Song of the Seagulls
Author's Note: Have you ever just listened to Ganondorf's theme in Windwaker? It seems dark, majestic, brooding, yet somehow frantic, desperate…. (hearts appear over author's head as rant goes on for a while) Yeah my slightly fangirl-ish side is showing, probably comes from the sugar I had this morning… Anyway, this is going to focus on Wolfkaunos and Aryll quite a bit, I know Ganondorf's kinda floating there in the background but the Dark Lord will be making an appearance, and what Aryll sees in him might surprise you all. Twee, Wolfkaunos, and quite a few others are there for you to meet and get to know as well, after all there's a world still there to explore, even if it is a dark one.
Chapter 4
Clawless paws
"Do not growl, bare fang, or threaten the Hylian child. Just watch and report what you see. If she is a Magi she will use her skills again."
"'Till when my Lord?"
"Until something happens Wolfkaunos, until something happens."
X
A great deal was happening. Wolfkaunos watched from the shadows of his helm while the girl swept, dusted and mopped. Overall it was a very enlightening experience, if one had a craving to learn the tasks worthy of a den bound she-Wolfos. He yawned and his tongue lolled out past its customary place of behind glittering white fangs. The shadow choked hall and the shadows under his helm obscured the gesture, and he wondered if he could get away with taking off a gauntlet to scratch at that itchy spot on his back.
He decided against it, he was in hostile territory –as if to remind him of that he spotted a Moblin out of the corner of his eye, the beast fingered it's weapon then seeing the Wolfos decided to withdraw- at the moment and any weakness would be unwise.
Wrinkling his nose at the smell of unwashed pig Wolfkaunos told himself he was merely fulfilling his Lord's will, that should be both an honor and spur enough to endure anything. Still his nose would not un-wrinkle and his nausea would not recede. The damning smell of pigs secreting oil and fat and filth, and humans secreting oil, made his stomach turn.
He wondered how the humans were tolerating it, pigs were on a whole nose dead but…
When a small pack of the pups ran past him to a window to pant out the relatively purer sea air Wolfkaunos felt his lip curl and a hint of fang glint under his helm. He watched the process with amusement. Three pups were hanging their heads out to the winds and three more were pinching their noses and going deeper in…
Smart little puppies, very smart, so they were taking turns doing the more reeking sections as teams and had made these little cleaning packs who took turns whittling away at a smelly foe… er problem. He wondered who had come up with the idea, it was a good one.
He could learn much by studying these puppies, quite a bit.
Suddenly he didn't quite resent his pup sitting task all that much, it certainly was better then patrolling halls of a castle hundreds of feet under the water in a kingdom that no longer harbored any enemy soldiers.
His task held meaning, and that was enough.
X
"Where are the pig men?" Aryll asked, as the metal shell thing that had been quietly following them all day. Well it was kinda quiet, as it clanked and rattled along behind them. It didn't yell at them so it was sort of being quiet in a non-clanky sort of way.
"There are many pig based creatures in the Lord's realm, child."
Aryll blinked at the rumble voice that seemed to rise out from somewhere under the red shell creature. She hadn't expected it to talk at all. All the pigs bigger then her did was yell, all the pigs smaller then her just laughed. Maybe the red shell thing wasn't a pig then!
Cheered by that though Aryll smiled and tried to look up and see what its face looked like. Its voice was a source less rumble that seemed to have words in it. As to what it was saying, well its voice was so deep Aryll had to wonder if she heard the words right half of the time. She would have put her ear to the thing's metal side to hear better, but those ember eyes that flared up and stared at her in such a way that she knew that would not be a good idea.
The metal thing was a little mean, Aryll decided, but not as mean as the pigs. She put her hands behind her back and rocked back on her heels, peering up into the red speckled darkness that was the thing's face.
"A pigs a pig." She confirmed.
"As a tail is a tail?"
And at that she recognized the voice, she smiled as the name came to her, she'd been trying to think of its name all day too!
"Are you Wolfcanoo?"
"Wolfkaunos, and you have cleaning to do, get back to it."
"Grouch!"
The red specks squinted up and Aryll dashed off to do as she was told.
X
"Sire… what is a "grouch"?"
"It is a word that means one is in bad humor. Is that all you have to report?"
"The pups are… intelligent, cunning when put together. They talk amongst themselves about pigs -that's their term for everything here-, and strange places, and they talk of cleaning and clean."
"No rebellion as of yet?"
"They think we'll kill them if they dare. Most of them have been beat Sire, none are healed enough in spirit to fight back yet. Consider them de-clawed my Lord."
