As the small body crept toward a state of consciousness, nerves awoke to the rushing ocean wind. The pup shivered; his drenched fur was little protection from such cooling and his body temperature was still low from its time in the sea. Even with the warm air of late spring, the sharp breeze cut through the silvery white boy, adding only a new bit of discomfort to his current predicament. To his benefit, though, the pain inside his skull was beginning to subside and he began to adapt to the overpowering scent of salt and brine as a new normal. His lungs still ached, his ribs pinching with every small shallow breath, but the air was beginning to burn less in his throat and was easier to draw in each time.
An odd shuffling came to his awakening ears, growing steadily louder and more distinct. The wet sand hissed as it was displaced by another’s paws, though nothing in his slowly churning mind registered that he had company yet. A dampened ear twitched at the noise, fluttering in its place against his skull where it lay in uncertain coherency. It was as if the muscles had forgotten what to do and had just given up, letting the little pup’s ear fold back at whatever angle it willed when the ocean had heaved him upon the shore. And now, with little stimulation beyond a medley of lulling ambient sounds, it refused to do more than just twitch at something new, as if it too wanted to just drift and sleep.
The pup’s skyward ear lifted up halfway, attention drawn by a suddenly loud, silvery howl. Noel, the inner bit of self struggling to reach the surface, latched on to that sound and rode it back to reality. He vaguely recognized that it was, in fact, a voice. It was a call, maybe for help, and it had come from a place just beside him. The pup was not fully aware as the fem took hold of his scruff, but registered a new feeling nonetheless shortly followed by a sudden weightlessness. Noel’s eyelids began to quiver as he willed them to open so he might find an understanding to all this chaos, all this new and all this strange. As he managed to blink them open slowly, he had once again found the sand and something hot and smooth grazed his cheek.
Noel froze suddenly, the quick cessation of his breaths and tension of his muscles quite uncomfortable for the small, bruised body. The pup lurched away from the unfamiliar, soft voice with a sharp yelp, his legs kicking at the soft, wet sand frantically as he tried to find his feet. The boy stood halfway, paws skittering fruitlessly on the sifting, white sand, and managed to throw himself several inches away before stumbling on his stiff limbs and crashing back onto the beach. It was no use. His body was tired and stubbornly stiff, his paws going numb the moment he tried to use them. He was utterly at the mercy of this stranger, and that was a frightening thought.
He hadn’t caught the calming words, merely registered their sound in his confusion and incoherence and felt only fright at the female’s close proximity. With a great deal of effort, Noel lifted his head from the wet sand and fixed the fem with a wide, clearly scared mismatched amber yellow stare. She was split in two in the reflection of his heterochromatic right eye, the outer edge a brilliant hue of blue that contrasted with the inner portion of the same amber yellow as his left, an expression of a rather rare genetic trait. Noel made no movement, no sound, too frightened to do either. He had no idea where he was or who was standing in front of him. He didn’t know what to do, or what he could do for that matter as it seemed his body was not very cooperative at the moment.