Stavanger Bay Your yelling's getting loud, keep it down now

uber vague, for @Raptor whenever you got time

After her encounter with her previous pack, and then that stranger on the borders, Rosalyn knew she needed to have someone who knew what they were doing take a look at these wounds.  She'd cleaned them best she could and they no longer bled freely, but the possibility of infection frightened her.  Last time she'd been hurt far worse, but it had been the fever that had almost done her in.

Maybe that was why she dreamed of him last night.  Not the man who she had killed countless times over in the night, each sweet as the time inspiring them.  Another - Vlad.  As always when she dreamed of comrades long past returning, she woke up with a lightness that, when the dream faded, became this ineffable sort of sorrow.

So to lighten up, she took herself by the magic woman's den... but she seemed to be out at the moment.  With a small sigh, Rosalyn headed down to the beach, picking up speed in her sore and abused limbs until she was running and racing straight into the waves, letting them engulf her momentarily.  She did not go far at all... no use tempting fate with wounds like this.  But the water would help so that she could continue to do what she could.

He plodded along the shore, swatting and kicking at clumps of kelp half-hardheartedly. Perhaps a crab would come scuttling out. Head down and mind elsewhere, Raptor did not even notice the First Mate until he had drawn so near as to hear her splashing. The sable wolf stopped and lifted his head.

He had not spoken much to Roz since he had recruited her and not since she had won her title from Sandpiper. Raptor chewed his cheek. The feeling of disconnect was only deepening.

"Hey Roz..." he mustered.

She was surging out and onto the sand to shake off when Raptor arrived, and she didn't let his presence stop her.  "Hey, Raptor," She said, her own greeting quite a bit brighter than his.  He seemed down?  Though why Rosalyn couldn't imagine... everyone here seemed relatively content and the crew was pretty well thriving.  No worries right?

"You alright?" She asked, sitting momentarily to scratch at an itch at her side.  She hated the way her skin prickled but hoped the bath had done its work.  "Ye seem a little-" she had to pause to find a word.  "Blah?" She finally finished with a small smile, mostly at herself for the terrible description.  But there was a lack of enthusiasm compared to their previous meeting, and she wasn't sure if this was the norm, or that was?

Raptor glanced around. "You haven't heard nothing?" He questioned, eyes finding their way back to her. He assumed, somehow, that news of his failings had swept through the crew like a tidal wave but apparently not. The sea wolf sighed and shook his head. He felt sickened by his own foolishness and his insecurity and uncertainty worsened.

"Real blah." He said without spirit. But he was getting tired of talking about it. "It don't matter." Well actually, it did, but that was besides the point. "What's been going on with you these days?" His weak attempt to make small talk was... weak.

He didn't seem keen on spilling, which was fine by her; she'd never been much of one to pry less she didn't like the other and wanted ammo to ply against them.  She liked Raptor, and was honestly relieved his mood was internal.  She hadn't spoken to him since her displacement of Sandpiper, and hadn't been sure that his reaction wouldn't be the same.

"Nah, nothin worthwhile.  But if ye ever want to talk, I'll try and pay attention," she said with a flick of her tail, semi joking.  She couldn't help but try and lighten the mood, much as he seemed out of sorts.

"Not a whole lot, just bustin my tail trying to get back in Smokestep's good books.  Think it's startin to work out, maybe."  She cast a glance at him as she turned his own question back.  "You haven't heard anythin, have you?". If he and Smoke were close, maybe the captain had said something.  Then again, if that was true, maybe she was treadin a line by asking.

"Err... no..." He replied, arching a brow. He knew nothing about what had transpired between Smokestep and Rosalyn, and nothing about how Rosalyn had been faring as the new First Mate in the crew. He simply knew nothing at all, but as his eyes found the wounds in her hide his paws shifted in the sand. "Looks like you been... having some fun though..." he said, flicking his ears back. He cocked his head at her then, and left the door open for her to tell him anything about what he had been missing.

"Eh yeah," she responded, twisting to look at the wounds.  "Unrelated, but watch for other wolves in that field up north.  Previous pack of mine took offense."  She figured it was probably personal more than anything else, but  couldn't hurt to be careful.

She was surprised Smokestep wouldn't have talked with him about it at all, but he seemed genuine in his confusion.  Weren't they best mates? She'd spilled everything to Daikini right after and they weren't nearly so close.  "Smokestep took issue to my challenging Piper.  Said I didn't have the worth yet."  Not those exact words, but it was the meaning she'd taken from their argument.  "Maybe I shouldn't have, but I've been kicked from too many crews by leaders that didn't take a liking to me.  Wasn't about to let that happen again."  She watched him for a reaction on this.  She had been curious to know his own thoughts on it, and now was her chance.

