bakerstreet | Washed Up on the Beach

Washed Up on the Beach

The boundlessness and daring unchained nature of the sea captured the attention of writers and historians and adventurers for centuries; it still does! Exploration, conquest, commerce, and luxury all find roots in uncharted waters, be they ocean or large inland sea or freshwater lake and river. Along with those marks of growth come some consequences, born of nature and man: namely, several ways in which you might find yourself…

Washed Up on the Beach

Not quite sure how you got here? There are a few starter options to consider:

1. Shipwreck: Did it go down in a storm? Lose a fight with pirates? Ignore the warnings of a competent lighthouse-keeper (or see no warnings at all due to a competent one)? Whatever the cause, your ship is lost and you survived, somehow. This applies to lakes and rivers, too, which can be just as tempestuous with a bit more potential for settled, "modern" life springing up around them.

2. Vacation Misfortune: Surfing lesson or session gone wrong? Lose your kayak and your paddle? Not quite the island tour/lakeside town fishing expedition/flight across the sea you expected? Jumping from tall seaside cliffs doesn't always have an easy ending, either. Maybe you were caught in a riptide and managed to get through it, but you definitely aren't where you started...

3. Lost at Sea: Can coincide with a shipwreck, but you might also be an intrepid explorer seeking new and uncharted islands, or someone on the run from an overbearing family or one too many failed assignments. Or you just plain can't read a map and work a sextant at the same time, and your compass doesn't point north.

4. Walk the Plank: Of course, for the less ethically inclined there is always piracy in its various forms. A prisoner or a renegade acting for his own benefit can be forced off the ship into the sea and whatever awaits him there; a stowaway or thief aboard could meet a similar fate.

5. Crossing Lines: Speaking of the criminal realm, if you run afoul of the wrong crowd in a port city, or you are the wrong crowd and you screw up one time too many, there's no law in that lawless profession saying they can't truss you up and toss you off the nearest dock. Hopefully you find some benevolent help after that.

6. Too Close to Land: What if the water is your natural home? Drawing too close to the shallows leaves you subject to crashing waves and sandburn, among other things; stay for too long as the tide ebbs, and you might get beached. Weather is probably a factor for you, too, as the hot sun and changing tide leave you dry quickly, or a storm rolling in makes the surf churn and pull.

It doesn't have to be one of these! There are near-countless variations on how and why and with what means one ends up washed up on the beach (unconscious, or drifting in on a makeshift raft, or swimming for shore, or looking for new discoveries - or any combination thereof), all of which include just a bit of suspension of disbelief. Maybe it's tropical; maybe it's frigid. Be bold. Be creative. AU stuff, one person in another's canon stuff, completely unrelated but you think it would be cool to play this out stuff: everything goes.

Setting up your initial post with some kind of scene suggestion is recommended, but not required.

Tag other people. Become the rescuer, actively seeking to assist after an accident or rumor you heard, or a fellow survivor/explorer, or someone taking their beachcombing find captive (alone or as part of a larger collective), or someone sent to fetch the missing person for straightforward or nefarious purposes. You don't even need to be the person making the discovery! Maybe you're introducing the washed-up victim to life in his or her new environment instead, a walk about town or a lesson in how to do the hard labor required of such vagrants. This isn't an explicitly smut or violence-ish meme but it could happen, so please take note and warn or describe permissions accordingly.

And have fun!

original posted here!

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Chi shrinks away from the barked orders, sliding down on the opposite side of the boulder and waiting for her to leave before obeying, as Psi stops pacing briefly to observe. Whether or not they might have wanted to challenge her in the beginning, any act of aggression against her would have brought their eldest brother screaming down on their heads, and that was one confrontation they weren't willing to risk at all.

"Bad enough to make your human cry about it." He still refuses to call either Owen or Barry by name, although he's stopped hissing when they come up, at least. "But the freezer hasn't flooded and a lot of the food is still sealed."

That is, whatever is left. One thing to be said about a bunch of raptor hybrids: if they start eating something, they tend to finish it.

Omega disappears under the water again and joins her topside through the flooded cabin, tossing up a waterlogged cooler and a waterproof pack. Even if the worst was unlikely, Owen had specifically put a survival kit on board, just in case (not so prophetic, considering there is also one in the woods outside their house and one in each of the cars). Omega refuses to bestow any credit other than to be pleased that it's in his hand now.

"Radio?"

Normally Blue would have corrected him about using Owen's name, damnit, but survival was the first priority. She settled for rolling her eyes and snorting exasperation, then got to work pillaging what she could find. Blue pulled the cooler up the stairs and propped it against the slanted rail, lashing the pack to it with a piece of broken rigging.

