OOC: For
@Diaval. Others are welcome too!
Much to her relief, Keyni had finally made it out of the Tagia. With the region long behind her, she felt a weight lifted from her shoulders. All that time spent at the Glacier and even beyond, stuck in a land nearly stripped of prey, had put stress on her psyche. Stress that she had not even been aware of. Not until now, as she stepped into the north.
The air smelled cleaner already. Different. With a tang of salt. The coast, she realized. A distant memory compelled her to keep moving forward, to investigate. She had never actually been to the coastal region before, but had meant to see it for herself. With her Tundrian blood, she was quite unaccustomed to this new environment. She was no sea farer. Her stomach rumbling, she found a route down from the peninsula out onto the shore. The sand felt odd beneath her paws, so used to firm, cold earth and snow. Lowering her muzzle, she carefully sniffed, hoping for a trace of anything remotely edible.
He had done it.
He had caught something.
For many, it would not have been something to celebrate. Catching food and then consuming it was a very basic aspect of life for any wolf. Even the deer had to chase the Summer grasses that fled in the winter, sometimes. The thing was, Diaval was not good at hunting. He'd managed to keep himself alive since separating from his mom but...well...not with any grace. He'd eaten a few corpses and gone hungry, too. But now - now he had done it!
Trotting, his tail raised and beaming with pride, the monochrome male carried in his mouth a single gull. It wasn't huge but it wasn't scrawny, either. He was elated with himself for noticing how the gulls were distracted and even seemed a bit dull. They were loud and obnoxious but he had seen how careless they were and he had taken advantage. They seemed to be less afraid of him than they should have been. Perhaps they hadn't seen him as a threat? They certainly did now.
He wasn't even phased by the ever noisy ocean or the gritty sand. He was just pleased with himself.
He stopped mid-trot, stumbling a bit as he spotted the other wolf along the shore. His head dropped and he took a few tentative steps back. He was very visible, not too far from here, and while part of him was very rightly telling him to run, another part knew he had only found good people here. In the end, he just froze.
Nothing. Normally, the Tundrian was an adept hunter. But, since she had never stepped foot onto the coast until now, she was at bit of a loss as to where to start. Lifting her head up, the gentle breeze tussling her fur, she scanned the shoreline and took inventory of her options.
Gulls, gulls and more gulls. Her brows pinched thoughtfully. Birds could be tricky. They were often on high alert, taking flight when spooked. You had to get close to nab one of them. Dismissing them as a target for now, she padded down to the waters edge. The iciness of it lapping at her paws was no deterrent. She was largely familiar with the cold.
A glimmer of a sandy white shell caught her eye. Possibly housing a clam or a mollusk. Now those, she had encountered before. Only of the freshwater variety. She pawed at it, paying no mind to the grit and water swirling around her paw and toes. Grasping at it with surprising dexterity, she drug it forth out of the water. Out of her peripheral vision then, she caught sight of another wolf. She glanced up, curiously, noting the carcass of the seagull that was his prize. She didn't move, but did offer an amicable wave of her tail.
Diaval saw that she was fiddling with something in the sand - or perhaps just digging. Curious. But he had been spotted and he stopped himself from taking another step backward. He saw the soft wag of her tail and he flicked his eyes away nervously.
What could happen? She could attack him and take his kill. That was probably the worst, assuming she would not kill him (surely not). Did he want to risk it? Thanks to the male from before, it wasn't like Diaval was starving. If she forced him to relinquish his meal, he could stand it. And there was always a chance to she wouldn't. He looked back at her. She was also pretty. He knew, logically, that should not matter but somehow it did.
He took a hesitant step forward, then another, until he was approaching her with purpose.
He dropped the gull at his feet as he pulled up beside her. She was really pretty. His eyes flickered over her form for a very quick second, hardly seeing anything at all with the haste of his glance. She was patched with much more color than him - soft tones, warm but pale at the same time. His tail wagged nervously.
"Uh - hello." he smiled a soft, nervous smile. "My name is, uh, Diaval." had he even told anyone his name yet? He couldn't remember, his brain a vibrating jumble of nerves.
One never knew what a stranger was like until you took a chance. Some were friendly and hospitable. Others shy and flighty. Then there were those who were just plain rude, or worse, violent. Lucky for the both of them, that while she assessed him by only body language alone, he seemed to be anything but threatening. The Northern female was by no means the aggressive type, but she had no qualms standing her ground if need be. Rather, she more often than not exuded a refined air of peaceful, but humble confidence.
