As dawn broke over the coast, bringing with it a thin fog, Cthulhu picked her way across the rubble of a landslide with sharp nose pointed curiously toward the stones underfoot.
Destruction was a thrill to Cthulhu. Although she wasn't capable of much harm without an external stimulus of some sort, she found that she could commit great atrocities if her well being was threatened. She reacted savagely and was as volatile as her strange nature might suggest in those situations. She was often beset by guilt whenever she flew off the handle, but the coywolf couldn't deny that she enjoyed it. It was, perhaps, the fault of her fucked up mother and the violent things Cthulhu was told as a child. Her siblings were much the same.
Yet any destruction she wrought was small scale. Never before had she witnessed something so massive as a landslide. It was clear from the state of Horizon Ridge that something terrible had happened by some monster's cruel hand, and all that was left to tell of it was rubble. Maybe the beast was still there, hidden under the ruins she walked on. The thought was frightening to the hybrid, who paused momentarily with an anxious quiver and considered going back to the dark forest, but then chose to continue despite the warnings she frantically muttered to herself.
The odd wolf stopped for a second and a small quiver passed through her. Raissa had to suppress a laugh at her obliviousness. Raissa moved her tail and released a shower of small pebbles which soon turned into a mini rockslide. Raissa hadn't intended to injure the mutt, only to startle her by the sudden movement to her rear.
The she-wolf was a mere silhouette against the bright sky. Cthulhu could make out no distinct features. Although she couldn't prove that Raissa was responsible for the falling pebbles, an angry tremor crawled up her spine and lifted the hair of her nape. "What'd Cthulhu do to you?" she called to the silhouette atop the landslide before bending her head to lick a smarting welt on her foreleg.
She was sometimes a stupid animal and sometimes queer and bizarre but Cthulhu wasn't dumb enough not to get angry when someone threw things at her.
The odd creature called up to her in a voice that made Raissa want to burst out laughing. She held her humor in and put on her typical sad innocent face and started down the rock slide.
She picked her way down the slope on delicate paws, barely causing any rocks to slide down. When she reached the bottom she walked over to the half wolf, her tail down. She approached the wolf at a medium pace and noticed her angular features. She must be part coyote. Raissa put on an apologetic face with a tinge of sadness when she got close enough for the wolf to distinguish her expression. She played this part very well as she played it all the time.
”I am so, so sorry! I slipped and a couple rocks fell down towards you, I would have warned you but I didn’t notice you until you called out to me.” She rambled in a sweet voice.
Raissa was close enough for Cthulhu to see her now, and what she saw was... well, nice. She was a thicker looking wolf (thanks to her heavily feathered coat) but had slim legs and delicate feet that suggested it was merely show. Her coat was alternating shades of dark and light, typical as far as wolves went, but with heavier fur around her face that lent her an innocent quality. Cthulhu took a step back even as Raissa explained the misunderstanding, if only because something about the other threatened her. Maybe it was because she was pretty and Cthulhu most definitely was not.
"This one is okay," she said after a pause. "No ouchies. That one did no harm." She couldn't blame someone for accidentally kicking rocks at her when they didn't see her, and she never did spot a broken connection between the female's flawless descent and the "accidental" dislodging of several pebbles. "Why was that one sitting up there?" she wondered, already forgetting about her previous anger.
Raissa smiled sweetly at the half wolf. She talked in a strange way, her words mixed with the speak of coyotes and wolves. She seemed a little loony if you asked her.
”Well you see, where I’m from, there was no water as big as this.” She drawled in her sweet southern belle accent. ”It fascinates me and when mornings like this, full of mist and secrecy, well I just have to come see it for myself.” she explained sweetly batting her large orange eyes at the coywolf.
Raissa picked her way off the landslide to the sand on the other side, the cool grains soothing her pads. She sat down, facing the water, her tail wrapped around her tri-colored paws.
Instead, Cthulhu let out the heavy breath she was holding and said, "the water is home of large monsters. Cthulhu has seen them." Cthulhu had no more seen a monster than a unicorn or a dragon, but she was fervent in her belief. Late at night she imagined tentacled horrors and half-bear half-snake creatures and convinced herself they were real. Surely the ocean held terrors even more fearsome.
Raissa seemed to lose interest in her at that, saying something noncomittal and shrugging off the hybrid. Cthulhu stood there for a while, staring at the back of Raissa's head, but ultimately picked her way back over the landslide and into the forest beyond.