Then she disappeared into the wheelhouse, heart sinking to find the radio switched on, but having no power. A glance through the broken windshield revealed the antenna to be missing, probably at the bottom of the damned lagoon or even further offshore by now. "Not good," she called back, then ducked beneath the cabinet and pulled out the emergency flare pack. "But we at least have the flare gun. And..." she unzipped the pack and counted three charges, "...three flares, so that's something."

She stepped back out, securing the flare case into the lashed pack. She eyed the flooded stairs with a speculative eye. "You think we can get the freezer out?" Seven raptors could put away a lot of food in a very short time.

Flares are great, although it's anyone's guess as to how long it'll be before they get to use them. It's not that they were traveling along an unknown route by any means, but sailors these days aren't so common, and it's hard to say how far off course they've ended up. They'll have to see what the island can provide for them, just in case.

The freezer will be a good start, though.

Omega snorts, then takes a deep breath and disappears back down the stairs. There is silence, and then several muffled thumps that vibrate the half-flooded deck. Shortly after that he pops to the surface again, gasping, and this time once more in the lagoon. He's getting dragged down by the submerged freezer in his grip, but he's already pulling it along toward shore. "Hurry up."

Edited 2016-10-27 00:54 (UTC)

Blue tossed the drained cooler overboard then followed, the cooler hitched to her waist by a length of still-usable rope. It floated--thank God--barely, but enough to manhandle it back to the beach. She fishtailed over to her mate, sunk below the wavelets and grasped the opposite corner of the freezer, hauling it upwards enough so that she emerged again.

"All right," she grated, treading water with her free hand and legs, "let's get going." Between the two of them, it didn't actually take long to get the heavy thing to the shallows, but for Blue it felt like an eternity. Once the metal box met the sand, it was a simple matter to drag it up the beach, and Blue let Omega wrestle it out of the water while she hauled in the cooler. (Chivalry at its best.)

Delta and Charlie had returned by now and the elder looked out at the broken ship with a soft frown. "We found a bunch of vines, Blue," she reported. "Did you guys manage to find any rope?"

Blue shook her head. "No, but we did salvage the freezer and a cooler full of bottled water." She reached behind her and produced Owen's machete that she'd taken from the wheelhouse, handing it to her sister. "We still need to get the boat off the rocks. Cut as many strong vines as you can, and we'll start lashing them together." It would no doubt take all of them to maneuver the broken vessel up on the beach, safe from the treacherous tides.

While Blue and Omega were scavenging, Chi did manage to get the fire up to a decent size, although the wind is treacherous and makes the flames billow this way and that. By noon, the air will be too hot to stay anywhere near it.

"What about the reef?" he asks.

Omega finally wrestles the cooler to where it is more or less upwind from the fire, and straightens up with an impatient sneer. "Leave it. You can't make it less ruined."

Delta quirked an eyebrow at Blue, who sent her siblings on their way with a jerk of her head towards the trees. She headed back over to Chi, wordlessly showing the hybrid how to properly bank a campfire, so that embers would still be smoldering for later, when heat would be needed. Owen's lessons at their finest.

To Omega, she replied calmly, "It's Owen's boat. I'm not going to let the waves pound it to pieces, or the tide drag it back out to sea and finish sinking." She stood up, pulled her wet hair out of her face. "If I can't beach it, then I'll secure it to the reef somewhere that it won't get more ruined."

Owen, Owen, Owen. Humans and their toys, for fuck's sake. That boat was useless now, let it die. But rather than fight with his mate about it, Omega just throws up a hand with a dismissive roll of his eyes.

"Fine, do whatever you want. We're going to scout the island."

That was going to be necessary sooner rather than later, and since Omega has no intention of helping her protect a half-sunken pile of twisted metal, he may as well do it now. The girls would have gotten a sense of what the area looks like around their section of the beach, but having a better idea of how big the island is and what else might be relevant will help. Essentially it's just good sense, and thanks to their training the boys might be more efficient about it.

Heading into the woods, Omega snaps his fingers and his brothers immediately fall in behind him, until the jungle shadows have nearly swallowed all three of them up and they split off in different directions, vanishing in an instant.

Blue again just rolled her eyes and went about settling their meager scavenges more appropriately; the freezer was full of still-frozen steaks, which they'd have to eat pretty quick to avoid spoilage, and the cooler held bottled water and even a few canned sodas, thanks to Charlie, no doubt. Blue arranged everything on the leeward side of their previous night's shelter, snapping off some thick palm fronds to rig as a windbreak, of sorts. They'd stash their supplies here, because there was no way in hell Blue was going to share such close quarters again. Not with this bunch.