He came closer. Her friendly signal of her tail must have worked. As he did, she got a good look at him. And gosh, was he striking. Grayscale with stark black points, cute silver freckles and amber eyes. Mentally she shook herself out of it. She usually did not stare so often or so long. It must be the season getting to her and that she was secretly yearning more, for companionship.
He introduced himself, seeming nervous. Sheepish, maybe? She all but waved it off, giving him in turn, her trademark slight, soft smile. "Hello, Diaval. I am called Keyni." She made no move to go for his catch. It was his and he had every right to it. "Looks like you have had far better luck than I at catching a meal out here. This is...not my usual hunting ground..."
She seemed nice. He didn't quite relax, however, his nerves kept alight not by the prospect of being attacked but at his proximity to such a pretty female. Diaval was certainly old enough to appreciate females. He had noticed them for a little while now. The idea of...doing...anything with them was beyond him. Love? Not likely. Diaval didn't like himself much and didn't think a girl would, either. At least, not like that. He was nice - he tried, at least - but not only was he overwhelmed by the idea of love, but he was also underwhelmed by the idea of himself.
His thoughts grew damp and he stopped thinking about the whole thing altogether. He would have time to curl up and hate himself later. For now, this wolf - Keyni - was friendly company and he was grateful.
His ears perked up as she talked about her hunting luck. Before he could even think, the words flew from his mouth - "You can have it!"
Could she? He wouldn't starve, as he'd known, and he could do without. He couldn't take it back now, anyway. He decided that he was alright with it. Maybe she'd let him share it? "If you want it, I mean." he smiled again, a quiet little uptick of his lips.
She remained at ease but on alert with him so close. Her ears constantly moved, however slight, with the sound of the crashing ocean waves. She wasn't entirely sure what to think of the beachfront just yet. Jade eyes widened with a little blink of surprise. Not everyone offered their catch so easily...so openly. She shook her head, taking a step back with one paw.
"Oh no no, I couldn't. You worked for it...keep it." She insisted. While it was kind of him to offer the kill to her, it just did not feel right accepting it. With a small smile, a new idea...an alternative popped in her mind. "But tell you what. Why don't you show me how to catch my own? I'm not well practiced in bird hunting."
She refused him and for a moment he was torn. Was it rude to argue? Was it rude to let her refuse it? The term let her felt rough on his metaphorical tongue. There was something in him that rejected it so completely that no more argument lay in his mind. He would keep it but he would also take her up on her suggestion, brightening.
He hated the ocean but he had been thinking of an idea when he'd snapped the bird up.
"Oh, well, actually -" he swung his head around to look along the beach. There were no tide pools like he had been shown but maybe if he dug..? "I did have an idea. Do you know how to find, uh...'crabs'? Or something like that - like, smaller and moves a bit?" he hoped she had more beach experience than he did.
Pleased in knowing that he would keep his meal, and in turn not going hungry, Keyni considered that part of the matter settled. Her ears tilted forward curiously as he proposed an idea of his own. He wanted to know if she knew how to find crabs, or anything similar.
Soft brows pinched slightly, while a pale paw scuffed at the sand in consideration. "Well...I am sure there are others who are better at it than I am. You see, I have never visited the ocean side until today. So, I am not exactly familiar with the wildlife."
She flashed him then, a soft but reassuring smile. "But I have come across fresh water crabs and mussels before, in other bodies of water in my travels." Whisking by, slowly she approached the edge of the waves. She had absolutely no intention of diving in. "Usually, they burrow themselves a ways below the sediment. Or in this case, the sand, I think." The principle was the same. If she was right, they'd both find out soon.
At first, he was disappointed, worried that his trick wouldn't even get a test run, let alone whether or not it would succeed. She was a complete newcomer to the ocean, too. She seemed so mature, he had assumed her to be more wordly than he was. And that was probably the case but maybe he wasn't as young and dumb for not knowing the ocean as he might have thought.
She changed his outlook just a moment later.
