avoidance sent him reeling. He stepped back, breaking the spell, his sulphureous eyes settling dizzily on Doe’s face. Then, a bit woodenly, as though his body was moving against his will — and perhaps it was, for he dearly wanted to continue exploring the new experience of initiating physical contact — he shambled like a zombie to fetch another stone for the pile.

I like how any AW threads that Sy shows up in instantly turn into Doe/Szymon threads.

Unaccountably flustered, Doe's ears began their usual nervous twitching, her 'pretty one' slapping Sy's nose in its exuberance while the torn one flopped harmlessly in the air. They can't even twitch together, she thought without real complaint, enjoying the attentions of her chosen partner. Always out of sync, those guys. All too soon, though, the touch was over, and she nearly fell over in her attempt to keep the contact going. Hopefully, he simply thought that she wanted to lie down for a bit, and she rather thought that the action had been disguised well enough.

It doesn't really matter, the voice in her head said lazily, still basking in the gesture. Doe had to agree, and nipped halfheartedly at his paws as he turned away. Come back here, she wanted to say, but she laid down instead, her tail flicking sand as she gazed after him with possessive fondness.

"Only the black ones," the doctor called, content to do as she imagined he'd been trying to bid her, and rest for a moment. Her ears swivelled to follow his movements as he trotted out of sight, but she soon found herself twisting around to look after him - and soon after that, twisting around purely for the joy of rolling in the sand. When he next passed, she resolved to get up once more and help him, but there was no reason she couldn't enjoy a moment of rest. The rosy shewolf let her eyes slip shut, and she fell into a breezy half-sleep as she listened to the waves whispering their songs.

Doe: *flops over and wiggles*

Sizzle: [jeopardizes all of Doe’s time] >:O

It pleased Szymon to serve the odd-eared female — to watch her stretch out in the sand with her bright eyes fixed upon him. He was careful to pad the rocks with seaweed after a time — not because of the burgeoning ache in his jaws and neck, which he rather enjoyed, but because he needed his fangs to be sharp. The required blessing would bolster the unified spirit of Skellige’s wolves, but the borders would be fortified with their fangs and claws. His search for black stones brought him further and further away from the female, bidding his paws to move a bit quicker on every return trip. He paused at one point to watch her, her scrappy little body twisting and writhing about in the sand purely for the joy of it — and on his next trip back her eyes were peacefully closed. Szymon continued with his errand for quite some time, but couldn’t resist doing a quick “drive by” on one of his return journeys — letting his neck go slack as he shook out his pelt to loosen his muscles, he hesitated — and brushed his tongue over the crest of her floppy ear.

Doe roused herself when his shadow fell over her again, and her tail beat a tired acknowledgment in the sand at the gentle touch of his tongue on her ear. She lifted her head searchingly without opening her eyes, and hooked a paw around one of his ankles in an effort to keep him near. Rolling more fully onto her back, she craned her neck to scrape her teeth against his larger paw, letting out a sleepy, beseeching murmur.

"Rest for a bit," she insisted, finally opening her eyes to blink up at his upside-down form. The sight was enough to eginite the whirring engine of her tail.

She knew that she should get up and do some more work herself, but the sun was so hot, and her belly felt marvellously full from the midday snack. Besides, there were plenty of rocks around. Why did she have to put them all in once place just to have them spread out again? The pack could find their own damn rocks, and she could do something more useful with her time - like cuddle Sy.

There are other reasons you should not be doing this, whispered a sensible-sounding voice into her 'pretty' ear. Not without Skellige's blessing, at least.

I have earned a bit of respite, she shot back at the voice, a bit indignant on her own behalf.

But have you earned the right to choose a mate? Perhaps you have already been chosen. It would be prudent to find out, and if the Leviathan has other plans for you - you will have to make your peace with that.

The voice was very sensible. Doe resolved to bring up the topic when things began to settle down - but for now, the sun was still hot, her belly still full, and Sy still wonderfully stubborn, silly, silent, song-filled beside her. I'm not doing anything wrong, she told herself. It's just a nap, after all, and no one seems to be around. She did not stop to question when a need for solitude had entered the equation, but for once, the shift was not lost on her. So be it, she thought wryly, a reckless streak awakening in her - where Szymon was concerned, at least.