Her sisters returned not long after, and after a few quick planning suggestions, they began the laborious chore of beaching Owen's crippled craft. It took some hasty mid-project revisions, not a few minor and major adjustments, and Charlie nearly drowned once, not being as strong in the water as her three siblings, but between the four of them, they managed to drag the vessel further in, and anchor it as securely as possible to a few boulders jutting out of the cliff face. The tide wasn't as strong here, and with the keel entrenched in the sand, Blue felt it would hold for a few days, at least.

The girls then dug into the steaks, saving a few of the packaged red meat for the boys only at Delta's insistence. Delta managed to charbroil several on a metal grate Blue had retrieved from the broken ship, and, since none of them had eaten since the previous day, dug in just after the outside had crisped.

The boys are gone for the entire time it takes the girls to get the boat where they want it to be, and then some. Every once in a while, a crowing sound will echo up from a distant part of the island, to be answered with two more, as they keep track of each other and triangulate the areas yet to be explored. Judging by the furthest distance that the cries end up reaching, either the island is fairly small, or it's big enough that further exploration is inadvisable.

They return several hours later, one at a time. First Psi appears, silently, joining them just long enough to take a steak for himself and then withdraws to a nearby rock to eat it. Chi shows up shortly after that and makes a beeline for the food, digging into the warm sand next to Charlie and shredding the charred steak between his teeth.

And then finally Omega appears, circling the little picnic towards the rocks. He whistles, quick and sharp, and Charlie tosses the last steak to him, which Omega catches deftly before climbing up to the highest rock. He sits with one leg dangling loosely, and occasionally looks out toward the ocean.

"It's about as large as Isla Pena," he informs them from his perch. "There is an extinct volcano in the center and a lot of seabirds." Which was nice, because when they run out of steak, they can have chicken.

So it was relatively small, then. Blue frowned in concentration as she munched the last of her meat. Charlie went a bit wide-eyed at the report of the volcano, but Delta reassured her with a soft chirp and a smile. Echo wrinkled her nose at the mention of gulls and other seabirds, but held her peace. All four of them had been through Owen Grady's Survival School, and knew how to hold their own in such circumstances. None of them had ever imagined to have another pack along for the experience, however.

Charlie, grinning, began good-naturedly teasing Chi about his 'table manners', and Echo joined in, saying that they didn't have a table so who cared? And the chatter spiraled off from there. Delta rummaged in the cooler and passed out bottles of water, going so far as to make Psi actually reach for his.

Blue, however, put her bottle back in the cooler and, done with her steak, clambered up the rock face to join Omega. But ironically not for the pleasure of his company; she wanted to find a high enough vantage point to perhaps set off a signal in the event that a ship or low-flying craft appeared.

She perched on a rocky outcropping, a slight trickle of blood marring her leg from an unnoticed scrape, and gazed out to sea. Clothes itchy with sea water, she advised herself to just grin and bear it, it'd be a while before any of them had an encounter with any sort of wardrobe.

"Did you see any other islands nearby?" she asked under the whistle of the wind. "We'll need to have a fallback plan, in case this place doesn't work out."

He watches her climb up, not helping her -- she can do it on her own, he wouldn't like her half as much if she couldn't -- and not moving away when she joins him, either. So far, there's nothing all the way out to the horizon but ocean.

"Just one to the northwest." That would be slightly further in the direction they were already going -- but, again, with no real idea of how close it is to their original path. "At least fifty miles. You can only see it from the top of the volcano."

That is a distance they are unlikely to swim, to say the least. They might be able to manage it, technically, but it would not be easy and it would take a long time. So it isn't an ideal fallback, but then again it's not entirely out of the question if they can cobble together some alternative form of transportation.

Just then, Omega happens to catch sight of the little trace of blood on Blue's leg. Without thinking twice, he just leans in and sucks it right off. Makes the steak taste even better when he tears off another piece.

Fifty miles, Jesus. Blue exhaled a sharp breath, shoulders slumping slightly. No way they'd be able to swim that. "Well," she remarked after a minute or so, "if we need to rig a raft or something, we can always tear the boat apart." Owen would understand that, Blue was sure. Survival was always the first priority.

"None of my sisters reported seeing anything larger than a medium sized iguana, so food might be an issue if we're here more than a week." She glanced down at the sparkling ocean beneath them. "There's always fishing, too, I guess." Although Blue wasn't exactly adept at 'hand-grabbing'. "If we're careful, we shouldn't starve."

