Stavanger Bay sending a danger signal

Anybody, but I would love a thread with @Lagertha since Sizzle has not met her yet.

Pressing a soft kiss to Doe’s brow, Szymon untangled himself from her sleeping form and exited their den. The pale colors of dawn washed the bay territory in a haze of cream, grey, and milky citrine hues. It was pleasant to break through the clumps of pampas grass and find the Sea at his proverbial doorstep, and he yawned his contentment with leonine languidness, his powerful jaws cracking gratifyingly. The ceremony was nigh, and restlessness swam like a swarm of electric eels through the boy’s bloodstream — it taunted the monster that drove the youngest Cairn, and he itched for a distraction. Recalling Doe’s story about the female called Lagertha — a name he would never be able to comfortably pronounce, he was fairly sure — he wondered whether he would find release in the physical rigors of sparring.

He lingered at the shoreline, diving into the roiling Sea and striking out toward deeper water to catch his breakfast — webbed paws drove him below the surface as the current brought him home to the terrain most wolves didn’t dare explore. It was good fortune that Skellige had found this place, devoid of the warring nautical clans, an untouched sanctuary for the Cairn family. Lunging beneath the surface, he snapped his jaws over the fat, ruddy body of a snapper. Turning back toward shore with his prize, he broke surface and sucked air through the prison bars of his razor-edged fangs, water spraying from his nostrils in a fine mist as he heavily exhaled and allowed his breathing to regulate.

The golden-eyed Cairn touched down upon sand and shook himself vigorously, tearing the head and spine from his kill with furious gusto where he stood. Then, he lay in a sphinx-like position to bite into his prize.

Lagertha was not much of a dreamer, not one for sleep. Her days began at the crack of dawn, finding her atop a grassy knoll of a hill overlooking the sandy strip of beach below. The morning was still and quiet, broken only by the sound of waves hitting the shore gently.

The Viking sucked in a breath, eyes half shut in peace before they widened to take in the pale form below. From here she could not tell if it were a male or female wolf but Lagertha watched whomever it was all the same. 

As they began to tear into the meal they had caught, the Valkyrie crept down with the intentions of figuring out of this wolf was one of the Blackrock wolves.

A flash of movement out of the corner of Szymon’s eyes caught his attention. He watched the valkyrja, mapping her descent with a suspicious expression in his sulphureous eyes; he gulped the rest of his fish without preface or apology, not precisely food aggressive like many of his siblings, but not one to linger over a kill when others were present. The wolf — female, his sharp nose told him plainly, and a recent addition to Skellige’s warband — seemed equally cautious. He watched her obliquely, taking in the neat, efficient way she moved — she was a smallish beast with lean, wiry muscles and a spare construction — and dipped his muzzle. The scents of Doe and Skellige were rich in her fur, which was resume enough for the youngest Cairn, and although the frenetic twitching of his tail did not cease, he relaxed the muscles of his body and stepped away from the discarded bones of his kill, licking scales from his scarred lips.

Szymon had some idea of who the dove-grey female was from scent alone, and perhaps she would recognize his scent in turn from his constant nearness to Doe. The process of elimination only confirmed his guess: she was not Arturo or the nameless male; she was obviously not one of his siblings; and she was not his Chosen One. There was only one wolf she could be, but the golden-eyed boy had serious doubts about being able to fluidly pronounce her name. To stave off the embarrassment, he rumbled a cordial greeting that swelled from his jaws in a rolling chuff. “H-Hello,” he said ponderously, his guttural bass timbre made husky from disuse.

As she got nearer Lagertha could see that the white wolf was a male and was heavily scented with Doe and Skellige. Recognizing the scent as the strong perfume that clung to her witchy little friend, Laggy relaxed significantly. 

He was a small man, not unlike her own build, nervous looking with yellow eyes. The Viking stopped a few feet from him, watching him in case Doe's lover was not so docile as he seemed. 

When it became clear that he was not threatening, Lagertha beamed a smile at him as her tail began to wag overtime. "Skol," she boomed, " 'M Laggy." 

The release of tension from Lagertha’s hardy musculature was not mirrored note for note in Szymon, but he decided that for the time being she posed no threat. Grateful that the unwieldy tangle of syllables could be shortened to a nickname, “L-Laggy,” he repeated. He supposed that “skol” was a type of greeting; but just in case she thought it was his name, “Szymon C-Cairn,” he replied. The smile upon the warrior woman’s face was infectious, and Szymon’s frenetically twitching tail began to wave in answer.

