WE’RE CAUGHT IN A WAVE | JOINING

[Malana]

[color=#00688B]☾ ☾ ☾

Nobody ever anticipated tragedy; nobody ever marked their calendars with anticipation towards impending doom. The unfortunate always crept up behind you, casting looming shadows that not even the trained eye could detect. The tiny whale that squeaked and squealed to the mother that she swam beside knew nothing but the ocean and her pod. She was safe from bad things so long as she didn’t know about them - understand them - and as far as anyone was concerned, the unnamed predator was wreathed in innocence. She was the only child in a relatively large group of orcas and they protected her diligently, always keeping her at the center of the pod and ensuring that she was cared for regardless of anything. So long as she had her mother and the rest of her family, life would be okay. She would grow and develop and one day have calves of her own, seeing the many oceans that littered the world during her constant travels.

She did not see this outcome. She not see herself being ripped away from those who cared about her, churning waters simply too strong for someone as tiny as she was. Five months old and only nine feet. She was dramatically undersized and even the slightest change in water could have her spiraling away from her pod. Perhaps she should have figured that something was amiss. The squeaks and squeals projected by her pod were ones laced with worry and distress. Something was coming and even they - the apex predators of the ocean, kings and queens of the vast expanse of water that spread in every direction around them - were not prepared for it.

She sounded her own call, bumping into her mother who’s only response was a bump back. What was going on? Why was everyone so frightened?

The water that they currently swam through was warm, warmer than the cold waters of the arctic from which they had migrated from. There was something else too, a certain shudder that caused the entire world around her to tremble, her once confident tail stokes now hesitant. Uncertain. She swam up, needing to surface for air, when a stray wave caught her, small body not nearly strong enough to fight it. Her mother followed her in pursuit, but she, too, was ensnared by the very ocean in which they loved. She squealed and squeaked, every instinct screaming at her to break free.

She couldn’t.

She couldn’t.

Was she going to die?

The wave that had ensnared she and her mother was only growing in size and power. Bigger. Bigger. Bigger. This certainly was the end, wasn’t it? Who knew that the ocean could be so unforgiving to the creatures it willingly housed.

The small whale shut her eyes, her squeaks and screams of distress stopping. Above them, thunder boomed, streaks of lightning spiraling through the sky. She could sense that her mother was nearby but she... she was just as helpless.

And then, the child hit something hard and her world went dark.

- - -

When she awoke, she was acutely aware of a pain in her side. Something had rendered her unconscious, exposing the whale to her first instance of pain, well, ever. She blinked chocolate hued eyes confusedly, trying to place her surroundings and quickly discovering that she was resting upon a blanket of sand. Paws would flex, shaky legs struggling underneath her form to lift her dry body. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Paws?

Legs?

What was happening?

She quickly raced towards the waters edge, a gasp tumbling from obsidian hued lips as she realized that she was not a whale at all anymore. Fur adorned nearly every part of her small form and, aside from the tail that was most certainly whale-like in nature and the tiny dorsal fin that rested just past her shoulders, she realized with sudden clarity that she was some type of feline.

Her panic towards her new appearance was short lived however, her attention being drawn to something else. Something far more heartbreaking.

Just past where she had stirred, her mother’s dried figure rested. She was unmoving, chest refusing to heave anymore labored breathes. Death had claimed her, just as it had nearly claimed the small whal- no, kitten - and the realty of such came crashing into her like a wave. No, a tsunami.

Unsteady legs took her to her mother’s side, tears forming in deep brown eyes as she nudged the being that had given her life. [color=#00688B]”Mommy...” She whispered softly, too devastated by the fact that she had lost her mother to even register that she had spoken, that she had not relied upon echolocation. [color=#00688b]”Mommy... wake up!”

But her mother did not stir.

Did not move.

Did not heed to the call of her first and only child.

Had she not lost her mother, she would have been amazed by the world that rested above the water- its incredible shores and lush jungles unlike anything she had seen before. She couldn’t find it in herself to muster even an ounce of excitement - of bewilderment - though. The cost of this new world, this new life, it was too much for the child.

And so she did what any lost kitten would do: cried and begged the ocean for her mother back.

[CAESAR CIPHER.]

IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD !

CAESAR CIPHER. MALE. THE TYPHOON. OFFICER.

Nobody had been prepared for the tsunami, but Caesar was particularly bothered by it. It was just nature, and the demon believed he could just find another body - or hell, an aquatic body if need be - if this one happened to drown in the tsunami. He didn't care of his crewmates' wellbeing, so that was yet another reason he wasn't bothered by this event. But whatever, he supposed that actually surviving this and listening to Pincher's orders rather than do his own thing was the best course of action here. After all, this was the first tsunami he experienced.

