He was just chancing a step onto the waterlogged strand when Mahler happened by his rocky roost. Ephraim's blue eyes lifted to inspect the man as he passed, but instead the wolf stopped nearby. It was the gargoyle from the beach, he noted with some childish disdain. The man had done much of nothing on his first time out of the grotto and he was surprised at being given any recognition now. It had seemed his life would remain this way forever—the only wolf here who took notice of them was Caiaphas. Mahler proved him wrong.
But as the waterfowl hit the ground with a splash and the tiny coywolf's eyes followed it, he found he neither understood Mahler's words nor meaning. The command was beyond his limited grasp at this age. His thin tail swept pensively over the dusty rock and he lifted his gaze questioningly to the adult, never uttering a noise of his own. His nose lifted imperceptibly; what did he want?
Well, this guy was a massive drag. They stared at one another for a time, Mahler's eyes slitted and Ephraim's wide but impassive, and then the stony charcoal wolf took up the bird and proceeded to ignore him. The small hybrid remained where he was for only a moment longer, then lost interest just as Mahler had. He edged a narrow paw out onto the wet sand, deemed it safe, and then headed away from the grotto, toward where Caiaphas had taken them the day before, where he flopped down on a waterlogged bed of washed up kelp, eyes to the sky, and yawned. Two could play the game of pretending the other didn't exist; Ephraim played it all the time with his siblings.
Ephraim shot his head up, alarmed, when the sound of paws treading heavily across the sand alerted him to Mahler's approach. The instinct to flee any threat that marked puphood had yet to leave him. Perhaps it never would, as poorly socialized with the pack as he was. Only his family held his trust currently. It stood to reason that his caution with everyone else was born of unfamiliarity, and much of it came from as far back as his ancestry. He was made not only of wolves, but of flightier creatures as well.
What did this lurking goblin of a wolf want with him? He didn't have the bird anymore; that was left on the grotto's threshold. The soggy pup slowly lowered his chin back to his paws, but he kept his eyes glued on Mahler, and his hide twitched to betray his readiness to take off at any sign of aggression or reprimand.
The boy's narrow shoulders grew taut as Mahler sought the earth, and every youthful line of his face was edged with tension. What now? Understanding didn't come easily to the coywolf child, who hadn't been socialized with his pack as well as he ought to have been and was still ignorant of all the nuances of body language. Some of it came naturally. Mahler's lower position was enough to loosen the cub's shoulders up, at least. The ears pressed back meant something like peace to him, a motion he or his siblings took turns at when play grew too rough. He wasn't learned enough to comprehend the expression in the adult wolf's eyes, however.
Without a grasp on words or a familiar breath with which to convey them, Ephraim had very little means of communicating with his pack mates, the gargoyle included. They ended up simply staring across the way at one another, with his posture marginally relaxed from moments earlier. He made a sound in his throat, a sort of low grumble mixed with a soft whine, that seemed to say please leave me be, but it wasn't tinged with maliciousness so much as uncertainty. Mahler's first impression hadn't been good. His second impression was better, but Ephraim was still unsure of where they stood with one another and he had not the means to speak yet, so he took to his feet with flighty steps and began edging back toward the grotto, giving the well-meaning male a wide berth.