“Doe h-has s-s-spoken of you,” he stated, his stutter producing a bloom of self consciousness within his gut. He felt, in a way, that he knew the female already — Doe’s glowing respect for the woman made the boy more lenient toward her, and although he was swiftly forming his own opinions as the meeting drew on, he liked what he found thus far. The woman would prove useful — her scarred body and efficient way of moving proclaimed her prowess in battle, and although he longed to test her mettle for himself, he thought first to question her loyalty to Skellige and to the bay.

“H-How d-d-did you c-come to f-f-find the b-bay?” he asked, his tattered ears ever watchful should his obvious impediment cause the female to misjudge him.

His stutter didn't bother the Viking, insensitive as she could come across sometimes; Lagertha wasn't dense. Social cues went over her head but Laggy could recognize it wouldn't be kind or smart to poke at Syzmon's mannerisms. 

"Doe's ma best friend. Strange, vee little thing she is but I'm fond of her," Lagertha joked, chuckling heartily. 

"She has spoken of you," her brows wiggled slightly, just as she had done to Doe upon finding about her romantic relationship with the younger Cairn.

I apologize for the wait and sad quality. ♥

The valkyrja’s hearty chuckle coaxed the corners of Szymon’s kohl-lined lips to quirk upward in a guarded smile. A strange, tangling sensation churned in his gut as Lagertha declared the fine-featured witch doctor as hers — though it was utterly silly, Szymon found he was displeased at the thought of sharing her with anyone. “Sh-Sh-She is — ” beautiful, wonderful, addicting, my Chosen One, mine, mine, mine “ — f-fond of you, too,” Szymon admitted with a brusque nod. “You h-have taught her m-m-much.” He didn’t know that for sure, but he knew that Doe spoke highly of the warrior woman and was eager to continue her lessons. They were lessons Szymon could not afford to give his Chosen One — he dared not trust himself in play around her, let alone with the heat of battle in her eyes.

Could he trust Lagertha?

Suspicion bloomed suddenly in the boy’s golden eyes, and the flush and fluster brought about by Lagertha’s suggestive confession made him all the more eager to change the subject. It pleased him that Doe had spoken of him as she had spoken to him of Laggy, but that ember of pleasure was crushed beneath the cold weight of a mental image: the two females, fangs bared and fur bristling. Without overtly elevating his head and tail, Szymon fixed Lagertha with an intense stare — the tension in his body flowed like the flush of brine and the sink of sand. “You will,” he commanded, “t-take great c-c-care with her.” It was not a question or a mild statement — it was the fiery defensiveness that came with protecting something dear. He was Skellige’s brother, and what he lacked in malevolence, he made up for in tenacity and ferocity — when necessary.

“Why d-d-did you c-come to the b-b-bay?” he questioned again, for she had not answered him the first time, and he found that he needed more information about the woman who was teaching Doe to fight.

that's fine, and sorry must have forgotten to answer that question!

Lagertha nodded, a pleasant smile still remaining on her face for she thought things were going well. The sudden tinge of suspicion in him, the glint in his eyes as he rose himself up disturbed her. Lagertha had thought for sure that she could be friends with Syzmon as well. 

The smile slipped from her face, a reproachful; almost offended look taking its place as her tail stopped wagging. "I vould never hert her," she intoned solemnly, all she had to say on the subject. 

"I lef' my last home," she answered easily, the easy tone gone from her voice and replaced with something formal. Turning, the Viking stopped to call over her shoulder. "I must be going. Borders to patrol, such," she turned back around, loping away from Doe's man with nary another word.

Boo, just shy of ten posts. ;-; Thank you for the thread, anyway! And no worries!

Something Szymon had said had evidently touched a nerve in the warrior woman he was just beginning to respect and know — the smile disappeared from her features and her tail ceased its wagging, which did not surprise him, given the gravity of his command. He was not speaking of something light and innocuous — he was speaking of the pack’s witch doctor, whose small, fine-boned frame could easily be damaged even by accident. Friendship did not come swiftly or easily for the young Cairn, who had more than enough reason to be suspicious of the influx of wolves he did not know; and he did not appreciate the reproach in Lagertha’s tone. He repeated the conversation in his mind — “she is fond of you,” “you have taught her much,” “you will take great care with her,” — and found nothing amiss. He had not threatened the woman or chided her, and even now, as she turned her back on him despite his superior rank and strode swiftly away, he said nothing.

One tattered ear fanned out toward the crash of the waves as he impassively watched the small woman flee, her muscles taut and rigid with the tendrils of distress his candid words had wrought. A touchy creature, or so it seemed. In a continuation of that fluid motion, Szymon turned his full attention to the Sea — he had his own personal agenda to tend to, which involved stocking the caches so that his brother’s pack members would never face the famine these wilds had suffered only a short while ago.