"Oh, really?!" he perked up and turned to follow her eagerly to the water's edge. He slowed as he grew closer, remembering his first experience with seawater and feeling a dry, itchiness in his coat just by looking at it. But this was important. He realized, a moment later, that he'd left his catch and he turned on his heel to retrieve it - "Hold on!". He stopped higher on the beach, quickly buried his catch under some sand (it wouldn't taste good, but he would live), and returned to her with haste.
"Okay, so...we dig?" he asked, watching as foam came and went. He began to paw at the wet sand, his feet already covered in it, and found it heavier than he expected. Shifting his weight, he began to dig in earnest, not entirely sure what he was looking for. The spider-like crab creatures, he assumed.
She shot a glance back over her shoulder as he retreated, but only so as not to forget his catch. Keyni waited patiently by the water, watching with a flicker of amusement in her eyes as he came bounding back. "Pretty much." She nodded. From what she remembered, the concept was still the same. But the sand under her toes felt weighed down and thick. Coarser than the silt in river beds she was used to.
She let him go ahead and have at it, pausing after a moment. "Keep a sharp eye out. Look for the slightest shift in the grains of the sand while you dig. You'll see a mussel when you spot a smooth surface, beige or pale white in color. The crabs...they'll try and burrow further down. Sometimes they will make a run for it." She advised. It had been a while since she had done this. She set to work, digging away carefully through the sand, eyes trained for any movement.
He began to dig, having a sense of what he was looking for.
It did not take very long for a shape to go flying past him, covered in wet sand and he turned to see one of the spider things, dazed in the pile of sand he'd created. A crab. That was what they were called - he needed to remember. He snatched the weird thing up quickly and was rewarded with a sharp pinch. He yelped in surprise, his mouth opening to drop the creature but it clung to his lip.
That loner male had warned him about his.
He looked over at Keyni sheepishly, the crab dangling from his lip. "Heh. I found one...". He thought briefly that the wolf from before had lied - Diaval certainly did feel the sharp pain at his lip. His ears flattened a little, unused to pain and with little tolerance for it. But there were things to be done.
"That idea..." he said, looking around and wincing. He saw where the birds gathered near the waves some way down the beach. He turned back to her, crab still hanging from his mouth. "Did you find anything?"
Within a moment or two, Keyni had already dug a shallow hole. She did not have the luck that he did in finding any crabs. Which she supposed for her, was just as well. The sharp yelp she heard made her lift her head up in surprise. Momentarily wide eyed, she rushed over to him with the crab still attached to his lip.
"Oh gosh, well at least you caught one. Here, hold still while I try and get it off." She met his eyes long enough so he had time to object to her help. Delicately, she set her teeth around the crabs body, trying not to get pinched herself. To no avail, the thing just continued to hold on. Huffing, she promptly chomped down on it. Crushed by the force of her jaws and no longer alive with any fight left in it, the attached claw should slip off. "That didn't exactly go too smoothly. All I found were a few small shells. You can come take a look."
His breathing slowed and nearly stopped as she drew close, her eyes all he could see for a moment. She really was very, very pretty. He stood very still as she killed the crab and it dropped to the sand. He remained looking at her for a moment...too long, he realized and he blinked a few times before ducking his head. The pinch hadn't really hurt before and now he didn't feel anything but the thump of his own heart, a sheepish smile on his face as he stared down at the crab.
"Thanks..." he muttered. His nerves on fire, like ants crawling beneath his fur, he grabbed the crab and turned abruptly. He trotted a few steps away and turned, able to breathe a bit with the distance. "Let's go try something. I'm going to see if the birds want this." he gestured for her to follow and, pausing to make sure she did, led the way toward the white, screaming birds.
Giving her fur a shake, which felt a little heavier than usual due to the salty air, Keyni gazed down the coastline. She followed to where he indicated the birds were. "Maybe they would like it as a snack." She agreed, falling into an easy, brisk trot behind him.
"Or maybe it would better serve as bait." She let the tiniest of wry grins touch her lips, whilst wondering if maybe she had already guessed at what he was thinking. The racket of the birds was annoying but there was nothing to be done about it. Even if you did kill one off to make for one less voice in the crowd of them.
ooc; Feel free to go ahead and let the seagulls take it and they run after them, you can control Diaval a bit as needed!
He listened behind himself and was pleased when she said what was on his mind.
Bait. "Exactly!" he barked around the crab. When he slowed, he made sure that they were inland enough for a good lunge without running into the ocean but not so far from the sea that the birds would not feel comfortable venturing to their food. He looked at her.