"And their talk?"
"They are quiet Sire, they don't talk to me, though that new one did. She called me a grouch. But past that I am ignored and they just wait and wait for someone to save them."
"How docile the blood has turned. Little more then sheep."
"Even day old Wolfos pups would have more spirit Sire."
Din was eating his tail for that comment today.
"No!" The blonde head furred pup who once wore finery growled.
"Yes!" The other, older, blonde haired pup who came from Outset snapped
"No, I won't!" She stomped a paw.
"Yes you will!" The other pups yelled as one. "We all went already!"
On and on and on the yelling of "no" "yes" went. As the racket grew even more shrill he wondered if the a flock of Kargaroc were going to come down and think a flock of potential mates were in heat. He put a paw to his helmeted head and rubbed, it was futile, the steel, but he couldn't help himself…
"I… can't… I mean it's undignified for a lady of Windfall to be climbing around outside like a thief."
"Oh for the sea's sake, give me the stupid stick and I'll go out." The older golden head furred pup snapped. She snatched the said stick and then climbed out the open window. He drifted over to the window to watch, he'd seen them climb in and out before of course, but he had wondered what they were doing. When he saw he had little wonder as to why none of them wanted to go out again. Stick in hand the pup was scraping aside the mess of white bird droppings alongside one of the outer walls of the hall.
He decided to have a long talk with the person giving tasks, the pups weren't supposed to be put in that much danger yet… but the Master had said that stress and fear might make things happen…
A few minutes later after scrapping at the sides of the fortress with the stick she came in, and while she wasn't a Wolfos she was growling to herself in a way one of his pack would if they were mad.
She didn't growl at him –wise choice for her, as he would have growled back and perhaps bite the girl if she went too far over the line- but when she threw the dung covered stick aside there was more then the reek of bird droppings now added to the air.
It was a hot, bitter, smell tinged with a hint of sweetness of the blood that had rushed to her face.
"You clean your own dumb rock."
Defiance, he would remember that smell.
"You will do as ordered." He growled. "You do as ordered or…"
"Or you'll feed your stupid bird with us; well it's no different if we fall off your stupid rock!"
How could he argue the pup's logic, right as it was did he have right to argue it? He squinted up his eyes and snarled, and the pups, all of them, cringed back in fear. Well that was a little better. After all he was master around her, maybe not The Master but he was a master to them. All were master to them, and they needed to learn that. This one had missed the beneficial cuffs and smacks to teach her that and…
And she looked up and he saw again the bruises the dark marks that ran across half of her face.
He winced and his armor creaked as he shrank back from that glare.
He suddenly missed the sheep manner in them before; the scared, spineless, whining, was preferable to the fire in this one. The other she-pups cringed back from him as he growled and stepped forward; the lone eldest she-pup clenched her clawless paws and stood her ground.
He bent down reached out with claws extended and dragged her so the tip of her pink nose was lost in the shadows of his helm.
"You will do so because I said so, you will live in fear of the "or else" because you don't want to imagine the "else" that occurs! Is that clear?" She stared him in the eyes, and had the audacity to actually meet his gaze and growl and flail her fists upon his armored head. He endured the hits; his own pups could have done worse… but the nerve of this stinking human pup made his blood flame! He growled, and shook her roughly. He could feel wet under his claws, the wet blossom of blood under his paws made him come back to himself… Wolfkaunos dropped the now very still pup and looked to the other pups who were staring at him in horror.
"Get to work!"
"We don't have anyth-…"
Din's flame! Thinking never occurs to this lot of puppies does it?
"Find something to do in the next room, now!"
So they shuffled off and he stared at the rebellious creature. It was small, very very small, he lifted a small limp forepaw and sniffed at the blood that gathered around the small skinless span. None of it was his, all of it hers. He licked at it, it wasn't bad tasting, too salty for his like, but it was fresh. She must have marked herself while fighting him as surly as he marked her.
"Stupid creature, you use your claws on steel, you broke all your claws and you try to fight with them anyways."
That was the only reason he could understand for those poor clawless stub paws she had… Pulling out a pouch that shook and jiggled, he opened it and fished out a squirming red chu-chu. He turned it to little more then pulp by clenching his paws and then ran the water red stuff over the small cuts along the she-pups' paws.
"Don't fight things bigger then you pup." He growled, using a claw to slice the front of her strange non-armor garment. "You always lose when they're stronger then you."
He then poured the last of the dead red chu-chu over the red gouges over the she pups chest and sat back on the heels of his hind paws to supervise the dead chu-chu's innards knit up the wounds.