She had been kept up the previous night. It was not Pagan's nightmares this time, no, not her brother's mumblings and thrashings and wild awakenings- this time it had been a nightmare of her own. The moon that hung seemingly so delicately in the sky above the ocean had fallen, and the great tidal waves it had created had swept her family away. The seawater had been dark and turbulent and she could not break the surface to breath. Adonai had awoken, gasping for breath as if she had really been drowning, and immediately scampered outside only to see the moon still firmly affixed in the star-speckled sky. The girl had only been able to sleep after several painstaking hours of observing it for any movement signifying that its ties were growing loose, any creaking or groaning that might mean the terrible crash of waves.
When she was certain that for tonight, they would be safe, she returned to her mother's side though remained wide-eyed for several hours thereafter. And so Adonai was tired when Grandfather called, a slow rumble that at first she tried to pass off as the sound of waves or perhaps an ornery crab that had wandered too close to their sleeping forms. She cracked an eye open, nudging Pagan in case he hadn't heard, before moving out of the den with a curious tilt to her head. He had been by the den several times, always with gifts for Mother, food and things that she could not yet eat with her puppy teeth. Grandfather, she thought, was a wolf that held secrets. More secrets than Mother or any of her uncles, more secrets than even the sea itself. She wanted to know what he knew.
Adonai followed him closely, though not too close as that her tiny body might bump up against his legs. She was a dancer, even now, her puppyish gait holding hints of the gliding stride that would characterize her later years. And she was careful, precise- in both word and action there was little room for ambiguity. The rocks, perhaps, proved a bit of a challenge, her young body unaccustomed to using its muscles in such a way. She looked down towards Pagan several times, her tail giving him a few small waves of encouragement before she bounded towards the next outcropping. The bark caught her attention, and she ambled towards the pool of water, ducking down near its edge to gaze into what seemed to be endless depths.
It was certainly deeper and wider than the tidepools that Mother had told them were safe to play in, and certainly deeper than the very edge of the sea that she sometimes waded into. One white paw reached outwards, mimicking Eden's as she batted at the fish that swam beneath the surface. She felt one, slippery against the pads of her paws, and despite her supposed maturation the feeling brought a puppyish grin to her face.
