If there was one positive side to getting stranded on a mysterious island with his girlfriends, it was that Fenrir might actually get to see Cassiel and Eva in coconut bikinis after all.
Unfortunately, though, there were no coconuts in sight.
Not that it mattered too much. Fenrir was more concerned with finding Rock. He just so happened to also keep an eye out for any coconuts out of pure curiosity.
“Rock!” Fenrir shouted, unsure of whether or not he should continue walking down the beach or if he should go inland.
Something heavier would probably be closer to the shore, right? And everything lighter would have been sent farther inland, right?
Then again, he was heavier than Cassiel and Eva, and neither of them were anywhere to be seen. They were also all below deck, though, and it was possible that section of The Shoebill sunk with them in it while he only ended up on the island with various bits of debris due to being above deck.
He didn’t want to consider that being a legitimate possibility, though.
“Cass! Eva!” Fenrir shouted some more. If he could find even one of them, he would feel far better about the situation, but… there was no response.
Well, there was one response.
“Oof,” Saya said, her voice within Fenrir’s head as she talked to him as his virtual assistant.
“I don’t suppose you’re able to cheat and help me find them, are you?” Fenrir asked, talking out loud in response to her.
“Sorry, but I’m not allowed. I also have to act like I know nothing is wrong with my avatar unless you’re able to somehow communicate it to me.”
“Guess I can’t ask you to send rescue my way then.” Fenrir sighed. Then he realized something. “This is kind of like the old days, isn’t it? Back when I first started playing. Just me and you, with me being lost and trying to find my friends.”
“Don’t you have a Rock to be looking for? Or are you going to find a coconut and turn that into a dog instead?”
Fenrir mentally flicked Saya’s forehead before going back to shouting out Rock’s name. Even though shouting her name hadn’t resulted in anything yet, that was no reason to stop, and maybe she was on her way toward him and looking for him.
He hoped so, anyways.
Then, after a few more minutes of searching, he found a clue.
He found her tail.
Rock’s tail, broken off from her body, was spotted on the sandy beach and looked like it had slid across the sand going toward the forest. If her tail was there… then it was possible that the rest of her got tossed even farther inland. Either that, or she was under the water.
Fenrir checked the water first. There was nothing along the sand beneath the gentle waves for as far as he could see. Well, nothing except for some coral, shells, and fish. No sign of Rock. If she was somewhere under the water then she would have had to be even farther out to the point where her chances of survival were impossibly low.
That meant it was time to check inland instead. Picking up her tail to take with him, Fenrir walked in the direction that it looked like the tail was tossed toward.
The island’s vegetation wasn’t too tall, but it was dense and annoying to walk through since he kept on getting his feet tangled up in roots and vines sprawling out across the forest floor. He also saw that the island was much more like a temperate forest rather than a jungle, which was slightly disappointing. It made sense, though. There wasn’t going to be a jungle island as far north as they were. If anything, it being temperate already made it warmer than the boreal forest nearby Nameless and all along the coast.
It also looked like there was a massive variety of strange little insects from what Fenrir could see. All of them looked similar to insects one could find in any forest, but they were all ever so slightly different in ways that stood out.
A line of small, horned ants marched up a tree.
Then there was a pretty sizable spider that looked normal from a distance… but upon closer inspection revealed wings on the backs of its legs.
“So, no matter what else is found here, this place is going to be known as the island with flying spiders now, and everybody is going to want to burn it down,” Fenrir said to himself before slowly backing away from the flying spider’s web.
Back to shouting.
“Rock! Can you hear me?! Come on! Your tail is too heavy to carry around forever!”
It wasn’t like Rock never lost a body part before. He knew that something like that was easily survivable for her as long as it wasn’t like her torso or head got severed.
But when he found what looked like the lower half of one of her legs, he started to worry.
Then he heard a bark.
Fenrir’s ears twitched and listened in closely to try and pinpoint the exact direction the bark came from, and her continued barking made it easy for him to do so.
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With that, Fenrir picked up the chunk of her leg, carried it on top of her tail, and ran off in her direction.
Before long, Fenrir managed to find Rock and let out a heavy sigh of relief when he saw that she was still alive. She wasn’t in good shape, but she was alive… and stuck in a tree. She managed to, apparently, land between the split in a tree’s trunk in the perfect position to get thoroughly stuck. All she could do was hang there, almost upside down, and bark at him as the remaining, tiny stub of her tail wagged.
“You look ridiculous, Rock,” Fenrir said. “Also, I found these,” he lifted up the tail and leg piece, “but… looks like you might be missing more still.” From what he could see, her front right leg was missing its lower half while her front left leg looked to be completely gone. “You’re a mess, aren’t you?”
Rock barked and panted with her tongue hanging out.
Fenrir set her pieces down on the ground and started looking for the best way to get up the tree. “How do you feel? You in any pain?”
Rock shook her head. No matter how damaged she might have been, she was a strong, sturdy girl. Being made out of rock had its uses.
“Good. Now, I’m going to have to… pull you back through that gap, then try and… carry you down. Problem is I have no idea how climb down and carry you at the same time. I’m not going to drop you down, and if I try to jump down while carrying you… I’ll probably destroy my knees, and my legs have gotten fucked enough in life already.”
Rock wiggled her her way ahead as if trying to get herself unstuck despite that meaning she would also take a headfirst fall into the ground from up in the tree.
