Stavanger Bay Clearest blue

The shivering, crying, urine-soaked mess that had been tossed haphazardly into the sea's clutches was not quite the same creature that eventually emerged from it.

Soon after plunging into the cool saltwater, Larkspur's head hit one of the very rocks that gave the pack its name. She didn't quite lose consciousness, though her awareness dimmed to such a point that her body began functioning almost independently of her addled brain. Even as the tides tugged her to and fro, she kicked and eventually broke the surface again, several dozen yards away from where she had been dropped. She coughed as she drew fresh air into her burning lungs, stinging eyes half-closed. She continued to jerk her legs, staying afloat and otherwise letting the waves have their way with her.

Some time later, she found herself on a beach, soaking wet and clinging to the wet sand as breakers continued to wash over and around her. The youth crawled up the shore a bit, dizzy and disoriented, then slumped down as soon as she was clear of the waterline. She breathed, slowly and shallowly, exhaustion seeping into her bones. Her right temple throbbed, a thread of blood joining the saltwater trickling along her jawline. It had been hours since the unceremonious drop, not that she knew anything about that. She didn't recall much of anything at the moment and was only aware of her struggle to survive.

She pressed her cheek to the sand, closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, then slowly and shakily pushed to sit upright. A piece of kelp clung to her left ear as she peered around blearily, still breathing in the warm, salty air as her bloodshot eyes combed the beach. Nothing looked familiar and when the adrift young wolf peered backward at the ocean, seasickness struck with terrifying immediacy, resulting in her bending forward and vomiting bitter, brackish fluid at her feet.

Atoll had been walking the beach, looking for glittering things with which to decorate her den. She did not expect to see a small wolf - nor did she connect the yellowish plop Skellige had thrown with this equally yellowish little girl.

Mind still rife with the longing for young ones that Rowan had stirred up in her, she went at once to the child's side, ears fluttering helplessly as she vomitted into the sand.

"Are you alright?" she asked worriedly, eyes and voice soft as the mothering instincts that had turned a jawbone into Shink made themselves known once more.

After her guts emptied, she dry heaved a few times before her bunching stomach muscles finally relented and calmed. She shifted her smarting, watering eyes away from the unsteady horizon, focusing instead on a nearby sand dune. A gentle breeze kicked up then and some wavering sea grasses caught her eye. The youngster drew in a deep breath, the sudden ringing in her ears fading away. She felt slightly better than a moment ago, though she was a long way from being all right.

So when a stranger materialized nearby, a question on her lips, the young wolf twitched and then stared at her in bewilderment. Her lips parted to respond but there seemed to be a wire pinched or crossed somewhere between her mind and her mouth. No words came. Her moist blue eyes blinked, hard, and she swallowed against a rising feeling of panic. She had understood the other wolf, so what had struck her mute? What had happened to her? Where was she? Hell, for that matter, who was she?

The August air was warm and balmy, yet that didn't prevent a sudden chill from crawling down the pup's spine. Her lips moved as if in silent speech as she wracked her brain for the answers to these unspoken questions. But trying to come up with answers only made her head throb and ache. She felt like she might be sick again and pressed her eyes closed, leaning forward over the drying puddle of vomit with a muffled groan.

The confrontation with the father and daughter had gone surprisingly in the Blackrock’s favor. Skellige had been pleased with how quickly both Szymon and Doe had thrown themselves into battle with the distraught figure, and how quickly the sea had swallowed the small child whole. The leviathan could not stress how important it had been for them to have an appropriate sacrifice on the day before their blessing. It did well to allow for the waters to be more accepting of their claim on those lands. The wraith did not anticipate that on his stroll across the shore, he would see Doe conversing with a familiar golden figure.
 
His russet gaze burned like fire at the sight of her; she had survived the drop. Quite suddenly and inexplicably, the inky titan found his limbs carrying him swiftly toward the young girl and his Atoll. His fur bristled along his neck and shoulders as he closed the gap of space between them; the sands were kicked up behind his dark figure. Skellige did not think that his swift approach would be alarming to the young girl, but he did not care to think of such things – the sea had blessed her and spit her back out! It was a sign that she was meant to be within his brood, and though he had been quick to disregard her and throw her to the waters the day before… the leviathan found a budding protective nature over the child.
 
