The sword pierced through her chest, striking her in the heart. Her own sword. No, her father's sword. Her own prized possession had been used against her by the giant green brute as he delivered the killing blow. Blood sputtered from Reed's muzzle and she looked down to see her father's cutlass sticking halfway into her. She looked up to see the laughing green brute grinning down at her with immense satisfaction. "But.... no...." she muttered to him as her eyes grew wide with shock. Her body started to grow limp and her paws collapsed beneath her. She fell on her father's cutlass, but strangely, there was no pain registered as it wedged itself deeper into her.
The green monster, for a monster is what he was to her at this point, stepped forward and yanked the cutlass from her chest. Blood started to pour from the wound and she felt her head start to swim with light headedness. Her vision faded, and the last thing she saw was his yellow eyes and grimaced smile staring down at her.
Reed Blackpaw had been vanquished. Her body had been sent out with a proper viking funeral performed. Words had been exchanged while those who loved the little spunky adventurer cried and mourned the loss of a life lost too soon. The cutlass had been returned to her pack and placed alongside her in the boat before it had been shoved off shore to be taken by the currents before a flame was lit to burn the body and items. The only missing component had been her familiar Pip - the blue ringneck parrot. She'd been sent to her watery grave, so her soul could at least find peace in Valhalla.
Water encompassed the tanned body of Reed as she woke from the depths of the seas. Her eyes shot around, searching for any immediate dangers. Strangely, she saw fish swimming around her, beautiful fish of all sorts of vibrant colors - yellows, blues, greens, reds, whites, and blacks. They swam in massive schools displaying both organization and chaos with their movements, flowing with the currents as the looped and circled. Perhaps yet more interesting was what she found herself within - a mixture of broken wood planks and shafts with coral, algae, and rocks growing across and over it. Barnacles breathed with the currents and she had an intense interest in watching as a particularly blue fish pecked at the living creature. Her mind slowly came to realization: she was beneath the water in some sort of coral or cave system.
Water.
Reed couldn't swim.
The beauty of the ocean surrounding Reed suddenly turned into a horror scene before her. Bubbles erupted from her muzzle as her lungs started to fight for oxygen. Her legs beat rapidly as they flailed, trying to get her to the surface. The calm schools of tropical fish scattered at the sudden movement sensing danger for their selves. Her nails scrapped against the hull of the sunken ship as she tried to find traction, slipping on the algae. More bubbles erupted from her muzzle and nostrils. Her muzzle parted as she tried to scream but no sound came out. She wanted to scream for help. She was scared and unsure of where she was. She couldn't remember anything. The last of her oxygen escaped her through bubbles rising to the surface and she knew that this was it. This was where she would die - deep beneath the ocean that she was supposed to love as a pirate, but was not suited for. She felt her consciousness slipping... then she felt her Will activate and around her formed a large bubble - a pocket of air.
Suddenly she started to rise from the depths of the ocean above a sunken ship - for she could now see the broken structure on the bottom of the water and stared amazed at the entire ecosystem that had grown over the wreckage. Up and up she rose further and further until the wreckage beneath the ocean became hazy and foggy in the depths beneath her. The light that filtered in from the surface grew brighter and brighter until she breached the surface with her air bubble. POP! The moment her bubble breached the surface the magic of her Will evaporated and Reed was left floating on the surface, desperately trying to keep herself afloat. Fill your lungs a voice whispered to her inside her mind. Without questioning it, she did so, and found herself able to remain on the surface, pushed to shore by the currents and waves.
It was a few solid hours that she kept herself afloat as she drifted to the beach ahead of her. She'd given up on flailing her legs to try and direct herself as exhaustion overtook her figure. Even floating became difficult and when she got closer to shore, the waves crashed over her body harder than before. She registered sand beneath her paws as her legs dragged and excitement struck her instantly. Sand meant she could feel ground. Her paws reached to dig into the loose and flowing sand, to propel herself the rest of the way to shore, and when she touched down on solid ground...
"Blughhhh" came the horrible sound of a seasick wolf upchucking nothing but salt water from her stomach. If there was ever a wolf who looked green without physically being green, it was Reed.
Wandering the world seemed like an adventure when he was a child. Surrounded by wonder and amazing discoveries, but now that he was forced to live that way nothing seemed like a wonder at all. Even looking down at this beautiful landscape... Felt meaningless. It should fill him with some kind of feeling right? Some sort of awe or even disgust because of the sand...? No... He felt nothing at all. An empty shell filled with ravaging thoughts and manic tendencies. For once in his life, he finally felt like the bandages were holding he altogether instead of keeping him locked up.
