Wheeling Gull Isle drinking through my muzzle on the kitchen wine
\\ || //
151 Posts
Ooc — Rachel
Offline
#1
Private 
The storm had passed, but it was no thanks to Komodo. The island was a mess, with plant matter and tree debris thrown about, wolves missing and presumed dead, wet and sodden winter earth and cold winds. Before there was chaos, but now there was a muted sense of this chaos, sheltered in the mouths of the seawolves who were left to restore the island. Komodo, however, was not one of these wolves.

The man stuck to the labyrinth as he always had, but this time with a certain ferocity and seclusion about it. The duties of the past few days had hit the man hard, and that [along with many other things] drained his body of spirit and his mind of its energy. He no longer cared for his things — it actually had only been a few weeks ago when Komodo had learned that the fawnskin pouch that he kept around his neck was missing, and he had that thing for years. It was symbolic of the loss the medicine man felt deep within his very being. His lover was gone, without even a word, and even to this day the idea was quite hard for him to bear. What was once a question, a loving assumption that she would return. She was either dead or she didn’t love him, and he knew it was not the latter — but he simply could not bear if it were the former, either. 

Just as the first maelstrom had done, messages from the gods had been brought to Komodo’s ears. The brute had thrashed with the storm, perhaps only inwardly, and perhaps spurred on by it. The winds ushered in a new era of Komodo’s life, one which he thought might have involved quite a comfortable life with his raven and maybe a cub or two. The angakkuq was no spring chicken. He had not been able to call himself young for quite some time, but whenever he looked upon himself in the water, he was always shocked to see how the tip of his muzzle was peppered with gray. He was getting old now, and what had it all been for anyways?

It was all as clear to Komodo as it had ever been — it was the type of clarity that you could purchase only through pain and suffering and loss. He thrust his nose to the wind and felt the winds blast his face and comb through his fur like a lover’s fingers. He did not utter a sound, but simply hoped that @Coelacanth might simply materialize next to him when he needed her most, as she always did.
night clubs & night stalkers
fast women, fast talkers
loose lips, loose limbs
the lovely loveless

587 Posts
Ooc — KJ
Master Medic
Offline
#2
Tagging you because I took twenty years to do the thing. @Komodo

The storm had changed Coelacanth. For the first time in her life, she’d embraced her role. Allmother. Aralez. The seawolves had lost so much — she could not ask them to bear her up and hold her steady. It was her duty now to be that pillar, as strong and steady as the heart of the island that had kept them all safe. When she approached the Labyrinth, her feathery fur rippled bluely across cords of hardwon muscle that ran trimly from her withers to her waist. She was in the best physical shape of her life despite the weight she’d lost pining for her daughter, but it was the newfound purpose with which she moved that transformed her. There was no apology in her when she drew up beside the angakkuq — just a resounding sorrow she dared not breathe life into. Without hesitation or invitation, she pressed her muzzle into the thick ruff around his neck, her teeth and tongue combing tenderly through his fur.

Talk to me, Modo, she begged him quietly, fixing him with a gimlet eye. Her careworn expression was equal parts curiosity and worry as she gazed upon him.
\\ || //
151 Posts
Ooc — Rachel
Offline
#3
LOL, @Coelacanth, tagging you for the same reason. I love our threads that average one post a year. It’s very us, haha.

She did. Coelacanth materialized next to him and welcomed him into an embrace — there was an innocence about it that could have been mistaken for these two, only just a year ago. It wasn’t heavy with the weight of his wrong-doings — it was simple support between close friends, and because of it, Komodo did not bother to beat around the bush. “Ah’dunno, Seelie,” he sighed, answering her unspoken question. “Ah’ miss ‘er.” His broad shoulders rolled downwards at this admission, unconsciously protecting his heart-space. “Jest… Ah’ feel like ah’m livin’ in the past, y’know? ’N ah’ dun even know whut it wus all fer, ennyways.”
night clubs & night stalkers
fast women, fast talkers
loose lips, loose limbs
the lovely loveless

587 Posts
Ooc — KJ
Master Medic
Offline
#4
So true, beautiful, but I love you and wouldn’t have it any other way. @Komodo

The atramentous sheepdog’s tufted ears were pressed forward upon her skull; all of her focus was tuned completely in on the medicine man and his grief. She listened as he spoke, and she listened to the things he didn’t say. One of Seelie’s vices was loving everyone so much that her tiny body was riddled with exit wounds — but she had been born to love this way. It was all she knew. Komodo, on the other hand, had enjoyed many a liaison — but as far as little Big Ears knew, `Io was his first mate. To have given away something he’d guarded so preciously, only to have the holder of that gift vanish without a trace…oh, the hollow hurt took Seelie’s breath away.

The storm, too, had broken the angakkuq’s spirit in a way that concerned Coelacanth. She had not been blind to his defeated heartbreak; the saline of his tears had not blended in or been blotted out by the saltwater winds. She knew of his commitment to his gods, and though she did not share his beliefs, she respected them and mourned alongside him their silence. Despite this, she had little to say — she seldom needed to speak around him. She continued to preen at his ruff, believing fully that he would come to some fated conclusion on his own, and at last came to rest with her throat pressed to his withers — no small feat, given their difference in height! (She had to stand on her tiptoes, and even that was a stretch.) She closed her eyes and willed him to feel her love and acceptance, unwavering and boundless.