“Just because you’re made out of rock doesn’t mean you can handle falling headfirst! Blunt force trauma to the head is no joke!” Fenrir shouted as he ran over to where she was, placing himself between her and the ground. “There. If you make yourself fall out, you’re going to end up hurting me and potentially killing me. You don’t want that, do you? So, stay up there until I can figure out how to safely—”
Rock had stopped, but she then wiggled enough to come loose and slide right over the tree.
Fenrir felt like he was watching a meteor coming directly for him. Even so, he held his arms out to try and catch her. He even made use of his enhanced form, turning his forearms and calves into their canid forms, for the extra strength he was sure he would need in order to catch something weighing hundreds of pounds.
There was no way he would ever refuse to catch her.
There was also no way he would avoid taking any damage from catching her.
Rock fell straight into his arms and he felt like they were on the verge of breaking from the impact. He had no doubt that if he wasn’t using his enhanced form that they probably would have instantly snapped underneath her weight. Even with that form, he couldn’t really catch her. All he could do was slow her fall down and immediately drop her.
But she was dropped from a safe height.
Fenrir shook his arms around once the wounded Rock flopped onto her side on the ground since she couldn’t exactly stand. Even so, with her body so damaged, one leg gone and another missing half of its length, her tiny little stub of a tail wagged out of pure happiness from being reunited with her master.
It was almost impossible not to feel better at the sight of her tail wagging so adorably. “You know, maybe a short tail suits you,” Fenrir said. “Also, here.” He brought her piece of a leg and her tail over to her, placing them down in front of her mouth. “Eat up.”
Rock looked at her missing limbs and then looked back up at Fenrir as if she was doubting his seriousness.
“What? They’re rock. You can heal yourself by eating rocks. I figure that if you eat what you’re missing, then you’ll grow back the exact amount you’ve lost. It just might take some time.”
Rock looked at the leg and tail again before looking back at him.
“Don’t tell me no.. I’ve seen what you’ll eat before. Cannibalizing yourself in a survival situation like this is nothing compared to some of the things you’ve put in your mouth.”
Knowing that she wouldn’t convince him otherwise, Rock simply closed her eyes, turned her head up and away from him, and huffed.
“Don’t play stubborn. This is for your own good. I’m going to have to carry you around everywhere if you don’t eat up to heal up.”
Rock’s tail wagged a little at the thought.
“I’m not going to carry you around all over this island. If anything, I’m just going to go find a safe spot to drop you off at and then leave you since you’re being stubborn until I can find out what to do about our situation.”
Rock huffed again.
Fenrir sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Whoever trained you needed to do a better job of making you obedient. But… I guess I can’t blame you for not wanting to eat yourself.” Looking down, Fenrir saw a small pebble that he picked up and tossed over to her. “Will you eat that at least?”
Rock, viewing the pebble as a treat tossed at her, wasted no time in taking it within her mouth and crunching her rocky teeth down against it.
Honestly, Fenrir absolutely hated the sound of Rock eating. It sounded like a rough rock crushing up and scraping against other rocks most of the time. It was… not a pleasant sound in the slightest. It made him cringe every single time. But, more importantly, Rock looked happy and barked once she finished eating the pebble.
“Well… I guess it’s possible that I could go around and collect a ton of rocks for you. It just might take me a while. Also, do you have any idea what happened to Cass and Eva?”
Rock furrowed her brow and shook her head.
“I’m sure they’re fine,” Fenrir said. “We’ll find them. Don’t worry. If anything, they probably already found each other and are having some yuri island fun without me. Either that, or they’re on the beach somewhere going up against some tentacle octopus monsters. Or they’ve found hot springs. There are a lot of ways this whole trope could go, at least going by anime standards.”
While Fenrir rambled to himself, Rock wiggled her way over the ground to eat up every single rock she could get her mouth around, excluding her tail and leg piece.
Realistically, it was doubtful that the island had any natural predators capable of dealing with Rock. Nothing wanted to try and take a bite out of a giant rock. So long as she didn’t initiate any combat on her own first, any potential threats would likely just ignore her.
Even so, Fenrir didn’t want to leave her behind, so he took Rod off his hip—thankful that he was still there at all since he forgot to check at first—and turned Rod into a chain that he could used to tie around Rock and then himself. He basically helped Rock up onto his back and then chained her to him, turning Rock into a backpack with Rod’s chain form serving as the straps.
“This… this is going to be one hell of a workout,” Fenrir groaned as he stood up. “Maybe… maybe it’s a good thing you’re missing some limbs. Maybe we should get rid of the others, too.”
Not approving of that idea, Rock roughly booped the back of Fenrir’s head with her snout.
While having a dog’s nose suddenly press into somebody wasn’t exactly something known for hurting people, it did hurt when said nose was connected to a dog made out of rock.
“Alright, alright, I won’t chop off the rest of your limbs. Well, unless I need food to survive,” Fenrir teased.
Rock booped him again.
“Ow! Come on! That was obviously a joke! It’s not like I could eat you even if I wanted to anyways!”
Rather than boop him, Rock licked where she booped him and then rested her head on his shoulder in a way that instantly made him forgive her for anything and everything she had ever done that he didn’t like.
She was too cute.
“Alright,” Fenrir said. “Let’s get going to find the others. I’m going to need somebody to take turns with me carrying you before my back snaps.”