#dadowsan

"Stay close, Black Sheep."

"Aw…" Frowning, Black Sheep sulked back to Shadowsan, dragging her stick so it left a wavering trail of sand in her wake. "But I wanna go that way!"

Shadowsan glanced that way. The jungle grew thick along this stretch of beach, and wild; even shading his eyes from the sun overhead he couldn't see more than a meter or two into its shadowed depths. But he'd lived on the Island long enough to be able to guess what secrets lurked beneath the broad-leafed palms and snaking lianas: things a sane man with an iota of self-preservation would not wish to encounter. Even less so with a five-year-old in tow.

Not that said five-year-old seemed to care.

"It's too hot on the beach!" Black Sheep whined, sandaled feet trudging heavily across the sand, as though feigning a diminishing ability to walk would change his mind about the day's field trip. "And I wanna look for jungle ruins!" (someone gave her a book on the Maya; it had been a blessing and a curse).

"There are no ruins on the Island," Shadowsan said unsympathetically (unless, of course, one counted the graveyard of failed experiments that were scattered amongst the vegetation, but he was trying to discourage Black Sheep from a jungle escapade). "And anyway, you will like this."

"Better than jungle ruins?" Black Sheep asked skeptically.

In spite of the wrinkle of annoyance wrought by constantly dragging Black Sheep away from the jungle, a grin glinted in Shadowsan's eye. "Yes."

***

Professor Wolfe, though he had never admitted to it, had loved the tidepools.

Shadowsan had memories of him, washed gray and serene with pre-sunrise dawn, of the old professor standing by the little rocky pools, leaping from stone to stone with an adroitness that would cause the mountain goat envy. At every one he would pause and crouch to study it's contents, sometimes reaching in to pull out a starfish or scallop or one or other of what amounted to nature's 'pocket change,' as Wolfe would put it. Sometimes he'd find something worth keeping; Shadowsan once changed by him holding a piece of seaglass up to the light, smoothed by the waves and glistening a turquoise that made it seem as though some of the ocean's luster had been caught within its confines. A cheap trinket of trifling value, but the Wolfe had smiled like a boy and slipped it carefully in his pocket.

(Shadowsan had searched the man for it later, thinking it may have greater value, but never found it).

They were special to the Wolfe, the sort of place…he'd have wanted to share with his daughter.

But he could not.

And Shadowsan reasoned…he owed them this much. Wolfe, and his daughter.

"Is this it?" Black Sheep's eyes narrowed as they rounded a promontory of rock and found themselves faced with the tidepools. Little rounded rocks, green with algae and slick with waves, rolled along the coast in this secluded section of the Island, arranged in lopsided circles where pools of water lounged like travelers at a rest stop. She looked up at Shadowsan. "Can we go to the jungle instead? This place looks boring."

"You are not looking close enough." Shadowsan walked to the nearest pool and motioned for her to join him. He watched her closely as she peered into the pool, a strange sense of eager anticipation tingling through him.

"Wow!" Black Sheep's eyes sparkled like the sun on the waves as she beheld the tiny pool. She grabbed Shadowsan's haori and tugged, pointing with her free hand. "Look at the fish!"

He leaned closer. Sure enough, there was a minuscule fish, small as Black Sheep's little finger, darting in and out amongst the shadows.

"Yes. I see the fish."

"And look!" Now a snail was indicated and duly admired.

"And what's that?"

Shadowsan frowned at the ball of orange-red spines. He…did not know. "…Something that is very bad to touch." (which was probably accurate).

Black Sheep pulled her finger back from the water. "How'd they get in there? Did somebody put them there?"

"The waves." He gestured out at the sea, where white caps were bobbing like clouds across the sun-spangled surface. "When the tide comes in, they deposit them here."

Black Sheep was quiet. "So…are they stuck here?"

"Only until the tide returns. Then they will be taken back to sea."

She nodded, slowly. "That's good." Then: "Can the sea take us too?"

Shadowsan blinked. "What?"

"Off the Island?"

Shadowsan looked out across the tidepools to the sea beyond, then the horizon. It was as though the Something that is Very Bad to Touch had been set, by the Wolfe's skillful hand, into his chest.

If only…

***

"The tidepools were fun, Shadowsan." Black Sheep drowsily traced a finger over the seam in his haori as he carried her back along the beach. For once in her life, she was actually tired out. "Thank you for taking me."

He grinned, the expression warming his face even as evening cool rolled across the Island. "You are very welcome."

"You show me lots of cool stuff," Black Sheep mused, the ocean's waves lapping against his ears along with her voice. "Someday I'm gonna show you something cool. Really, really cool."

Shadowsan hummed, continuing slowly along the beach, the Academy building looming black before them, consuming the sky. "I look forward to it."

***

"Shadowsan?"

"Yes, Carmen?"

"Remember the tide pools?"

"Of course."

"I never did get to show you something cool."

Shadowsan looked up from his newspaper to where Carmen was lying next to him on the couch in the warehouse den. Zach and Ivy were seated on the opposite couch, elbowing one another as they played some racing video game, each swearing vengeance on Player for 'spiking' them and on the other for impeding said vengeance.

A domestic (albeit noisy) scene, as close to a normal life as they could hope for, the sort of life he had thought was beyond his grasp back on that day when he showed her the tide pools.

A life he only knew because of the auburn head pillowed on his thigh.

"On the contrary." Setting down the paper, he laid a hand on her shoulder with a grin. "You very much did."