Horus

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He'd been in his half-awake-half-at-rest state, face buried in his pillow, when a faint knocking on the glass panes the sliding screen door that lead to the sea snapped him to attention. The nose of a giant sea beast was prodding at the glass, trying to wake him, and at least his guard accomplished that. It had to be something of great importance for him to be woken in the middle of the night so urgently, and he smelled it in the air as soon as he slid the door open.

It smelled deeply of salt, dredged up sea beds and something... unnatural. Something he hadn't found common to many great waves in all his years of living. No matter, it usually wouldn't have been a problem. Tsunamis were not to be feared; they were his equals, matching his strength and wrath. Even if this one smelled a bit odd, he wasn't afraid. He was just about to tell his guard to perhaps nudge his home a little further out to sea to avoid damaging it when he brought up Luca.

Luca was just a baby, after all.

Ulrich dove into the water and disappeared into the murk. The transformation wasn't uncommon, but it was always painful. The size difference between his human and true form were great, and it took no small amount of time, either. A full twenty minutes came and went with tremors and a deep, low growling in the depths. Finally, there were faint glows just underneath the surface, like the moon glancing off the water. They ranged from an off-white to purple, and a thousand heads teemed just out of sight.

It felt liberating, to be honest. He loved his true form, and he wondered very briefly if the sacrifice for his child was worth staying human for so long. No time to ponder about that, though. His heads split up, the majority going towards the island while one dove deep and pulled up the anchors holding his seaside home down.

Inside, Nicolas would probably be jarred awake when he began to tow it further out to sea. He wasn't exactly being the most gentle with it, but that wasn't his main concern right now.

On the island, if anyone was paying attention, they'd probably first see a teeming mass of glowing things appearing in the water. It would be followed shortly by heads the size of houses emerging, stalactite-like teeth dripping with the ocean and glowing eyes and mouths gaping. They rose and rose, looming high above the island, considering their options.
 

Romi

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Nicolas lurched awake, startled by the sudden motion. His first thought was that it was some kind of earthquake, or maybe a bomb had just gone off. A bomb was quickly ruled out as the house continued to move, and after a few more bleary seconds, he realized that no earthquake was going to do much to his house on the water. Whatever was happening was happening to the water.

He shoved himself out of bed, grabbing the housecoat he hung on the back of his door and pulling it around him as he shoved his way into Ulrich's empty room, the floor beneath him refusing to stay in one place. Not there. So where was Ulrich, and just what was the motion?

He pulled open the door to what should have been the dock - only there was no dock. Nor was there an island, just seemingly endless ocean.

Nicolas couldn't help himself - he bent over and vomited into the sea. It was something so terrifying to him that he couldn't even process it right away. He was on the ocean again. Just lost at sea, alone with god knew what going on. He needed time to process it, curled over and feeling like drowning might actually be the good option.

It took him almost ten minutes to gather up enough courage to check the other side of the house. At the very least he could still see the island, but that wasn't what drew his attention. No, it was the massive head (no, wait, heads) that drew his attention. Why was Ulrich back like that? What the hell was he doing?

He flailed his arms, trying to draw the things attention, even as every instinct he had screamed at him to go back in the house.
 

Horus

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He hadn't noticed Nicolas vomiting into the water. There were several of his heads jostling and bumping around the house, roughly shoving it into a safe water zone. He was big enough to be doing so many things at once, and it was only when they were far enough out did he begin to slow.

One of the heads peeked up when Nicolas flailed at him from the deck; glowing eyes and the light seeping from his misaligned jaws made him look like some sort of ghost. His dark scales practically blended him into the water seamlessly. Evidently the man was frightened, being so far out on the water. He probably didn't know what was going on.

The head jerked towards the island, a little bit off to the west. There one could see what was wrong; a series of rapidly approaching waves, the winds making obvious ripples in the sea bigger than what was ever normal. The sky was dark and thick with grey clouds; most of the stars and even the moon was blocked out, casting them into the dark. This would be no clear night.
 

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Oh christ. He was lucky he didn't wet himself as a massive head broke the surface in front of him, although he did blurt out several filthy french swears in surprise. He'd seen Ulrich's true form before (although he'd done his best not to look at it), but not like this. Not at night, with the glow leaking off him. Not even off him - out of him. He was glowing on the inside, alarming and all kinds of wrong.

That said, he couldn't see shit. He couldn't see the waves, couldn't see what was happening. He could see the outline of the island, but nothing more. He had no night vision, no sea vision - all he could see was the vaguest outline of things he thought were probably more of Ulrich.

"If that was supposed to be an answer, it didn't fucking help at all." He snapped, equal parts frustrated and terrified.
 

Horus

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Ulrich made a low, bellowing noise that rumbled up from his throat, the sea echoing his little call. It was unfortunate that he could barely speak English in this form; he'd lived long enough that he'd trained his vocal chords around the basics, but this body basically wasn't built to be able to naturally hit the right tones and sounds.

