Sequoia Coast tell me how it is being the sun

Somewhere between the Sentinels and Honeyed Pasture. Tag for visibility: @Doe @Szymon @Silas.

By the time Qilaq had been ready to turn back, she realized she’d gone too far to know where she was. It was not often she left the safety of her pack, even if she hadn’t been with her parents at all times of the day. She still kept close when she could and now the fear she may never see them again had settled into her bones just like the cold that had taken over. Her frame had thinned over the few weeks in her absence and her body trembled more often than not and her sense of direction was all but completely gone. The last shred of recollection had been enough to dump her somewhere between the sentinels and the pasture.
 
The snow masks everything around her and the charred remains of the forest are covered leaving nothing more than sticks poking out from the ground and an open plane before her. Sweeping her head to the right gives her nothing more, knowing the ocean to be in the opposite direction.
 
Tired.

She tries to take another step but her legs don’t seem to remember how to work and, instead, crumble beneath her. Qilaq falls into the deep snow. Her muscle ache against the burn of her icy surroundings and instinctively she pulls all her limbs to her middle. It does little for comfort but the exhaustion creeps up on her, reminding her she has too far to go to make it anywhere. Everything else cries out inside her and a gentle, inaudible whimper cracks through the frozen lips of her muzzle.

There was one good thing about the cold: food. It was - more often than not - frozen around the edges by the time the Akhlut got to it, but it was better than wading into the freezing surf for their meals. Occassionally, the Wickedness saw fit to send old carcasses to shore, and by this, Doe knew that they were forgiven for keeping clear of the icy waves. Just when she'd thought they could not keep up their harsh lifestyle on the shore for much longer, the weather seemed to provide them with hearty - if not slightly frozen - meals.

Today she was out searching for frozen dinners, shivering in the cold but holding on to the thought of a warm den to keep her going. The sooner she found something to feed the kids, the sooner she could get home. Her ears were high and alert, listening for Szymon's voice on the wind. He was out searching as well, but they'd split up to cover more ground.

A soft sound made Doe's head twist around, and her eyes narrowed as they fell on a speck of black in the distance. She was running before she'd fully processed what she hoped she was seeing, and had reached the shivering girl before the name finally pierced through her. "Qilaq," Doe said, unable to believe what she was seeing, smelling. But it was her lost child before her, shivering in the snow. "Qilaq," she repeated, curling her body around her daughter's and covering every inch of her in joyful, desperate kisses. "Szymon!" she screamed, her head twisting as if to look around for her mate, but her eyes remaining glued on Qilaq's face. "Szymon!" She howled, come quickly, and stared at the little black girl - almost grown, now. If not for the subtle changes, Doe might've wondered if it was a dream, if it was a trick of her mind. Even now, she doubted herself, and her voice fell soft and fearful off of her tongue.

"Is it really you?"

This post is bad. I am tipsy.

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When Doe’s behavior began to grow more erratic — a hard thing for Szymon to actually observe firsthand, since she focused on him so readily — the black-banded Cairn began to follow her. He kept his hovering as unobtrusive as he could, a loving sentinel and not a jailer, but he could trust no other wolf with such a task. It would not do for their wolves to suspect weakness of any kind in the Akhlut — and selfishly, the golden-eyed Leviathan believed that only he could bring her back completely when she strayed. Frayed.

Maybe it was true.

Szymon wasn’t far away when Doe’s scream sliced through the crackling winter quiet, and his paws moved so swiftly they had to scrabble for purchase until he got his momentum. His heart rattled uneasily within its cage of bone and flesh as he covered the distance in the blink of an eye, crashing down in the snow on Qilaq’s other side. His scarred muzzle pushed insistently into Qilaq’s snow-dappled coat and followed suit with Doe’s. Only when he was totally satisfied that neither of them were suffering from grave wounds or illnesses did he allow his guard to drop. With a muffled sound deep within his throat, he bent his head to the little girl — she would always be little to him — and began to groom her roughly, forcing warmth and circulation into her limbs. As he worked, a measure of the tension in his lean musculature came undone, and a soft, choking noise slipped weakly from his lips in the form of a whine as he butted his head insistently against the girl, willing her to respond to him. His throat was too thick to allow speech.

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Qilaq, Qilaq.