Sitting on his haunches on the cliff side, he spotted something unusual. Bubbles were rising to the surface out in the middle of the ocean. Never had he encountered anything like that. Slowly he stood with an odd cat-like grace and sauntered down the ridge. As he did more bubbles appeared and then they stopped again. Was it something magical? A pocket of air underneath some wreckage finally being let free? He didn't know. Curiosity seemed to heat up his limbs as he made it to the edge. Though right before he jumped down to the beach, he noticed an odd coloration in the water. It was coming up from the ocean floor it seemed like and it was not of any fish he could think of.
Dropping down to the beach, the sand quelching between his toes, his brows rose in astonishment. It was a wolf. Water magic? He wondered and sat down. A glimmer of amusement rolled through him after a while. He figured the wolf couldn't swim since it just bobbed with the tide. His tail curled and unfurled as he waited for this stranger to reach shore. Regretfully once it did, it did what any almost drowned victim did, vomited all over the sand. Feeling the relief and anxiety wafting off the wolf like an aura. He wanted to go up and greet them but at the same time his heart sank. Who would want to talk to a lowlife like you. His mind muttered in his ears. His eyes lowering to the sandy floor. Instead of talking to the new wolf instead he turned his body and rose. Climbing back up the sandy cliff in the exact why he'd come. Stopping only briefly to take one last look.
With the saltwater ejected from her stomach, Reed felt slightly better, but only slightly. She tried to remember what had happened. She tried to remember why she was beneath the water. She tried to remember how she had ended up in the ruins of a ship sunk to the bottom of the sea, but no matter how long she thought, no matter how hard she tried, she ended up with zero answers. It was like there was some sort of fog obscuring her memories. When she tried to remember wolves of her past, all she could see were dark shapes and blurs. When she tried to remember anything, nothing really came to mind. With her nausea briefly satisfied, she took a second to look over her body for clues. Around her neck was a purple scarf with crossbones on it, drenched and dripping with seawater. Around her body was a harness, and on her left side were two weapons. One was a longer sword, the other a smaller dagger. She could recognize what they were, but couldn't recognize why they were there. Clearly they were hers. So... was she some fighter? Warrior? The bones on her scarf. She... she was a pirate! That's why she'd ended up in the ship! It must have crashed with her on board and sank to the depths with her inside it. Oh my god. She had nearly drowned! she suddenly realized, her mind wrapping around the events as her instincts waned.
There was the crunching of sand beneath paws, and Reed's emerald eyes glanced up to find the source of the sound. There, on the beach in the distance, stood a wolf staring at her. He seemed to be wrapped in bandages. Was he hurt? Wait. Was he part of the crew that had sank with the ship alongside her? If he was, why couldn't she recall a name? He turned away from her, to slink into the brush that made up the line of the beach, and Reed suddenly yelled out. "Wait!" Her legs moved quickly, her paws digging into the soft sands of the dry shore, to try and catch up to the wolf as he disappeared. He paused to look back at her. "Wait! Don't leave!" she called after the wolf a second time. The sudden motion caused the queasiness to return and her stomach twisted. Her movement suddenly stopped and she paused, her legs splayed. Her head lowered to the ground and for the second time, she vomited up a mixture of salt water and bile from her stomach. It didn't stop her. With drool dripping from her chin, a puddle left in the dry sands behind her, she continued her approach to the wolf, trying to close the distance. "Wait! Can you tell me what happened?" Maybe he would know what had caused the ship to sink, and where the rest of the crew was. If she had managed to avoid drowning, it was likely the better swimmers had made it to shore some time ago.
Hearing her voice almost made him jump. His head turning and looking at her with a bit of disgust. Her muzzle low to the ground again, vomiting. He didn't know what to say and a sudden feeling took hold. Anger? Why was he mad...? His cat like tail whipped back and forth behind him for a moment. Glinted eyes watched her approach when she was finally able to. Ears perked for her question and body tight with anxiety. Wait! Can you tell me what happened? Her voice sounded beautiful to his ears which made that anger bubbling in his stomach worse... Why? He huffed and looked back at the ship in the ocean. "That? It's been there as long as I can remember... Why? What were you doing down there? Looking for treasure?" He rolled his eyes and turned to leave. Not even caring about what the answer would be.
He didn't think twice and continued to walk. His mouth now hummed with thirst from just watching her retch everything all over the sandy floor. His lithe and small paws moving through the underbrush at a snail's pace, like he had nowhere to be or nothing to do. His ears perked to listen if she was going to follow him. Part of him wished she would but that would only cause disappointment if she didn't. Plus what was with the weapons? She seemed to have two one her and one of them looked extremely fancy. Maybe she was a treasure hunter... Kind of an exciting gambit at that.