Sand sprayed beside him as he came to a halt and he snapped his teeth toward Doe once – it was not a sign of aggression toward the female, but merely a way of demonstrating that he would take the upper hand with this. “Sharkbait,” he sneered at the child with a curling lip. For Skellige had imagined that the child would have become food for the predators of the sea and it was very rare that he was wrong. Turning quickly toward Doe, he flicked his tail upward and locked his gaze with her own. “I want you to gather your herbs. She’s been blessed by the waters… but you must check her for injury,” he growled softly. Doe had proven herself well as a healer and he knew that he could count on her. The man only thought for a moment about calling Deirdre, but his recent frustrations with the pale forest wolf were enough to cast the thought aside.

The girl opened her mouth, but made very little sound. Immediately, Atoll understood - "The salt water," she said, attempting to soothe the panicked look on her face. "You must be parched - a cool drink of fresh water will make it easier to speak."

Before she set about cajoling the girl into following her to the water that fell from Donnelaith, however, Skellige appeared and quickly took charge of the situation, warning her away from his stolen prize. Atoll looked sullenly at him for moment before forgivness took hold of her. The Leviathan owned everything on this beach; she was here at his pleasure. Of course he should take the girl!

"I will do this," she said with a sharp nod and a swish of her tail. "If you'd take her to drink from the Falls of Donnelaith, I think she and I would both be grateful."

Turning away, she chipped for @Lagertha or @Szymon, intending to have one of them aide her in the gathering of herbs. After her last foray into the unknown, she no longer wished to depart from the bay without company.

Laggy/Sizzle: I'll make a new thread and take you both so that this one can go on with minimal breaks. Thanks!

By the time her stomach had settled a second time, another wolf had appeared on the scene. When the youth's eyes opened, no familiarity registered in her wet blue eyes as she regarded the tall, muscular wolf. She did feel an instinctive trepidation but otherwise, all she could really focus on was her own ailments. They were many: whereas her nausea seemed to have receded, her head still ached and her body was soaking wet and sore. Her throat felt raw and her eyes burned. Not to mention her missing voice and memories, which were significantly more concerning.

Her attention shifted to the she-wolf, who cited seawater as the cause of her lost voice. But before she could suggest someplace to get a drink, the dark brute took command of the situation. The juvenile was far too caught up in her own miserable state to react to anything else going on around her. She simply blinked watery eyes, glancing between the strangers (were they strangers?), her gaze eventually coming to rest on the commanding male when he addressed her in a tone that implied familiarity.

Sharkbait? It was the first truly lucid thought that popped into her head, as her brain seemed to kick into gear a little bit. It sounded mostly right, though she still couldn't grasp a single detail about her own life otherwise. She certainly couldn't guess as to why the gray she-wolf with the bright yellow eyes was helping her or why the much larger, more intimidating wolf was sneering. Maybe one of them would explain eventually. In the meantime, she would just sit here and try not to grimace.

It was not a surprise to Skellige that Larkspur would not recall the fear she had felt when he had closed in on her. The leviathan knew that the sea would have washed away the pieces of her that were small and useless; fear would no longer cling to her heart. The drop was a sacred ritual and though it had not been done in the manner that he was accustomed to, it appeared as though the ocean had still accepted his offering and had granted the girl a second chance. The child would be better for it. She would rise against any suffering that happened to cross her path and she would have the depths to make her stronger.
 
Doe was quick to deduct what needed to be done in order to tend to the child; she instructed that it would be wise for Skellige to lead her to the waterfall near the edge of Donnelaith and allow her to drink of the fresh water. He watched her with an intense expression for a moment before bowing his head in agreement. A day in the brine was tasking for even those who had been born and bred in the sands. “The mystics thank you, Doe,” he offered to his witch doctor as she turned to seek out Lagertha or Szymon for assistance in gathering herbs.
 
With a salt-spattered pelt, the dark titan trailed his vision back to the child and he found himself captivated by the first survivor of their ways. It was a good sign of what was to come. “Come with me child and we will feed you and show you fresh water,” he growled softly to the pup. A motion with his muzzle showed the direction he intended to travel and the wraith began to move in the direction of the neighboring forest.

Doe left, right? Sorry if I'm skipping. Feel free to slap me! ;)

The next time someone spoke, she glanced upward to find herself alone with the dark brute. She blinked, feeling a thread of disquiet, her big blue eyes scanning for any sign of the gray she-wolf. She spotted her retreating hindquarters in the distance, then slowly dragged her eyes back to the male. Belatedly, she processed his words. He meant to lead her to food and water. Dimly, she recollected that the gray wolf intended to return to check her for injuries as well. The golden youth swallowed, her left ear flicking at a sudden tickling sensation and causing the shred of drying kelp to drop to the damp sands.