Her eyelids flutter in an attempt to open and the added weight of another body causes her head to turn. She doesn’t see who it is but there is something familiar about it her tired mind can’t quite grasp. The kisses feel like pokes and prods and she weakly twists to try and get away. Her struggles continue until Doe’s added words really sink in. She knows that voice. She never thought she’d hear it again and it is then she knows everything will be okay, somehow. It is weird to not fully recognize her surroundings or even feel most of her body and there’s a quick terror she might not be where she thinks she is.

Another wave of snow comes over her but the added force to clear her dusted fur. She swings her head quickly and her vision is slow to clear but seeing her papa puts a lopsided smile on her face. She leans forward, attempting to prop herself up so she can properly greet him but she has a difficult time keeping herself upright.

“Mama?” she murmurs through chattering teeth, pressing as much of herself as she can into the woman.

"I'm here," Doe choked, burying her face in her daughter's dark coat. "I'm here, lamb, Mama's here..." More words tumbled out, nonsensical and virtually indecipherable from the happy whines that were slipping past her teeth. This was real, she was home. The girl she'd thought dead had returned, skinny and cold but alive.

Her eyes watered, blurring the beloved lines of these two wolves, her husband and her first daughter. It was as though a missing piece of her delicate psyche had been returned, and for the first time in weeks, Doe began to breathe freely once more.

"Let's go home," she murmured, shooting Szymon a worried glance. It was too cold out here for a prolonged reunion, and all thoughts of food had since fled from Doe's mind. They would all last a few more days.

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Szymon is fully on board with getting the hell out of the snow — there is just one thing he needs to say first. It’s something he meant to say long ago, before Qilaq disappeared, and her renewed place in his life and in his arms makes him say it now — before anything else happens. “Qilaq,” he utters finally once his throat and tongue unlock themselves, “you are a Cairn. You are mine — mine and your mother’s — and you are strong, Qilaq.” He needs her to know this and to believe it, because even he isn’t sure at this point whether the girl can make it home on her spindly legs. “You are Qilaq Cairn,” he repeats, “and we have to go home now.” He takes his place at her side, licking at her nape and nosing at her shoulder in an attempt to urge her to stand. He snakes his body close to hers, hoping to prop her up, for although he could call for his wolves, he prefers not to. There is a chance the influx of strange faces will scare the girl, and selfishly he wants to keep this reunion to himself. “Come, little one,” he bids her insistently.

“Your mama and I will help you home.”

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“Mama,” she repeats. She can’t remember the last time she heard that voice. Her eyes blur but the tears nearly freeze before they spill over and her lids flutter them back, leaning into the kisses and hugs each of them give her. Through their closeness, she’s able to stay up right but she can’t find a single point to focus on. Her ears droop and she noses into the nook of someone’s limbs.

“Papa,” she cries. In that moment she doesn’t understand his words but she knows, knows it’s important.

And desperately, she wants to understand.

Qilaq swivels her head as she blinks back frozen tears on her face to move with him. The warmth of his body against hers causes her to lean closer and slowly her legs slip beneath her weight. They are shaky and cold and she isn’t really sure she can feel them but they still move through the deep snow when she takes her first, careful and unsteady step home.

Sorry about the wait!

Together with Szymon, Doe supported her baby between them and began the slow march back to the bay. She could hardly believe that this was happening - it was like so many of her dreams. Part of her was sure that, very soon, she would wake up with only pale furs against hers, and no precious daughter between herself and her husband. Oh, she would gather her red daughter against her, and she would groom Isengrim into sleepy submission by her side, but they would be Qilaq.

"You're safe now," Doe murmured, speaking softly into her daughter's ear. She prayed in her heart for this to be true, for this to be real. "We're going to keep you - you're gonna never be lost again. You're safe."

More words, more nonsense. Doe rambled on, the words hitching and weaving as her throat tried to tighten, constrict her words.

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Szymon had emptied himself of words, but Doe continued to talk to Qilaq — a river of reassurance and affection that comforted the golden-eyed father as much as the gray-eyed daughter. “Qilaq,” he murmured in answer to the girl’s plaintive cry. “All will be well.” He didn’t know this — couldn’t guarantee it — but he wanted so badly for it to be true that he didn’t mind lying. He angled his shoulder forward, trying to knock down the walls of snow to allow easier walking for their girl, and set his sights grimly on the coastline.

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With the help of Szymon on one side and Doe on the other, they make the trek back to an unfamiliar den. The trip feels long and she can’t feel her limbs anymore but she settles where she works, with the help of the others, to get the last bit of snow from between her toes and tufts of fur. And, eventually, she sleeps.