Reed, ever the optimistic and kind wolf, completely ignored the thrashing tail, the look of disgust and the overall I don't want to deal with you attitude of the wolf before her. She saw none of it. After all, she was Reed Blackpaw, friend to everyone and enemy to monsters! Monsters like that one wolf, the only thing she could remember, who was green with glowing yellow eyes. When the stranger's eyes shifted from her out to the ocean, to the spot that she had managed to miraculously swim up from, she followed his gaze. What he shared with her was not what she had been hoping for. It had been there for as long as he could remember, he said. Well... that didn't explain how she had ended up in the ruins of the ship. Instead of providing answers, it just gave her more questions. Luckily, he had asked his own questions of her. It was enough to deviate her wondering mind. But just as he asked them, he turned away to start walking off again.
Why couldn't he just stand still and have a conversation with her?
Now determined to keep him nearby to answer her questions, she moved forward with him, determination evident in her stride. "No, I'm not a treasure hunter... I don't think" she answered after a thoughtful second. Or maybe she was? Maybe that's why she had been deep down in the ocean? But that seemed silly. She couldn't swim. Why or how could she get get out there so deep down without suffocating? Or a better question, why had she awakened there? "Where am I?" she asked the stranger, shifting the topic to the here and now, instead of the there and was. "Who are you?"
Noticing the strange wolf wasn't giving up on finding answers a small smile drew over his maw. A bit of nervous energy rolled through his limbs and put him on edge. The way she answered his own question gave him pause. Did she not know who she was? Amnesia wasn't common without a good cause, or whack to the head. His tail slowly curled up and he stopped mid-step. Where and what... Those words caused a chain reaction of anger and venom to pull from every fiber of his being. "You're in The Realm. A place seeming to be paradise and hell all wrapped in a pretty bow." Sitting down slightly he tilted his head at her. "As for the second question you don't want to know the answer to that." Lifting a paw, his long tongue rolled over the fur there. Rubbing the wetted bit over the back of his ears in an odd cat-like gesture.
Continuing with his odd bathing behavior, Sasuka peered down at her. "Not many even cares that I still exist. They know me as a Monster." He pulled his lips back into a grinning snarl as he said it. That anger falling over him in waves that showed with every bristle and flex of his lean muscles. "Now the real question is, who are you? Since you don't think you're a treasure hunter..." Watching her reaction to his change in tone, a ping of sorrow filled him. Why did he do this? Every time someone wanted to know him or even his name, he just... Turned into the monster they all perceived him to be. Hackled rising in slight irritation at himself. He rose again letting the sour attitude finally show on his face. A scent of prey echoing of the breeze and into his nostrils. His ears perked and turned his head toward the direction it came from. Still even as hungry as he bet, she was, that he was, he wouldn't have the confidence to catch it.
He answered her questions, but it seemed that somehow she had hit a nerve with the other wolf as she noticed his tail curl. At least he sat down and she wouldn't be forced to trail behind him further and further into the brush that decorated the edge of the beach. The Realm, he told her. Well, that wasn't a place she had ever heard of before. His description struck her as odd as he both complimented and insulted the place he called his home. How could it be both? Paradise was supposed to be good, while Hell was supposed to be bad... right? As if to confuse her further, he told her that she didn't want to know who he was. Then, in a very feline-like move, he licked his paw and rubbed it against his ear. He looked at her, but did not cease the grooming. Her emerald eyes looked back at him, listening intently as he spoke further. She felt pity for the creature creep up inside her until he spoke a word that jogged her memory.
Monster.
Even as the creature bristled and showed his fangs, Reed froze where she stood. She didn't freeze because of him, but because of this deep feeling of knowing came rushing back to her, and she saw him there. She saw the yellow eyes, the green fur, saw the sword sticking out from her own chest. Monster. Reed didn't know what the vision meant, or who the green wolf was. She reached up to her chest with her paw to feel for the cutlass. It wasn't there, nor was there a scar or blood or wound to signify that such an event had occurred. Monster. Was... did she somehow see a picture of her future? Why had it been triggered by such a word? She twisted her neck around to check for the Cutlass that dangled at her side. It was still there in it's sheath, safely secured and clear of blood. She looked back at the stranger with her eyes wide just as he asked her who she was. "I uh..." she started, then dropped her eyes downwards. Who was she? Despite her best efforts, her name escaped her, and it was hard to focus with the thoughts of her future suddenly flashing before her eyes. Or, what she thought was her future. She really had no idea.
Her gaze looked back up towards the stranger, trying her hardest to answer him and failing in doing so. "I don't know." she finally admitted with a frown and folded ears. "I can't remember" she explained. Why? Why couldn't she remember? She knew things. She knew paradise and hell. She knew monster. She knew words and speech and she knew objects like ocean, and ship, and trees and other such things. So why couldn't she remember who she was? Why couldn't she remember anything about herself? Why had monster jarred her so much? Too many questions, and too few answers. "I just know that I woke up at the bottom of the ocean in the shipwreck. I figured maybe the ship had wrecked recently with me on it, and you were part of the crew. I guess.... I guess that's not the case?"
