Sequoia Coast reform this year

For @Coco, of course!

They had traveled far, intent on finding the creek, stream, river, or whatever the legend spoke of. Their home in the north awaited them, but for now they were transplants, Herschel and Coco. Even though they had been born practically at the same time, Herschel had always felt older than his dark-furred sister. He had been protective, sometimes overly so, and loved her more than anything else in the world. So when she proposed the idea of going south to find the sacred creek, he had agreed to follow without so much as a moment's hesitation.

The two wolves of Deloria descent walked alongside each other as they made their way along the coast. It had been their guide as they had traveled from the north. As long as the ocean was on their right, they were heading south, where the legend said that the sacred creek lay. Occasionally, they would make a quick journey inward, away from the coast, but when nothing lined up with the descriptions of old, they would return once more to the salty water.

Early signs of evening were beginning to present themselves, and Herschel nudged his sister's shoulder gently. "We should make camp for the evening. We can journey inward in the morning."

Coco had never travelled this far in her life. Her feet ached, her back ached, her face ached. Why? It didn't make any sense! Was there something wrong with the air? It was stickier somehow, and carried the unctuous smell of rot - nothing like the cool, crisp, pine-scented air of home. It had started its assault on her nose long before their arrival into the Teekon Wilds, and she'd just about had enough.

"Why does everything smell like fart and poop?" she whined when he touched her, flopping onto the cooling sand.

Herschel smiled when she whined. He really couldn't help himself. She may have still been a child in many ways, but she was his sister, and nothing could come between that. Her complaints had become more frequent as time wore on, and he wondered if she would give up on her quest if she did not find the water that she sought soon.

“Perhaps,” he replied lightly, “because you fart and poop so much.” Herschel said this with all the kindness of a teasing brother. He settled onto his haunches then, knowing that he would not sleep while she did. Instead, they would take turns. Coco was always allowed to sleep first, of course.

"Perhaps, because you fart and poop so much."

Coco's caramel-coloured eyes widened. She raised her head to look suspiciously at her slightly bloated belly, then back at Herschel, completely misinterpreting his tone. "Omg," she whispered, pronouncing it oh-em-gee, "Do you think all this new food has made me pregnant? We've eaten so much fish.."

Growing babes went hand in hand with gastric distress - the breeding female of their home pack had pointed it out as a clue that you might be expecting. Now it was Coco's turn!

“Oh yes…” he said, touching her belly with his nose, “I think you’ll be birthing little fish babies any day now.” Herschel grinned as he thought of this, wondering if they would look like wolves in the front but fish tails in the back. Knowing that she would take this to be the truth, he quickly added, “I’m only kidding, Coco. I think it’s the water that smells that way.”

As he sat there, he wondered how much further their journey would take them... and whether or not Coco would find what she was looking for. In some strange way, he did believe that she was going to find it. Her heart was in the right place, that was for sure. With a goofy grin, he looked out over the crashing waves. “Do you think we’re close?” he asked. She was the guide, after all. Herschel was merely here to protect and be a companion. And because he could not imagine a life without Coco.

Making some stuff up about where they came from!

Coco gave her arse a suspicious look, but more or less accepted what Herschel said as fact. "You're smart," she conceded - certainly compared to his sister, who wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box, nor the brightest bulb in the bunch, nor the... you get the point - she was the blunt, colourless lump of intellect.

At his question, she narrowed her eyes, apparently thinking hard. "I can feel it," she insisted, even though the feeling she was referring to was probably just gas, ".. it's in distress! We need to cleanse it, so that everyone can have good dreams and die peacefully and.. and.." Coco trailed off.

'The Sacred Stream' was her own personal manifestation of the very loosely defined system of beliefs held by members of their birth-pack. Mostly, nobody really thought about it beyond 'shit, better tell my kid a bed-time story', and it was a nice thing to hold in your mind if you were about to meet your death in a bloody, violent way. The idea that the conscious mind flowed like water through an endless wonderland when you slept or died was something that Coco believed actually happened, and she would pass out from sheer horror if anyone pissed in the vicinity of a stream she deemed sacred.

And this one, this still-not-found creek or river or whatever they might end up finding was the most sacred of them all.

Her caramel-coloured eyes swivelled from the sand to her brother's face. In a rare break from her conviction that their quest was totally going to change the world, she asked him meekly: "Do you really think we'll find it?"

Herschel had heard the tale many times before, just as he knew Coco had heard it just as many times (if not more). For some reason or another, she was the only one who had really thought about it, though. Everybody else just went through the paces, never thinking twice about a story told generation after generation. It was just that: a story. Coco, on the other hand, had taken it to heart. And she was bound and determined to find The Sacred Stream that had been passed down to so many wolves in their homeland.

“I do,” he replied, sincerity not lacking in his tone. Whatever this... this sacred flowing water was, he did not doubt his sister. If anybody could find it, it would be her. Together, they would rid it of the evil that lurked there, once and for all. Herschel and Coco would become its guardians, keeping it free from the injustice that had plagued it for so long.

Eventually, they found a decent place to bed for the night, and Herschel kept watch while his sister slept the night away. Her breathing and the waves created a soft symphony that would keep him alert until she awoke to switch places with him.