The sand was wet underfoot, soaking up the cold rain that fell on it like a sponge, when Jinx loped over it in the mid-afternoon. The sky was dark with heavy clouds, but the weather hadn't stopped her from rising in the morning, patrolling the territory's edge (it was getting easier to not hate it), and visiting the river for a well-deserved drink. Her course led her back toward Horizon Ridge now, but a detour brought her down toward the tide pools, away from the overlook that was the pack's pride and joy.
Hidden in the wake of the waterfall feeding them were numerous pools, each teeming with small wildlife supplied by the high tide and stranded by the low. The most abundant of them were the hermit crabs, whose shells were nearly impenetrable. The Kesuk had been raised on a beach, though, and was well-versed in how to feast on crustaceans. She wasted no time upon her arrival in seeking out a heavy stone at the base of the cliffs.
With it, she would be able to painstakingly crack the pretty shells that the hermit crabs called home, and with any luck, chase them out of hiding. Even though rain still pelted her, the Kappa smiled around her stone, pleased with her choice of food today.
Of all the things Pump had seen in the Horizon Ridge, the seaside was the most fascinating place of them all. She had grown up in an area with abundance of forests, mountains and rivers, but never had she seen that much of a water in one place. Not only you weren't able to see the other coast, but the water was moving - back and forth as if it was alive. For this reason the first time she had arrived here, she had needed a lot of time to gain courage to approach it and investigate it properly. It smelled funny, but otherwise wasn't dangerous at all. Or so it seemed.
Today, however, she had arrived here, when she had accidentaly caught scent of the another pack member that had walked nearby. Since the only two she knew were Akhlut and Pied, this unfamiliar one sparked her interest and she had to track it down a long way, until she caught sight of a white wolf by the waterfall, clearly occupied with something. And Pump, who felt like she could do something too, quickened her pace and neared the pack member, in order to find out, what was she or he up to.
"You know that it is quite possible to lose a teeth or two, if you play with rocks like that," Pump began a conversation, when she was near enough to see, what the unknown wolf was doing.
It took a good five minutes to locate a suitable rock: almost square-ish, crudely jagged at the edges, and definitely heavy enough for her purposes. It took another five minutes or so to adjust her jaws around it to sufficiently carry it, though she stepped gingerly over the wet sand as she did; a trip or a fall could result in the chipping of all of her teeth, a sad fate for a wolf. She would not do with losing her primary weapons, not when she had finally taken up the calling of wolf and begun to devote herself to the protection of the pack, though in less-than-honourable ways.
When she finally lugged her rock over to the tide pools, she placed it down and began the search for crabs. One had strayed too near the edge of the water, and with a practiced swipe of her paw she was able to roll it out onto the sand, where it was exposed, but not yet vulnerable. A hermit crab claw peeked out briefly to ward off the threat, but just as quickly retreated inside again. Jinx, satisfied with this one — although it was small and would serve as little more than a snack — picked her rock up in her jaws again.
Her ears twitched back as a voice hailed her from the rear, warning her about playing with rocks. The Kappa turned so her body was perpendicular to Pump, with her head poised above the hermit crab and the stone weighing heavy in her jaws. Fixing the dark-furred female with a bored expression, as if to say I am not that stupid, she loosened her jowls and let the rock fall, and issued a satisfied smirk — now you understand? her face seemed to ask — when the sharp crack of shell resounded beneath it.
"Impressing..." Pump admitted, when the young wolf had thrown the rock on something she could not quite see, but that reeked pretty much of dead fish, sand and snails. "But still - you can lose a tooth or two," she did not change her mind about this fact. Then she averted her gaze and, while keeping the polite distance, went around the other wolf to find out, what was it exactly she had squished.
"And now, what are you going to do with it?" she took a quick look at the white wolf, tilted her head and curiousity reflecting in her face. She had eaten a lot of stuff in her life, you could not say that Pump was very picky, but she was always wary, before trying anything new on her plate.
Jinx's gaze remained heavy on the subordinate Ridge member until the other averted their eyes, and regardless whether it was done with respect to rank or simply out of politeness, she was satisfied with it. The Kesuk made clear most of the time she would not be questioned, and would answer no question that did not directly benefit her... But this Pump was adamant that she might lose a tooth or three playing with rocks. Jinx would agree, silently, with only a flicker of acknowledgement in her fiery eyes.
It was the stranger's next question that fulfilled a conversational purpose. Jinx answered while rolling her paw over the rock as it to shoo it away from her prize: "consume it," she said, with a tone that hinted she wasn't about to share it. She was not a wolf to share anything. But she had no qualms with Pump finding her own hermit crab to crack, and as if to suggest this somehow, she glanced pointedly between the removed rock and the dark-furred Sigma.
