Wolf RPG

Jasmine found herself upon the shoreline doing nothing of significance. She had never found Bridget's trail, so what the hell was she supposed to do now?

Snow packed in deep under paw. When she'd been able to reach the sand on the shoreline at the start of her travels, she remembered having fun digging around in the gritty earth. The action had been simple but calming for some reason. Digging always was. So what the hell was she supposed to do, but dig?

And dig she did. For nothing really in particular, except to see if she could reach the sand buried way down beneath.

The water from the river split into a series of curves that drew themselves in sinuous tangent to the horizon. He made his way towards the ocean, a prussian streak in the sky.

Though he had only been with Skua for a few days, the masked man was often out of his sight. Pier found himself without routine and without schedule; the freedom that had fallen so readily into his hands made him feel uneasy.

Someone near the shore caught his attention - a russet girl, her narrow shoulders toggling left and right as she dug into the snow.

Looking for something? He asked. Talking to children was an art he was far from mastering.

It seemed just about the whole of the wilds had come to the deltas that day. It hadn’t been all too long since meeting a couple of new faces — the sun had just barely set in that time — and now there were two more. Granted, he’d recognized Pier the moment he was close enough to decipher his features, but he couldn’t say the same for the younger girl.
Oh, are we digging for treasure? If that’s the case, I’d love to join.

She was swiftly joined by two others, who descended on her as seagulls did to their fellows when one had found a particularly rank piece of carrion to eat. They smelled like ocean too. She decided this by how the smell of brine only seemed to thicken the closer they came to her.

"And have to divide my spoils with the lot of you?" she said with a clever lift of her brow.

She was only looking for sand but decided she might play at their game even as she eyed the men and drew a paw in front of the hole she had already dug, as though protecting her work. The first looked like he could've been her father, by the age his body carried, while the second still had a youthful shine to him. Their voices felt like saltwater too. Dark grey and swirling teal, and the younger one's lined with a thread of gold.

She didn't know if she trusted them.

He hadn't noticed Skua until he spoke; Pier jumped and turned to see his newly-made partner, whom he greeted with a wordless wave of his tail.

Spoils? he barked out brusque laughter. Wet sand and seawater, more like.

The girl seemed shrewd for her age - quick-witted, spontaneous, almost scatter-brained. He could see her mind at work, but had no idea what it was directed to.

Remembering how territorial he was when he was a teenager, he did not step forward. Not just yet.

Valentine was more quiet than he’d imagined it seemed. He got a jump out of Pier, and it wasn’t a first time. The seasman ought to have a bell tied around his neck! He chuckled.
He looked to the girl then, who placed a paw over her dig site. He cannot quite tell, even with her lifted brow, if she joked or not. Young ones were unpredictable, he’d learned that. So he made no further move, not that he’d plan to take her “spoils” anyhow. Still, he’d play along.
You’d be surprised by what you can find beneath that sand and seawater. What’s your name, little lady?

Jasmine flicked her eyes between the crew of them and made her rudimentary judgments. First, they seemed to know each other. This would put her at a sore disadvantage if they tried anything funny against her. But right now they seemed okay. That was the second thing: they gave her space.

Her nostrils flared at the older man's derision - until she reminded herself that she was also playing along. Thankfully the younger (and cuter) of the two seemed to talk on her side, and she was thankful for this. He made her feel a little less outnumbered, and actually kind of cool when he talked back to the older man - maybe because he seemed only a little bit older than her, and that made his opinion a lot more important.

"Why don't you tell me who you are first?" she said, with a coy little lift of her head, "it doesn't seem right for a young little lady to be givin' her name out to strangers."

He flicked an ear at Skua's remark and said, airily: Yes, a crab, maybe, but really he was conceding defeat. This was a gesture of charity that would've been unthinkable only a few months prior.

He was the type to recede into sullen silence when met with any sort of antagonism, then confess, petulant and bruised, to a confidant: "I think she hates me."

Looking at them, he was aware of their distance in age. For a prefunctory moment he realized that he might be forced into the role of babysitter. Then, correcting himself, he realized he might be forced out of the conversation altogether.

Pier, he responded. Pier Montanari.

Not that he minded too much.

Ah yes, the crab. The little beast of the seaside. It’d be a shame if the girl dug into one of their burrows. The girl of which had no name, or wasn’t willing to give one without a couple in return. This Valentine could respect.
And I am Skua. No last name; my parents didn’t think to give me one I suppose.

Skua and Pier. Pier and Skua. Time would tell if Jasmine would remember their names, or if she'd be asking for them again in a couple of hours time. What mattered more than their names was that they had entrusted them to her, and they looked and sounded trustworthy enough.

"My parents didn't give me a last name either," she said with a shrug, as if it didn't matter, but felt a sting of envy that Pier had one for himself. Her only consolation was that Skua didn't have one either. "I'm Jasmine."

And she decided then to drop her treasure hunting ruse and stepped around the hole she'd been digging as if it didn't really matter. "There really is only sand under there," she said cooly, but didn't think she really pulled off cool as well as Bridget could, "so... if you're not looking for treasure, then why are you out here?" She punctuated this by looking around. The shoreline was barren, after all, except for the snow and the freezing ocean. And them, of course.

Their lack of last name was yet another thing that united them. He'd save the self-pity for later.

Ah, well, I'm sure Skua can give you a better pitch, he clicked his tongue. He's a distinguished traveler and I'm his, uh,

Come si può dire... a complete stranger that he happened to pick up on top of a hill? No, that wouldn't do. It was only when it was time to introduce himself that he realized how unlikely of a pair they made.

Faithful assistant.

Jasmine lacked a family name as well. It’s a commonality she shared with most wolves he’d met on the coast. Pier was an exception to this rule, or as he called himself, faithful assistant.
You make me sound like someone important, he grinned, then turned his gaze back to the girl. It’s true, we are travels. We’ve just happened to pass through and, well, here you are. So what about you Jasmine? What brings you out here?

Skua was the clear leader of this duo, by Pier's own admittance and charisma alone. Jasmine's trained her eyes mainly on the yearling, but every couple of seconds she glanced at the older man to try and size up any thoughts he expressed on his face.

"Pretty much the same as you two, really," she said, "just on my way through, and here you were." But something in that felt like a lie, and her thoughts turned to Bridget again. Her trail had been cold even when she'd left Brecheliant, she reminded herself, and she'd chased a ghost hoping to find an impossibility at the end. As far as she knew, Bridget had taken the way of her mother, and there was nothing more to say. Still, Jasmine swallowed and felt a familiar thickness in her throat. Right now wasn't the time to cry.

"I've travelled a lot myself, y'know," she blurted out, and with a steady glance between the duo, decided not to regret herself. She did give her shoulders a roll, though, to shrug off the weirdness of colours she heard dripping through her voice, "been on the road ever since I was a kid, so I've seen a few things," as if that was something to brag about - and as if she wasn't still a child now.