Omega's movement caught her attention and she smirked amusement when he licked her clean, absently ruffling one hand through his tousled hair in payment. "And we'll need to find other places to nest," she added as an afterthought. "Because I'm damned sure not huddling down in the dirt with your brothers and my sisters for another night, thanks."

He just shrugs vaguely, watching the ocean as he chews up his lunch. One island is the same as another as far as he's concerned, they're still going to be stuck where they are unless the one in the distance happens to be inhabited. But if that's the case, they'll probably see at least one boat before very long. Otherwise, they might as well stay where they are. But since it makes no difference to him, he'll go along with whatever she decides eventually.

Her fingers in his hair leave him with a warmth in his skin that's much better than the sunlight, even if he doesn't look up.

"The birds are big, and mostly in the center of the island. We saw herons and egrets, among the smaller ones. And there's always something interesting in the reefs."

Then he does glance up at her, smirking. "Let's decide how much of the island will be our territory." Since he absolutely agrees with her on not sharing more than a single night, and his bad mood typically involves overreactions.

Blue didn't particularly fancy bouncing around the ocean on a makeshift raft without having at least a chart, but those had gone down with the rest of their supplies. She knew about where they were, but it made far more sense to just stay put until Owen or Barry came looking.

"...I wonder what they're eating," Blue mused, craning a glance over her shoulder. But the gulls and other seabirds would likely be returning with the tide. Along with fish and other marine life, also.

She came out of her musing with a soft snort, shifting to sit all the way down on the crag, legs dangling over the edge without care. "The part far away from the rest of the reptilian Brady Bunch," Blue replied dryly. But a moue did mar her lips for a brief moment.

"But probably close enough so I can stomp on anyone who gets out of line." That was part of her job, as the 'expanded' pack's Beta, although Omega did well in keeping his brothers contained, although Blue wasn't above asserting her authority when it was necessary.

Omega makes a scornful sound. "We're stuck on a desert island, let them fend for themselves."

What were they really gonna do? Chi enjoys the roughhousing just as much as Blue's youngest sisters do, Psi doesn't get involved, and Blue's sister Delta seems to assume the role of peacekeeper in Blue's absence. Either way, he doesn't really care what they do. All he wants while they're waiting for Blue's mother hen to swing by and pick them up is to have a nice, large space to himself. With Blue in it. And no siblings hovering around, making all kinds of noise.

He gnaws the last bit of meat from his steak, and then pitches the bone into the ocean.

"Babysit if you want," he informs his mate, with only mild sarcasm, "but there's a blue cove down the western side of the mountain, and I'll claim it without you if I have to."

Blue echoed his noise. "Right, with Echo bitching about the lack of hairspray and nail polish? And Delta mourning about having nothing to read? And we don't have much anyway, so Charlie can't pilfer anything, unless she starts stealing eggs from the birds' nests..." She paused, head tilting curiously. "...well, there's a thought..."

She leaned back on her hands with a speculative sigh. "Maybe they should have a few days on their own, just to see what happens." That and the thought of having enough space not to trip over three nosy sisters and two megalomaniac brothers-in-law sounded really appealing.

Granted, sharing that same space with her somewhat narcissistic mate could be just as trying, but at least the fights ended far better. A corner of Blue's mouth quirked, and she sat up again, brushing dirt from the palms of her hands.

"All right," she agreed after a minute or so. "I'll meet you there." She had to let Delta know, otherwise one of them would come looking. And if they were going to be stuck here for however long, Blue needed to let her know that doing so wasn't really a good idea.

It's like she is deliberately saying words that are going to crawl up his spine and make his teeth grind. Being around that spoiled, superficial nonsense even peripherally back at their "home" is grating enough, and a large part of why he spends so little time actually in the house. If he has to deal with it while they're forcibly stuck together, there may actually be bloodshed.

But with space to himself, he's always calmer. And Blue has an even better effect on him, provided neither one of them is distracted by siblings or "alphas" or humans who can't mind their own damn business. So, yes -- he will absolutely spring at the idea to leave right goddamn now while she ties up whatever loose ends she feels are so important. His brothers know better than to follow him without a directive.

Eyes gleaming, he straightens up as well, and shares the slightest trace of a smirk with her that might have been followed by a touch if he wasn't so eager to get moving. So he jumps down from the rocks and heads off into the jungle without a word to the others, leaving a trail behind that he knows she can follow.

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Washed Up on the Beach

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