I fell asleep midway through writing this! @.@

For all of his bossiness when it came to Doe and self care, Szymon possessed precious little of the same regard for himself. Helpless at the shackle of her small paw around his ankle, he remained where she’d caught him, the fond and bemused expression turning into a grimace as she scraped her teeth against his paw — a ticklish sensation that he was wholly unaccustomed to. She bade him to rest, and he hesitated — but when she fixed her bright eyes upon him he glanced over his shoulder in consternation, shook himself decisively, and somewhat awkwardly stretched out beside her. He could not hear the internal battle that raged in Doe’s mind, and perhaps that was for the best — he would have agreed with both sides, and they would have found themselves in quite the pickle indeed.

Szymon, perhaps unlike his grey and cream-patterned muse, always preferred solitude — especially when it came to things like sleeping and eating. Letting one’s guard down was folly, after all. Once his crueler siblings discovered his affection for the Witch Doctor — a shudder darted down his spine, causing the tip of his ever-flickering tail to twitch wildly like a wasp imprisoned in a window screen. No. They would not harm our Witch Doctor. Skellige has deemed her presence a needful thing. Satisfying himself with this knowledge, Szymon stretched his neck forward and scraped his teeth against her paw in turn. Doe would come to no harm, and he could withstand the worst of his siblings’ bad tempers. All would be well.

“T-T-T-T — ” he gritted out, grumbling his discontent at his inability to express himself as fluidly as she did. Often, when he was gripped by a particularly bad stammer, he had to stand as all of his muscles locked rigidly — starting at his throat and spreading outward until the effort of breathing was like trying to draw water from a stone. Bending his head to the little odd-eared wolf, he slicked his elongated ears back and pressed one scarred cheek to her paw. The touch exhilarated and relaxed him all at once, and he did his best to present the words to her calmly and easily — but despite his newfound strength, Szymon was still Szymon, Jonah of the Warsaw Cairns, and he barely eked out, “T-T-Tell — ab-ab-aba-aba-out — rrrrrocks.” The last word was ground out between his teeth and left him panting raggedly, rubbing his cheek against her paw as though he’d crossed hell and high water to complete that sentence — and perhaps, in some sense, he had.

It couldn't have been a recent development, the stutter - she knew that. He'd probably lived with it most, if not all, of his life. This knowledge did not make watching him struggle any easier, and the poisonous voice - not the sensible one - that lived at the back of her mind insisted that she stop him.

Don't let him do that. Why does he even try? Why would you let him suffer this way?

To the selfish part of Doe - that is, the largest part - it seemed like sound advice. Why strive to do something that only caused you pain? She could do well enough without him speaking to her, after all. They got along without it just fine, didn't they?

But there was something in his willingness to try for her that touched her heart, stilled her tongue, and kept her waiting patiently for him to finish. And when he'd said his part, she resisted the urge to praise him, though it was as strong as the original urge to quell and protect him from his attempts at speech. You will never know these things I think, she silently vowed, disguising an attempt to hide her face by washing a few salt crystals from behind his ear. Though you battle your own silence, sometimes silence is what you will need from me.

Feeling the need to add levity to the situation, Doe made her voice the blank, dreamy chirp of the Doctor's: "Oh, I just like them," she said in a bland but cheerful voice, watching his expression carefully out of the corner of her eye. When an appropriate amount of time had passed for him to properly appreciate her superior humor, she went on in a more serious tone.

"We need to line our borders with these black stones and shells. There has to be a clear line of them, perfect and unbroken," she explained, looking back at what seemed like too meager an offering for the task. "Halfway there," she hazarded, tail sweeping weakly behind her. "I wish we could make the line before the ceremony, but it has to be done in a special order, with all of us to help. Otherwise, we might already be done, and there'd be no worry about having enough..."

But the sea would provide, and there was no point in worrying about the woes of the future when today had quite enough of its own. Borrowing trouble, said the sensible voice.