"I'm going to drop it there -" he gestured to the flat sand "- and then we back off a bit and wait. I think it might work."
He dropped the crab and retreated, waiting for her before he slunk down, his belly not quite touching the gritty sand beneath him.
She nodded, her tail wagging slightly with her building excitement. She was interested to see how his plan would work. While a decent hunter of most land mammals, the feathered avian variety she was less experienced with. This opportunity would prove useful in honing her skills a little. In testing her, in what she knew and what she did not.
"Got it. That's a nice, simple plan." Not all hunts and ambushes were so straightforward. Many could go awry, and even more could end in failure. The Tundrian watched intently as he dropped off the crab for the seagulls. True to their nature, they swarmed in on it in a flurry of gray and white feathers and clacking yellow beaks. Their cries pierced the air and the racket was deafening. Clearly pained and annoyed by the never ending screeches, she pinned her ears back, watching the chaos from a safe distance.
She was usually quite patient, but in this scenario here, Keyni struggled to keep it together. And it showed. All in the shifting of her feet, the squint of her eye and the lash of her tail. Tapping his shoulder with her nose, she then bolted. Aware of his grayscale fur racing beside her, she charged the hoard of gulls. Her open jaws snapped at whatever she could reach, blindly, randomly. Most scattered and flew off in a mad storm of wings, taunting the wolves with their cackles.
She was on board and he was pleased. Even as she settled next to him, he was not distracted. The screeching swarm alighted on the crab and he had to hold himself back from lunging with tremendous control. It set him trembling slightly, his eyes wide and fixated upon the mass.
Then, Keyni touched his shoulder and he bolted forward, at her side and just behind.
The white-grey cloud scattered.
He leaped, his teeth snapping. He attained nothing in the air, landing nimbly on his feet, and swung his jaws to grasp at something as it screeched and flapped in his peripheral. His teeth closed on feathers, those of a wing, and he was beaten immediately by the bird as it tried to free itself. Diaval shook his head instinctually, flailing the bird around, and released it when its beak found its mark in his muzzle. Feathers flew.
With its wing held awkwardly and stunned into stillness, Diaval jumped on it and pinned it, a bit of blood trickling from his muzzle. Between the crab and the gull, he had not come away unscathed.
At the bird flapped awkwardly, unable to escape his paw pressing it into the sand, he looked for Keyni, reorienting himself and trying to see if she had caught anything.
She was not nearly as quick as he had been. Or graceful, as he leapt in the air. The sand shifted under her paws, making her footing slightly unsteady. Caught up in the thick of the swirling vortex of gray and white, she found it difficult to orient herself. There was no clear target to latch onto, to single out.
The snap of jaws, of Diaval's, rang in her ear not far away. It sounded as if he had caught something. She would have turned to look, had she not been so distracted by the whoosh of feathers all around her. All but a handful of the gulls were now out of reach, taking refuge further down the beach, as if nothing had happened.
But in the chaos, a single bird had gotten trampled, but not badly. Tossed onto the sand, it was slow in getting up, shaking out it's feathers. She honed in on the vulnerable gull, who was just now trying to make a getaway. She lunged, or rather, dived into the sand, her chest colliding with it in a thud. Her jaws wrapped around a leg, which was surprisingly strong. However, the gull was not going without a fight. Powerful wings beat down furiously upon her skull, a needle sharp beak pecking painfully at her ears, drawing beads of blood.
He found her, wrestling with a gull, the sharp beak pecking at her mercilessly. She didn't let go of it and he felt a jolt of alarm as he saw blood on her pretty ears. Forgetting his own bird pinned beneath his claws, he lunged forward and clumsily tried to grab the white creature as it flapped and pecked.
He head-butted her as he finally caught it between his teeth, bringing them to meet between flesh. It stopped struggling, its bones crunching easily. They were strong to be so fragile.
He let it go, allowing it to either fall or drape in her mouth if she held onto it.
His bird had found its feet and ran toward the sea, one wing hanging uselessly and the other beating frantically. He glanced at it for a moment as it escaped but left it, turning back to Keyni and panting.
"Are you okay?" he was slightly hoarse, feathers strewn about here and there.