Caesar was alerted to Malana's - although he didn't know her name, nor did he know that she wasn't named - calls, and the Officer had a sour look on his face. Annoying child. He growled to himself, wishing he could just block out the kitten's calls as he came closer to her. "Hey." His tone was harsh, though he was trying his best not to snap at the little kit who seemed to be mourning a whale. "You do realize it's not safe out here, right?" And that was his attempt at caring. He didn't realize that this whale was her mother, and with the tsunami, Pincher probably expected them to offer safety to anybody who happened to come by.

#psychosocial.

[Verdigris]

  [font=trebuchet ms]The arrival of a tidal wave had served as something of a shock to the former desert-dweller.

  For sure, he had known it could happen, but tidal waves were rare- he would’ve thought himself more likely to be struck by lightning. Even so, life was all about the unlikely, and there was no such thing as status quo. Even the strongest had to run from nature from time to time.

  Paper had initially returned to the shore to determine the status of his hut, and possibly recover his ruby. As he stood on the bare sand, however, his good ear picked up the sounds of a wailing kitten- whose voice he didn’t recognize. What were they doing out on the beach at a time like this? Whoever they were, he ought to bring them back to the others, and possibly chew them out for running away.

  The first thing he saw as he approached, though, was a whale, lying lifeless on the sand. Next to them was the kit, their dorsal fin and whale-like tail catching Paper’s eye. Raising a brow, he jogged over to the kit, about to ask why they had wandered out in the path of the tsunami- even to see a beached whale.

  A few feet away, he finally deciphered the young girl’s crying as pleading for her mother.

  Paper came to an abrupt stop, his brows furrowing. How and why the half-whale hybrid had arrived on the shore was of little concern- he could tell she had probably been beached alongside her mother, but what had happened after that could be asked about later. With a heavy sigh, he glanced at the fallen whale, then back at the child. She would need time to grieve, but her safety was more important at this point.

  ”Are you hurt?” he asked lowly, drawing slightly closer to the child. She wasn’t bleeding out or anything, and she could stand, but she could still have been bruised or suffered blunt force trauma from crashing into debris. Reaching a paw towards her, he continued, ”We can help you. But Caesar’s right, it’s not safe out here.”

[Malana]

[color=#00688B]☾ ☾ ☾

Caesar’s arrival provided her a momentary distraction from her agony, chocolate hued eyes lifting from the form of her deceased mother to focus on him. He didn’t seem too pleased to see her, but she failed to understand why. Unkindness and a generally mean disposition were things that Malana could not yet comprehend. She had never come across any truly malicious spirits in her time on this planet, the only unforgiving entity that had ever vexed her being the ocean. It had been the thing that had conjured that wave... it had been the thing that had claimed her mother’s life. And yet, she still felt herself drawn to it, its salty scent and cereulean colored sea foam beckoning her back into its depths. It was strange. So strange.

Blinking large tears away, she sniffled a little bit. [color=#00688b]”Not safe?” She inquired quietly, the words feeling foreign and wrong in her mouth. She still was not used to speaking and admittedly, the unnamed Malana struggled to decipher how and why she was able to communicate with these felines. [color=#00688b]”My mommy... can you help her?” She reared upon her hind legs in that moment, a combination of her thick whale tail and forelegs keeping her balanced as she leaned against the figure of her mother. She wanted to believe there was still hope but... but... she didn’t know. Just the thought of being parted from her mother brought more tears to her eyes, face contorting from sadness.

Papercutter’s voice cut through her misery though, draging her back to reality. She would turn to face him, bottom lip trembling. She didn’t want to cry... she couldn’t cry in front of these people. They weren’t her pod, they were strangers! The kitten didn’t like the idea of strangers. But she couldn’t help herself. She was so lost and so confused and couldn’t even begin to fathom how or why she was standing on legs. She was an orca calf, not a cat. This was unnatural.

Unnatural and wrong.

[color=#00688b]”Hurt? I... I’m not sure,” She admitted, [color=#00688b]”What’s a ‘Caesar’?” Her question was asked innocently, the concept of names not something that she had ever stumbled upon before. In her pod, everyone had a squeak and squeal that differentiated them from one another, not a vocal word. Hm. [color=#00688b]”Do I have to leave my Mommy?” Another innocent inquiry. They could bring her mother with them, couldn’t they? Swallowing down a new rush of tears, she stared between the two, white paws shuffling anxiously against the sand.

[astre]

[CAESAR CIPHER.]

IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD !

CAESAR CIPHER. MALE. THE TYPHOON. OFFICER.