The airy, dreamlike lilt that slipped from Doe’s lips was the voice of the Witch Doctor, and Szymon jerked his golden eyes to hers with an expression of absolute disbelief — her intention, he realized belatedly, and he snorted at her as his fangs closed teasingly around her wrist. He shook the slender joint very gently, as though her bones were hollow and brittle as a bird’s — and often, he believed that to be absolutely true — in a playful manner of punishing her. “Like hell you do,” his gaze told her, as he rumbled with mock discontent. Yet as she grew serious, the levity leaving her tone and facial expression, he too dropped back to earth and honed in on her every word. He was a Cairn — the sea commanded him, but he was not a mystic and it would never speak to him the way it spoke to Doe and perhaps to Arturo.

Szymon’s eyes roved the beach, judging the length of the border against the pile of rocks and shells they’d gathered. It wasn’t nearly enough — not yet. Turning to her as she voiced his own thoughts — “halfway there,” she guessed, and Szymon nodded grim agreement — the pale wolf got to his paws. If Doe worked herself ragged, the ceremony itself could fell her; he’d seen it happen before with Witch Doctors who so lost themselves in commune with the sea that they forewent the basic needs of food and rest. Determinedly, the inky-ribbed Cairn threw back his head and sent up a billowing, demanding howl meant to carry across the whole of the bay territory — his deep bass timbre, so rarely lifted above a whisper, filled the air as he called those loyal to Skellige to attention. With the help of other wolves, they would be able to finish the project — and although he hadn’t asked Doe’s permission about seeking their help, the set of his jaw brooked no argument. She had said nothing about a special order being required for the actual gathering of the supplies, just the ceremony itself.

Drawing breath, his eyes turning to the little Witch Doctor of whom he had grown so fond, Szymon howled again, calling for @Keto, @Arturo, @Tetsubō, @Jagoda, and even @Leokadia, whose appearance he had been avoiding since first learning of her arrival. “Those loyal to Skellige and who seek to claim this land, the Witch Doctor requires your aid.” Dipping his muzzle low, he hazarded one last gesture of affection before the inevitable arrival of at least one loyal wolf, pressing a lick to the Witch Doctor’s cheek and rumbling an apology for his brazenness. Faced with the thought of losing her to weakness, even if only temporarily due to exhaustion, Szymon would choose any other option. Then, on paws that were accustomed to stealing away, he returned to his task of gathering stones.

Last post from Doe unless the others decide to jump in. Post will archive 7/20 if no one shows up. Thanks for the thread, Sizzle!

Cackling wolfishly, Doe slipped her paw out of the Cairn's mouth and batted him deftly on the nose, and then quickly apologized with a lick on the side of his muzzle, sneezing at the feel of his whiskers under her tongue.

When her true explanation urged him to his feet, the doctor felt only a short moment of sorrow - for he used his voice once more, and she could only gaze up at him and wonder at is goodness. Not even her chagrin at others being called to do her work could mask her admiration of him.

"You take such good care of me," she said softly, quietly as he leaned in close. No song in these words - there was not a tune to accompany the depth of feeling they encompassed. There were other words she wished to sing - praises of his sweetness, his noble deeds, the strength of his voice - but the words would not find the usually garrulous wolf, and she simply watched as he went to gather more stones.

Not wanting to be caught lying down if anyone had heard Szymon's call to action, Doe scrambled to her feet and picked up the scrap of kelp she'd been using to damp the sharpness of the rocks. She hadn't been brave enough to call to the others for assistance, but they could be done within the hour with even a few more to help! Trotting to the shore to search for more rocks (for if she followed Szymon, they'd surely never get anything done), Doe kept one ear quirked to anyone who might come to help.

Same goes for me! ♥

Whether or not the others came, Szymon set to with a will, his heart aglow with the soft and secret sound of Doe’s voice that echoed in his tattered ears. Even if they did not come, a task had been set before him, and he would doggedly work at it until things were finished or until he dropped. Still, he believed that the wolves would come — for no follower of Skellige would be daft enough to deny the will of the Witch Doctor and thus deny the will of the Sea.