He turned his gaze north briefly, as if he could see the field from here and the wolves that might tread across it. Later, he would likely forget she had said a thing about it.

Surprise spread across his face as Roz explained that Smoke had not approved of the rank challenge. He could see that she was watching his expression and he flicked his ears back and furrowed his brow, glancing away. Nothing made sense. One moment, Smoke was every bit the sort of pirate he had been raised by, and the next he was something entirely different. It only bred more uncertainty in the downtrodden Raptor.

"Challenging is part of proving that worth, er," he started. "Least that's... what I was taught. I don't —" He stopped dead, realization sparking in his eye and lifting his ears. He caught her eye with some sort of indescribable urgency.

"Wait — you've been kicked from a bunch of crews? How are you not dead? How'd you get away?"

He seemed to not be of the same mind, and that made Rosalyn feel a hell of a lot better about the situation.  "That's how I saw it." She said, though her tone was resigned.  What was done was done after all.  "But I guess I don't have a sister, eh?"  She have a small laugh.  "Least, none I'll ever know."

His question made her glance at him, long.  What did he mean? "Some I was passed from by the choice of others, some I left."  She shrugged.  "I ran, and I didn't look back.  I doubt they bothered to look long and hard."  Why would they? She was no threat once gone.  Only once had she truly faced death, and pure luck had spared her that time.  Every other she'd simply fled, and speed and providence had delivered her without any real consequence.

"Huh," he uttered, still disbelieving that she had cycled through several crews to make it here. He had scarcely survived being kicked out of one. "So are the Captain's just bluffin' then when they say they'll hunt down and kill anyone who abandons the crew?" It seemed plausible, what she said, now that he ruminated on it. Surely the Captains and their crew had better things to do than to spend too many downs chasing down runners.

"Maybe, those that say it."  She'd known one or two, including herself, who hadn't imposed that rule.  "What use do some of em have for a wolf that doesn't wanna be a part of the crew?  Better out than in."  She gave a small scoff.... her own loyalty was as good as the Captain, of course, but when she gave her word she kept it.  Long as they deserved her word, of course.  But if they no longer deserved it, well, she wasn't breakin an oath then.  They were breakin one to her in her opinion.

"I'm guessin yours always had that rule?" she asked, now wondering what crews Raptor had known.  "Were you from the same crew as the Captain?"  She'd just assumed that they knew each other since, well, a long time.  But maybe that wasn't the case.

She made sense. She was right.

"Yeah, they did," he said. His brows furrowed and his eyes darkened. "I never saw anyone get hunted down and killed for abandoning ship... no one ever abandoned ship." But. It held on his tongue unspoken, that he had seen deeds done that previously left no doubt in his mind as to whether or not his Captain would do it. Though now he wondered, about his old Captain, and about Smokestep.

Raptor shook his head. "No. I was marooned," he admitted, so quick that it took a second for him to register that he had told her. He licked his nose. "I got lucky." He said, downplaying the tale rather than embellishing it. In that moment he could not feel the pride he once felt over his daring escape. "I got away and met Smokestep shortly after."

She supposed no one really abandoned from her old crews, so she could relate.  She had known captains who kept their underlings in line by fear, and by encouraging them to turn on one another for a leg up in the ranks. She'd just never been much into playing those games.  She got the sense, from the way he spoke of it, Raptor hadn't been fond of that sentiment either.

"Well, that makes two of us," she said with a comraderic smile.  "I've had a bit of luck myself, to get here." There had been little daring about her path to here after her rise, just a series of misfortunes and lucky breaks.  "I wondered if you might be family, like he and Sandpiper."  She was honestly a bit relieved he wasn't, though she tried not to show it too much.  That was probably why he wasn't angry about things... and that alone put him solidly on her list of at least potential friends.

Gonna wrap this up since we have a new one

One corner of his mouth tugged upwards, but it weak and brief, and could not match the comraderie that he saw in her smile. He felt it though; some twinge of companionship.

"Nope." His answer was quick and his lips formed a hard line there after. He could hide the pangs of jealousy and envy then (or so he believed).

His mind was elsewhere. Running down some distant shore, as it were, with all of this getting further and further behind him. Distracted, and weary of attempting any more conversation, he sought to leave. "Think I'll bed down for a bit," he murmured.

"See you around, Roz."

Hmmm.  She watched him go somewhat discontented, sensing again that huge breach between the callous and high-headed wolf who had recruited her and this one who left now.  Well, if he had issues, that was his business.  Still, it was sorry to see all the same.

Pushing it from her mind, she shook her head and also left, back the direction she'd come in.