Her grip was just as tenacious as her attitude. Her strong jaws adjusted and repositioned, clamping down in short, firm bites. Even with the stinging pecks to her ears, which she now plastered back, she did not relent in her attack. She moved a paw to try and pin down the flailing gull, only for Diaval to intervene.
Wincing, she saw stars when he headbutted her, even if he had not done it on purpose. The blow caused her hold to slacken, allowing her catch to slide to the sand. With it dead, at least she did not have to worry about an ongoing struggle anymore.
But now she had two other problems on her hands. One, her bleeding ears and two, the rapidly manifesting headache at the temples of her skull. While the wounds to her ear tips were minor (little more than pinpricks) they bled a lot, making her look worse for wear. "Urrghh...y-yeah. I just think my head will be a little sore for a few days..." She muttered, not at all placing the blame on him (yet), rubbing her bruised head with the length of a foreleg. She hissed then. The salt air stung her ears. She was dreading having to cleanse them.
He'd made a mess.
His own head sang but he hardly felt it looking at Keyni. She rubbed her foreleg along her own skull and her words felt like a lash. He was overwhelmed with guilt and shrank, his head low and ears pinned. Keyni's ears were bloody and pecked, her head obviously painful. This whole endeavor had been his doing.
"...sorry..." he said after a moment, feeling inadequate. "Uh - the...the bird. Is yours. Obviously. Uh - I'm sorry..." he repeated, shuffling back and deciding that the best course of action may be to run. He forgot all about his own gull as he turned away from her. "Your ears...the salt water might...help? I don't know. I'm gonna go...sorry...again."
He would beat a quick retreat. Diaval didn't know how to handle conflict aside from moving as far away from it as he could.
The intense throbbing in her head began to subside to a dull ache. The discomfort was more bearable now. And the stinging on her ears, only an annoyance. She recovered enough to catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of her vision. And he was looking absolutely guilty. While he had head butted her, she also had been reckless.
As he spoke, his words laced with regret and shame, she stood upright again as he began to retreat, away from her. There was no harsh glint in her jade eyes. Only hurt and a plea for him to reconsider. "Wait..." She called out after him. Affording him no time to respond, she darted forward and tried cut off his would be escape route.
"This is hardly your fault." Keyni began, should she have gotten his attention again. "If anyone is to blame, it is me." She looked away, down to the side. "I was being reckless. I am not usually so hasty in a hunt." Now she shuffled closer in the sand, but with her eyes still averted. "You were only trying to help out. And besides...you got scratched up a bit too." She said, taking note of the fresh mark on his dark muzzle.
She told him to wait and at first, he didn't. When she cut off his retreat, Diaval pulled up short, surprise replacing shame. He wasn't about to push past her, not angry or upset enough for such a dramatics. He listened and when she drew closer, he didn't back up. Her gorgeous green eyes averted but he looked at them, anyway. She was so pretty. She was the prettiest wolf he'd ever seen...not that he'd seen many, but he thought he might always have that opinion of her.
She made him nervous.
He did take a step back to get a bit of space and his head dropped in natural submission. He still felt guilty but she had startled him out of his self-loathing. He was, for the moment, no longer trying to leave. "I did." he admitted, though he had forgotten about his own head and muzzle until she mentioned them and they began to sting and throb anew. "But...no. It's not your fault. I...we were both too hasty. That could've gone...uh...better." he blamed himself but he got the feeling that she wouldn't accept that.
He looked her over, giving a soft smile and slow tail wag after a moment. "We - you should do something for your ears."
The Tundrian female was not aware of how nervous she made him. Not until he looked away submissively, and then she felt the vibes ebbing off him. But the many reasons as for why, she was blind to. Keyni was a modest wolf and regardless of what others may view her as, considered herself just average. She was not the type who had ever taken much time to go out of the way and admire herself in the reflection of water.
She looked up to him again, more calm now. She relaxed her shoulders and drew in a long deep breath, letting it out slowly. Silently willing that this tiny little act would rub off, sending to him also, a growing sense of calm. "Okay...you are right. We both messed up." She caved in to the obvious, meeting him in the middle that they had both been careless.
"The salt water will help clean them. But I can already tell it will hurt like hell. I'm not a herbalist but if I can find some cobwebs, they should hold off any further bleeding." Reluctantly, she began to tread towards the water, but waited for him. "We should do something for that cut on your muzzle, too."