"I'm a 'Caesar'." Caesar responded with a roll of his eyes and an irritated huff. "That's my name. You got one, kid?" Might as well get that out of the way, right? The demon looked over at the orca that laid on the beach and frowned in thought before he answered the little kitten in a flat tone, "I doubt we'll be able to help her." Wow, he was just that much of a dick, wasn't he? Indeed he was; Caesar didn't care for this child and the fact her mother was lying right in front of her, dead. He watched his own parents be burned alive, though he tried not to think about that too much. Too many painful memories.

"But yeah, you'll have to leave her." Caesar went on quickly, looking up at the sky as if he was checking the clouds. And he was. As much as he didn't really care for the kid, he knew the 'right' thing to do was to take her to safety. And being an Officer meant, well, it was his job to make sure people were safe. He was sure Pincher would want him to do this. "We'll take care of you, I promise." He tried to give the black-and-white kitten a reassuring smile.

#psychosocial.

[Verdigris]

  [font=trebuchet ms]”My mommy... can you help her?”

  Paper swallowed, a grimace splitting his features. The child had yet to learn about death, or at least about its permanence. In the back of his mind, part of him wondered if what had happened to Pincher could be applied here- but that same part of him knew the odds were astronomically low. It was better to tell her the truth now, rather than get her hopes up.

  Thinking over how to break the news, he gestured over to the other two, then pointed a paw at himself. ”These are Caesar and Alpha. I am Papercutter.” Then, with a sigh, he glanced back up at the whale, and said lowly, ”Your mother... she’s not going to wake up again. I’m sorry.”

  Lowering his head, he looked the child in the eyes. ”We can bring you back to her later, when it’s safe. We will give her a proper funeral. But she would want you to come with us to safety.” Some would call invoking her dead mother’s authority manipulative, but they were trying to save her life.

[PINCHER]

Pincher had seen many beached sea animals before and it actually tore at his heart...or well, wherever it was in the ocean at the moment. He wasn't sure why but he had a bigger empathetic range for sea animals than he did for animals that roamed the land that weren't his family or friends. Perhaps it was due to the rarity of seeing one die although there was the exception of seafood that he was prone to eating but orcas? Those creatures held an intelligence and deep connection to family that he respected because hell, pods held a more caring family belief than his father and mother, broken and torn by hatred for each other. Besides, he had always wondered what the ocean had to offer with it covering so much of the world, it's inhabitants filling its levels of pressure and water.

He knew orcas tended to migrate quite often especially during breeding time, a usual sight in the Typhoon waters though it was rather shocking to see them during the summertime, Pincher supposed that perhaps they were in a hurried rush to return to the mainly frigid waters that were laced with ice and expansive glaciers. He had traveled those waters before, the bitter winter had almost killed him when he had been forced to remain in his father's gang as they bounced from various locations of the world until Pincher could no longer tolerate it. Now the tropical lush island was his home and despite the yearning to travel and finds new territories to mark in his maps, he remained here alongside his crew to see who they would become in history.

The tsunami had been an impactful event for not just the island but the creatures that dwelled in the volcanic fertile earth. It had struck when Pincher had noticed expected, a cursed earthquake in the sea floor causing the impactful force to stretch out to become a towering beast of salt water, towering over everyone and striking them down with no fear. He had seen some members become injured while others had gone missing like his sibling, Roxanne. The only thing that comes out of the impact being her torn wings floating and it had horrified Pincher to the point he felt a mental tsunami strike his confidence. Was this all his fault? Had he pulled everyone into the meeting that was far from security? Pincher felt his stomach turn and twist at the questions that began to plague his cunning mind, tearing down whatever walls he had built as the sleek figure of the canine trudged through the flooded grounds of the beach, faded cyan blue eyes cast to stare for anything that he may find items that could possibly still be saved.

Then he heard voices and it caused Pincher to snap out of his haze of dwelling in his thoughts, large velvety ears pricked with attention as he rushed towards the mingled voices and scents of his crewmates. Did they find someone? Did they find Roxanne? His breath hitched when he arrived to the scene, crystalline electric blue gaze fluttering first to the large beached orca that appeared still. Dead. Crushed by the weight of gravity on the lungs, a painful way to die and Pincher felt his ears drawback at the idea of that ever occurring to him as he took a few steps closer. His attention then appeared to be captured by a child, one that had markings that matched the fallen sea creature and appeared to be in a state of grief as he grew closer, halting briefly beside his crew before stepping forward to delicately reach out a cinnamon brown paw to softly press against the flank of the kitten. "It isn't safe here. There's a lot of dangerous sea creatures and we are going to need to get to higher ground unless we want to become chum for them. If you want you can ride on my back. I'm Pinch." Pinch was a simple short form of his nickname for children and he hoped the little girl would accept as he blinked, hoping that nothing dangerous lurked nearby but even then, he sure as hell wasn't going to leave the child alone.

[align=center]

© MADI