When commanded to follow, she obeyed immediately. As she fell weakly into step behind the large wolf like his brighter, smaller shadow, she felt her unease grow. There was so much she didn't comprehend about the situation. These wolves seemed well-meaning despite their gruffness, yet all the questions marks in her mind were a bright, angry red. This strange feeling of total blankness was perhaps most alarming of all, as if she didn't know the first thing about herself and therefore didn't know how to behave, other than like a half-dead youngster at the mercy of wolves that could be her parents or her captors for all she knew.

By the time they reached the edge of the forest, she was trembling. She felt fear flooding her system, understandable but a little inexplicable simply for its abrupt intensity. The juvenile still couldn't recall much of anything at all, though this anxiety felt somehow familiar and natural. She wondered if she was starting to remember herself, perhaps on a subconscious level, though no other information was necessarily forthcoming. Growing more and more scared, she nonetheless kept following her unfamiliar leader.

The small pup obeyed and as the titan led her across the sands in the direction of the forest pack, he wondered why the scent of fear still lingered on her body. The brute wondered if the sea had done a well enough job of washing away the weak parts of her body and making her worthy again. The wraith then wondered if he had not done right by the ocean; the child had been flung from the land and not the ceremonious dropping point, and she was not of the age that they typically entered the swell. Nevertheless, he had assumed that if she had been a weak subject, the waters would have swallowed her whole and they never would have seen the likes of her again. Instead, the great and mighty sea had returned the pup to him and he knew that she was blessed. The devotion that he felt toward the ritual was unwavering; Skellige reminded himself that he must trust in the ways of the great sea wolves, for that was the only way that they were to remain strong.
 
As they neared the trees of Donnelaith, the dark wolf turned back to run his dark eyes over the child once more, noting the scent of fear had grown stronger on her. “There is a waterfall over there,” he motioned toward the fresh water with a toss of his muzzle. “Go and drink and I will get you something to eat.” He turned his body away from her, hoping that she would find the strength to go where he had instructed.
 
There was a prey cache that they had tucked neatly before the border of the forest pack. He prowled toward it and uncovered the hidden meats with a sweeping of his nose across the seaweed that protected it. Underneath the covering was a small group of fish; he selected one that seemed suitable for the size of the child and covered the rest back up. With the fish in his mouth, he trekked back toward the waterfall to where the golden pup ought to have found herself and he settled the meal down on a small tuft of grass so that the sands would not cling to the scales of its body. “Here, Sharkbait… eat,” he growled softly. The name of the child had never been heard, and so he had offered her a suitable one. Though she was not of the ocean, the wraith would craft her into a seafaring war hound.

When he spoke again, it startled her, causing the youth to jump. He motioned toward a distant waterfall and she blinked, then obeyed. Her movements were tentative as she padded toward the waterfall, her blue eyes flicking warily to and fro and her nostrils flaring as she vigilantly swept her surroundings. There was something distantly familiar about the scents filling her nose, yet she couldn't tease further recognition out of her tired brain. Instead, the pup glanced over her shoulder in the male's direction—almost as if she was planning to make a run for it, though she wasn't—and then approached the fresh water to drink.

Her throat did feel better afterward, her mouth less bitter with the sourness of bile rinsed away. Quietly licking her lips, the young wolf swiveled to watch as the large brute fetched some fish from a cache then prowled her way. As he came closer, she shrank, partially out of fear but mostly out of submission. Her ears pinned flat to the sides of her head and she made a point to sweep her tail downward, limp between her hind legs. As a matter of fact, she crouched her hindquarters so much that she ended up seated, albeit with a peculiar case of hover butt so that she wasn't quite flush with the ground. Almost as if she was prepared to flee, though there was still no conscientious intent there.

When he set the fish down at her feet and rumbled her name as well as a command to eat, something struck her as utterly familiar about this scenario. In fact, it gave her a small measure of comfort which she did not understand but she did embrace. Sharkbait, she thought again as she hesitantly bent to sample the fish. She only meant to nibble at it but soon found herself scarfing it, her body begging for the fat and protein after such a physical trial, even if her brain could not recollect the circumstances whatsoever.

Once the last scraps were gone, Sharkbait sat up slowly and finally found her voice to mention a thought that had formed in her head while eating. "Are—are you... my daddy?" Somewhere in the back of her mind, she felt certain they'd done this before. And the word daddy kept bouncing around her skull, like the echo of a shout. As soon as the inquiry slipped past her fish-flavored lips, it felt... if not totally right, then at least mostly so, just like her name.

