Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2015 19:50:32 GMT -5
OOC: I know you're busy, Zen, but this thread really does need to be up, before I forget about it. You can jump in with Gol at you leisure, while Sol and Dire have a heart-to-heart on the beach. In other notes, I ran with this "from Northern Europe" thing. The name "Salomon" is the Swedish spelling of Solomon, though he'll change his name to the islander pronunciation. I quietly assumed that the brothers are speaking in their native Scandinavian until they meet Goliath and switch over, for my own enjoyment. :> //end OOC
The beach was silent, save for the dull continual crashing of waves reaching up onto the shore. A recent storm, the last and most violent of the year, had all but swept its upper banks clean before it moved out over open sea. The sea was doing its best to fill the beach again, taking wavefuls of driftwood up into the shallows.
And something else.
Salomon, or, as he would come to be known on these islands, Solomon, was first made aware of the gritty sand rubbing against his cheek. He could time the waves with his breath- the ocean was trying to push him to shore.
With some difficulty, Salomon stood up and, standing unsteadily in the shallows of the beach, took in the shoreline, the water racing foamily around his paws, then receding. His fur was stiff with sea salt. The wind cut through him bitterly as it whirled up little bits of sand and took them along with it down the beach. And he was alive.
While his head was still foggy, and ached in a way that spoke of dehydration at sea, he could still remember enough of the escape from the Tall People and the events leading up to it that he knew this was against all odds, and in that train of thought he remembered his brother.
His brother. He could also remember enough of the events leading up to finding himself on this beach to feel, for possibly the first time and not the last, genuine concern for his littermate. And a new emotion, heavy and warm in his chest, that he recognized as love.
He half-turned in the shallow water, searching. The sea had brought a knarled log, taken from the body of a stripped tree tossed behind the storm as it moved out into the Atlantic and became a tropical storm, back onto the beach with its living passenger. And beside that, a lump that could be distinguished from driftwood by its salty-stiff pelt, nearly identical to his own.
Salomon sloshed over, nearly falling as the little waves sucked at his paws, and nudged his brother briefly with his nose. He couldn't tell the movement of his breathing from the movement of the waves lapping at Dire; fear pinged inside him for a moment, but when he put his muzzle close to Dire's, he could feel his breath. Salomon visibly relaxed.
"<Brother,>" he rumbled next to Dire's head, voice hoarse from abuse from the ocean. "<Brother, wake up.>"
Tags: @jedidiah, Goliath