Stavanger Bay when he was a boy he wanted to play down by the sea

@Sandpiper

He was on his back. Front paws curled above his chest and rear thighs spread open, the morning sun warmed his belly and b____. He stared vacantly at the sparse wispy clouds that were spread across the sky. His stomach rumbled but he had no appetite and no will to hunt or scavenge. Raptor simply lied there like a dead seal even as the tide crept in and started to lap at his ribs and soak his spine. His thoughts were numerous. But none were pleasant.

sandpiper, like raptor, had found the sun's generous bounty pleasing -- and had elected to go for a stroll while the weather was still fair. she was not far along the swash-line when she saw a shadowed form interrupt the gently rising tide; at first, she assumed it some rotted corpse. as she drew closer, she saw its fur was not matted, its sides not bloated -- and the peculiar arrangement of its limbs skyward clued her in it was no dead seal, but a crewmate.

she hadn't seen raptor in a while, and her tail wagged as she recognized him. she slowed as she came closer, noticing a dark pall to her friend's countenance. her brow scrunched, and she quietly murmured "you okay?" her gaze slid to the bubbling brine around him, unsure of why he had not even bothered to move from the sea's lapping touch.

Sandpiper's arrival did little to stir him — or at least not in a physical way. He felt something sickening swirl in his gut and swallowed thickly, drawing in a deep breath before he rolled over to his elbows as the sea continued to lap at him. "Do ye remember that wolf I thought was yer sister?" He asked in a weary voice.

so, raptor was obviously in one of those moods. she stepped back and rested on her haunches, one ear tilted quizzically behind her as she examined his weary countenance. he looked like a beaten dog, all sodden and sapped of spirit. certainly not the rough-hewn but devillish corsair she knew.

sandpiper certainly remembered that ill-mannered sprite -- her expression darkened unfavorably and she nodded, expecting to hear he had given that wench the deserved what's-for. "yeah, sure i do."

The sea lashed him then. It slapped against his side and washed over his snout. Rolling his eyes, Raptor resigned his post and stood up, moving out of reach of the encroaching tides. He recalled another time that he had sulked, and that the sea had rebuked him just as Sandpiper had come to him. That had been a good day, in the end. But that memory brought him no hope now.

Raptor grunted and shook his coat before dropping his rear down. "I tried to kill her." He stated and then paused. He did not want to keep revisiting his failure and did not know what he wanted or expected from his fiery furred companion. He trusted her, and somehow felt safe her in company. Raptor sighed. "I tried to kill her. But she was in season annnnd.... well, she's probably going to have my pups."

sandpiper had hoped to hear of a beating -- not a murder. when raptor revealed his darker intentions, she visibly recoiled and the scowl turned into one of revulsion. kill? she kept repeating what he said mentally - i tried to kill her, i tried to kill her. she couldn't reconcile it, couldn't make sense of it. she had hated that grey witch, but to kill her?

the notion seemed incompatible, inconceivable. sandpiper wrestled with what to say, wanting to scold him, wanting to leave. the frown of dislike to bear witness to such news was turned into a look of wounded anger when raptor finished.

she's probably going to have my pups.

sandpiper had never experienced the feeling of a heart sinking before; never experienced her guts fill with lead, her stomach drop to deep depths beyond a pelagic darkness. suddenly her throat was raw and her head swam in wounded recoil. she couldn't believe he could do that to her - selfishly, she wasn't even concerned about the peppered female -- she was concerned about how raptor had just done the equivalent of ripping out her tender heart and bashing it the way he had crushed horseshoe crabs against irrevocable stone.

"you.." she gulped, ears cupping back as she felt a snarl bubble in her throat. "you fucking asshole." and then, the cairn girl lunged at him as if with all of her might, muzzle contorted into a crippling snarl. she wanted to hurt him the way he had hurt her, to show him how it felt to sink to new lows in pain -- but all she could manage to do was a half-hearted lunge at his throat before she turned around with a wild whimper and ran.

He expected the anger and when it rose in her throat he started to brace, digging his toes into the sand and tensing every muscle. She lunged, and Raptor turned his head and cringed hard, his teeth clenched tight as he awaited his just punishment. His companion fell into him, and there was a press of fangs at his throat. He accepted it — but it was no sooner there than gone, and he blinked open his eyes as she whimpered and ran from him.

"Piper! Piper, stop!!" Sand flew from beneath his pads as he tore after her, a cold fear squeezing at his heart. "Please!" He begged, closing the distance, not sure what he could say. There was no redeeming himself. He only knew that the thought of her turning away from him was easier to bear in mind than the reality of seeing her backside running off. He would have preferred she closed her fangs and choked him out when she had the chance. "I didn't mean to! I just wanted to be a real pirate! For Smoke! For you!"

it was not cold anger that squeezed her heart, but hot and sharp pain. raptor's calls after her were futile - she did not slow. in fact, his pleads seemed to have the opposite effect -- she made even faster away from him.

her heart and her head and every part of her body was pounding as she tore down the shore, careless of anything in her way. she dove through a flock of seagulls that were sent into the air abruptly by her rude intrusion, and she hardly had the spirit to snap after them.

somehow, this hurt -- it hurt far more than rosalyn's teeth in her flank, it hurt far more than the eyes of the audience that had witnessed her be dethroned. no, this was a different kind of hurt that no matter how fast her legs fell nor how hard the bracing air burned her tight lungs, it did not cease.

tears, fat and bulbous and brimming, formed and slid down her half-closed eyes as she bolted -- and in a few short seconds, she was but a speck of red along the rim of stavanger's coast.

She ran.
He ran.
She ran faster.
Then she was gone.
Raptor slumped into the sand.

"Come back..."