There was a time in his life, when Rougaru believed none could be more delicate and precious than his beautiful Calypso. Often, he referred to her as his pearl, his jewel of the sea for it was from the sea she had come and in her pale sea-blue eyes he saw innocence beyond her years. Monster was his fierce ruby, forged in fire and passion. Zjeena, his hardened diamond perfected through the calloused events that had shaped her into the stoic creature she was today. Each of his pack, his family, had special traits and distinct features about them that sculpted the large hessian into the wolf he was. Sonorae was one of them.

Like the brightly colored shells that washed up on the shores of Atlantis, the pale silver mare reminded him of the protective nature that too often hides beneath the thick mantle of gray wolf fur. Like the shell, she washes up from the oceans with no notion of where she had come or what she was to become. Like the delicate shells, one misplaced step, he feared would cause her to shatter and dissolve once more into the sea. In Sonorae, he felt more than he saw. Somewhere deep beneath the hardened shell created by years of warring and fight, the urge to protect and guard something precious burned like the flickering of embers. Where other might see her battered and bruised from the tumble through the seas, he saw her as the delicate sand molded and pressed together into existence from the turmoils of the sea. He had expected her to draw away from his tender embrace, expected the delicate shell to draw back or once more see the tension build in the lean muscled beneath her skin. Instead, she melts into the warmth of his breath. Her small head presses against the warmth of his mahogany skin, lifting the cream and caramel colored threads of his mane and causing the fur along his spine to shiver in pleasure. Her voice is soft, a barely audible whisper in the small space between them. Multifaceted eyes of emerald close as what tension the beast holds evaporates. Instinctively he presses himself closer to her, draping his proud neck over her slender withers. ”As you wish…” he murmurs.

And so he meant it.

Carefully he guided her back to the tumultuous waters, making certain to take the easiest route possible to avoid Sonorae from straining herself too much in her already delicate state. Carefully he kept his broad form between herself and the pull of the tide, helping to guide her to their destination. He allowed her to set the pace, matching his own lengthened strides to her own. The journey home, despite the shortest route, took much longer than he was used to, but still it was not the jungle or those within that he worried for, instead the delicate shell that struggled with each stride. Even the pale light of the stars does not hide the clenching of her jaws as she struggles to delve into what reserve of strength she had left. Despite the murmur of the ocean, Rougaru finds his thick baritones murmuring soft words of encouragement, beckoning her to believe that they were close to their destination. It was only when her hooves took their first stumbling steps in the shallows did the breath he had been holding release.

Exhaustion took her upon the sands, her slender frame frail and even more fragile in the moonwashed glow of the white sandy beach. He had gladly pressed against her then, his broad frame breathing warmth where the cooler oceans robbed her of it. Tenderly he draped his thick neck over her own, drawing her close in an intimate embrace.

Her sides that had once risen and fallen in rapid succession begin to slow as slumber takes her deeper into its embrace. Protectively he curls around her, his proud head lifting occasional at the sounds of any flutter of leaf litter in the shadowed jungle or prowling fox that tended to roam the shores under the moonlight looking for some morsel of food to scavenge. In the calm quiet, he lets himself watch her sleep. He finds himself watching with admiration the way the zephyr winds tug the wisps of her alabaster mane upwards in dance or the way the pale moon made her peppered skin appear silver blue in the light. What blood and mire that had blemished her pale body on the commons was now gone. Aside from the thinness of her slender figure, she looked almost renewed.

Groggily she stirs, her dark eyes blinking beneath the thick layer of silver lashes that veil her eyes. Tentatively he leans closer to her again, reassuring her that he remained at her side. Her words are soft and timid against his ears, but still they bring a deep heartfelt warmth to his soul that causes even the wolf to purr in contentment. Thick crown tilts to press gently against her cool cheek. ”I would never turn you away little dove.” he murmurs, his thick baritones quiet against the gentle lull of the ocean and the occasional chatter of nightbirds regaling the islands with their songs of the night. ”When morning comes, I will show you our home.” he breathes, his whiskered lips tucking a straying strand of her ivory mane behind her ear. ”Now, rest. Gather your strength We shall watch the sun rise above the horizon.”