"There's danger, headed for the island." Was what he meant to say, but it honestly sounded like a mangled, computer generated noise that only vaguely resembled what his words actually were. It was similar to those records you listened to played backwards, where people tried to make words out of the sounds.

Another two or three heads emerged from the water, all with the same glow from their eyes and between their teeth, but they gazed back towards the island and the oncoming storm. Only one head remained focused on Nicolas.

"Out here is safer." Out of reach of the waves, but he definitely needed to go back. The tsunami was rapidly approaching, and he had precious little time.
 

Romi

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Christ. Christ. Nicolas was practically making up gods for all the curses he was thinking as the monster made a noise that couldn't possibly be words. How was he supposed to know what that meant?

"I'm - you know what, just... go do your thing. Whatever you want to do." Eating the island probably, but he was probably just being extra bitter, considering he was woken up so suddenly. "And if you need me, you're going to just have to go back down to human size, because I don't understand a single thing." Beyond that it was apparently important, and required hauling them far enough out that he felt like he was going to be sick. "And then... I don't know, haul us back to shore when you're done." He was basically done talking, but he didn't go right back in. No, if Ulrich had gone out of his way to wake him up, he was probably doing so for a reason. He wasn't going to just (metaphorically) kick him awake because he wanted a swim.

Something was going on, but whatever that something was remained deeply unclear to Nicolas. He wasn't enough of a lazy asshole to go back to bed though, opting to stand on the deck, watching the ocean and what Ulrich was doing.
 

Horus

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There was nothing Nicolas could do for him. A distinct part of him was aware of this, yet he couldn't help but feel disappointed in the man anyways. No matter, this wasn't a time to dwell on stupid thoughts like that. He couldn't understand him in this form, and he wasn't going to be turning into a human, explaining, then switching again. Too painful, the island may as well have been gone by that time.

So the beast growled, the noise sounding like the hull of a ship groaning under pressure, before the head disappeared back under the water. All of them did, the glowing eyes and mouths fading into the dark murk of the ocean, rapidly swimming towards the island once more. He could feel the churn of the water, vicious against his thick skin.

About a dozen heads rose out of the water closer to the island's pier, a few dozen more just teeming under the water. Assess this; what did he have to do? Mostly protect the beaches, but maybe Luca was inside the city, too. He couldn't find him now; it would be much too late. He might even survive this on his own, but Luca was just a baby and he needed protecting, even if he was a baby sea monster.
 

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Even in the darkness, he could see the outlines of the heads. He could see them when they rose above the water, could see the reflection of the moon on the water streaming down from them. It was the kind of sight that Nicolas could only imagine had inspired people to think of gods - some great beast, so alien and bizarre, rising from the sea.

That said, he couldn't figure out what it was doing. Yes, it was impressive looking and intimidating, but so what? Why was he doing that, looming over the island like he was considering how to drag it under? Wasn't he supposed to be staying on the island for... for some reason? Nicolas wasn't even sure what the reason was.

Or at least he had almost no idea until he looked away, scanning the horizon and... finding something. He squinted, having a hard time figuring out what he was looking at. Was... alright, okay, it was a bit wavey. Wasn't it? Was a storm coming in then...? It seemed a bit bizarre that Ulrich would be worked up by a storm, but Nicolas had never experienced a tsunami, and he didn't think of it at all.
 

Horus

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In the past, if someone had told him that he'd be so concerned over a human island, he would've laughed in their face... and then probably eaten them. Ulrich was often concerned with the sea, not with any of the puny chunks of land that lay scattered among his domain. Even now, he could safely say that if Luca had not been on the island, he would've just allowed the waves to crash over it and he wouldn't have been too upset.

A few of his heads refocused on the waves that were rapidly closing in on them. It would hit in maybe ten minutes, fifteen if they were lucky about it. Getting his guards to dredge items up from the sea floor that could potentially stem the tide would take too much time.

Perhaps he could create some sort of seawall. Technically speaking he had the bulk to do it, though it'd be a little awkward for him to be essentially hugging the island while the tsunami hit. There was little other choice, however.

He stretched a few of his heads out and essentially wrapped his necks around the island, creating a sort of dam to at least dampen the force of the incoming tsunami. He'd take the brunt of the force but really, it wasn't too much of an issue for him. He was a creature of the deep, he could take a few splashes from a tsunami.
 

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It was not a storm. By the time Nicolas realized it wasn't a storm, it was already too late - the waters were starting to rise, the house rocking on the waves. They'd been dragged far enough out that it wasn't going to topple, but it was still a hell of a wave, and Nicolas felt his stomach twinge uncomfortably as he tried not to hurl.

And then it was past - a single large wave, growing in size as it passed into shallow water. That was... well, he was almost entirely sure that was unusual. Weren't tsunami's supposed to be like earthquakes, where you got aftershocks?

Apparently not.

Nicolas watched in horror as the wave continued to increase in size, blocking Ulrich's partly lifted body from sight. It was obvious in retrospect what he'd been trying to communicate, but that hadn't helped at all. Not like he could have known, anyway. He could only watch in horror, hoping Ulrich was doing a half decent job of blocking the main part of the city.
 
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