The child still shrunk away from him as he drew near to her, but it did not bring him a sense of displeasure. The brute had grown accustomed to those outside of his brood and their numerous reactions to the sheer size and the vicious appearance of his ink-cloaked figure. Skellige was not a creature that inspired beautiful words or gazes of longing. It would be time before the pup would accept him, and while he was a master in the art of war and confrontation, the inky titan did not know how he was to go about winning the girl’s trust or her heart. The sea had provided him with a task that was sure to test his spirits and his patience.
 
His dark eyes watched her intently as she made herself hover over the earth in a half-seated position. His expression did not falter or change, but remained as it always did: savage. Though he had done well at gathering his troops and preparing them for their claim, and while he had succeeded in taking the land that he had intended to… the leviathan was not a man who had been destined to care for children. Nevertheless, he would not allow another wolf in the depths approach this girl until she was ready to be integrated into their society.
 
Sharkbait scarfed the fish that he had provided for her, and he looked on with a slight twitch of his dark lips in pleasure. The ocean waters had held her for long enough – it was no surprise that she should need to hydrate and sustain herself. Once she had finished the meal, Skellige eyed the skeletal frame of the prey once before her question struck his lengthy ears.
 
“Daddy?”
 
The russet of his vision swiftly fell on her and he thinned his lips until he thought they might seal. It was the moment that he knew would come, but had not thought it would fall on him so soon. Pulling his gaze from her and tossing it in the direction of the lapping waters, Skellige looked to his great mystics for an answer to this pup. If he were to lie to her, the level of trust would fade and he would find himself regretting the many poor decisions that he had made. If he told her the truth – that she was a captive in his lands and that she belonged to him – he knew that she would turn from their shores and never return, even if it meant risking her own safety. The titan walked a thin line for a moment.
 
“What do you think?” he asked her in a rumbling voice, for he did not imagine that she would have inquired if she did not feel some sort of bond with him. Realizing that she might not want to play word games so soon after having found her sea legs, the wraith blinked once and swiveled a single ear to the side. “I am… now – now that the sea has spoken of your worthiness. I am Skellige Cairn, the Leviathan over these lands,” the ink-cloaked man explained to her. He was certain that there would be question on his rank or their lands, and possibly even the customs of the sea, but the silver-ribbed war hound was prepared to answer all of them.

He didn't answer right away and thought she heard the dim ringing of a warning bell in the back of her mind. But it faded into the background when his rich timbre sounded again. What did she think? Sharkbait balked, if only inwardly. She didn't know what to think. Thinking hurt. Her lips parted as if to tell him this, though he continued and put her worries to rest. He was her father then. She knew the meaning of that word intimately, despite all the other disconnects in her mixed-up mind, and though her trepidation did not cease, she suddenly felt that much safer. She half-listened as he declared his name and title, the information meaning nothing to her, though she filed it away in one shadowy corner of her mind or another.

She didn't have much else to say. With her thirst quenched and hunger sated, true exhaustion crept over her. Little did either one of them know that Sharkbait would require nearly a week to recover from today's ventures. She would sleep for days, regathering her strength. Whether she would recover her memories and sense of self too remained to be seen. For now, the juvenile thought of very little as she unwittingly slumped forward, dropping to a boneless, snoring, salt-crusted heap at her daddy's feet.

The worrisome thoughts of her true father returning to claim her had since vanished, perhaps foolishly so. He had found a comfort in the idea that the waters had intended the child for him and him alone. Though it had been Doe who had found her washed up, Skellige had made it known that Sharkbait would fall under his care and he would not fail the pup in this. As she wordlessly peered at him, he watched her with an intent stare, wondering what was ticking in her mind.
 
It seemed as though exhaustion had taken over her small body, and she moved to place herself at his feet. The swarthy titan watched as she lowered herself and formed a small golden shape in the sand more akin to a loaf of bread. There would be time for her to gather her strength, and he knew that he would require patience if he was to bring her to her true glory. Lowering himself so that he no longer loomed over her, the leviathan made a small dip in the sands and placed himself next to her just so that his dark hairs would mingle with her own golden ones.
 
‘You will be a Cairn too, Sharkbait,’ he thought to himself as his eyes lingered on her for a moment longer before they shut and he joined her in quiet slumber – the protective shadow over the ray of sun.