Wheeling Gull Isle Walk the Plank, Ye Scurvy Dog

She watched, and judged, and let the silence sit there, as laden and cold as his fur. A fire burned within her chilly sapphire eyes, however, as they followed the movements of the driftwood chunk… This, at least, seemed to Driftwood a hopeful sign, if only a small one.
 
She spoke neither to affirm nor disdain his own pitiful words as he offered them beseechingly up. The smallest of confused whimpers escaped him as she padded closer, the susurrus of shadowy paws on sand barely audible even to his keen ears. She moved like the flicker of a flame, like the darting of a dragonfly; it seemed to him that if he blinked she might flicker behind or beside him, or vanish in an instant like smoke in the wind. He remained quiveringly pulled apprehensively in upon himself as she tiptoed nearer: the world’s hairiest and most awkward turtle with his neck pulled in and his legs tucked up into a nonexistent shell. Only his tail managed to actually conceal itself, and it still managed to be audible, if not invisible; it continued to tap an intermittent and haphazard rhythm against his battered thighs, sending off small uneven spritzes of seawater still. His uneven shivering now grew stronger, not just with cold but with fear and excitement mingled. His golden eyes widened at her soft shushing, but besides his involuntary vibrations he didn’t move, even going so far as to hold his breath as her cold nose penetrated his dampened ruff and inhaled deep.
 
Just what foreign scents, he wondered, did her delicately pointed nose taste upon him? Her intentions seemed relatively peaceful, but her mute grace still gave him the jitters. He squinted uncertainly, and after a moment grew just bold enough to inch his own nose forward and breathe in her scent more deeply as well. She smelled of seawater and strange sweetness, and not just because his own nostrils were still crusted with salt. His tail beat more strongly, and then, surprising himself likely near as much as her, his long pink tongue lapped out, wanting to give her a quick and affectionate slurp, though one still appropriately submissive, at least, luckily for Driftwood. In the same instant, his nearest front paw reached out and knocked the ocean-weathered stick a little further in her direction, rolling it with uneven drunken clumsiness that result not just from the clumsily blind fumbling of his foot but also the uneven stubs sticking out from it in various directions like the inserted blunt quills of a porcupine.