Then, without further word, being a wolf not terribly interested in others in general and having nothing much to ask, she plopped down on her pale belly in the sand to fish the now-exposed crab from the remains of its broken home. Her eyes drifted to Pump, however, with piqued interest in the event the other female actually did dare to try Jinx's method of crab fishing.
"Really?" Pump asked in a disbelief, because the prize for such an effort was so little and squished. There wasn't much to have and she did not insist on sharing, because, if the situations were reversed, she wouldn't do that either. Finders, keepers - another old wisdom of her grandma, who hadn't been a very pleasant person herself.
But she was curious still, therefore made an nonthreatening approach towards Jinx to have a better look of the unusual meal. When she was satisfied, she took some steps back and began to sniff the ground, because there were some scent marks of other crabs nearby. Soon - voila - her muzzle came "face to face" with a smaller version of the crab.
"Geez, you are small critter," she poked it with one of her paws and plopped down on her belly.
<style type="text/css">q {font:13px Georgia; color:#BA6D00;}</style>She watched with amusement, as she lowered her jaw to the sand to scoop her succulent little morsel in and chewed it thoughtfully, as Pump took up the activity of crab hunting. She bristled very slightly when the female came nearer, but only out of instinct; there was no fear in her that the black-furred wolf would attempt to steal her crab. Jinx was a trained fighter anyway, and any altercation would be in her favour; she held rank, and was selfish enough to believe that that gave her immunity.
Pump did no such thing, so it never came to that. Instead, she combed the rainy tide pools and came upon her own shelled hermit crab, slightly smaller than Jinx's, but definitely not the smallest on the beach. Jinx craned her neck to see, but was incapable of spotting the crab from her angle... And anyway, it was boring to watch. More interesting was her ability to finally inspect Pump, noting a few things: the way her one ear seemed to flop down as if broken, the tufts of fur that stuck out further than most wolves' fur did, and her stockier stature.
Jinx was unfamiliar with hybrids, though, and chocked these things up to flawed genetics or, in the case of the ear, an unfortunate accident.
A delicacy,
she clarified, though the clarification itself was far from thorough. What kind of delicacy, Pump might have asked, or, where do they eat such creatures? Jinx almost chuckled at the thought of presenting Pump with an octopus, but they were exceedingly rare, and if Jinx had found one, she was keeping it for herself. If you crack the shell. They won't fill your belly, unless you purged the whole sea, but they do taste good.
ooc: I am sorry for the long wait!
Pump's attention was fixed to the little crab, who had hidden in his shell the moment she had found him, but now, when the first moment of terror gone, was slowly re-emerging. It was interesting to watch, therefore - to be as close as possible to the actual process, she put her head between her feet and stared at at the critter. How could something so small be considered as a meal?
The wolf-dog was unaware that, while she was busy observing the crab, the other wolf was examining her - beginning from the odd looks to the awkward and shallow manners. Not a good first impression, but then again Pump had never cared, what others thought of her. She had not been born to be a beautiful and flawless example of her kind, therefore she had never tried to act as somebody she was not. Especially not to impress others.
"A delicacy?" Pump repeated Jinx's words. "Well then... it's too much effort for such a small prize, don't you think?" she lifted her head and cast a glance at the other wolf.
<style type="text/css">q {font:13px Georgia; color:#9E0853; font-weight:bold;}</style>Mmmn, no,
she replied, watching with an amused grin the way Pump observed the crab. Crabs were strange creatures, not taken to being toyed with, but of course, the hermits were simply too weak to harm a wolf. Now, one of the crabs whose shells were fused on their backs... Those were much more aggressive and violent. They would clamp onto the sensitive toe and lock like a vice, to be shaken off by only the most dedicated of forelimb shakes.
Her ears swivelled back toward the sea, and now she remembered the rain. She had laid in it so long her coat was soaked full through, but it was warmer on the coast than inland. The chill breeze didn't bother her in the slightest. Crab is not fare for starving wolves,
she clarified, once again stressing that they were nothing but a snack. A treat. She didn't know much about Pump, but might have been more inclined to let the issue go if she knew Pump was an opportunist, and not really a wolf for enjoying simple pleasures, as Jinx at times did.
"I have never understood folks, who eat for pleasure and not for function," Pump said and poked the crab with her paw - the small animal hid in it's shell immediately and rolled a small distance away from her. This was a tiny bit amusing, therefore the wolf-dog let out a quiet woof and snorted. With that her interest in the crab was lost and she returned to the conversation. "I mean, eating is all about function..."
She got up to her feet, stretched thoroughly and shook her coat. It was a little damp, but the fur was very thick and she would have to dip in a pool of water for a quite some time for it to get totally wet and her to feel cold. "I didn't introduce myself - name's Pump," she said. "What should I call you?"
"We grew up in strong packs," she replied with a toothy grin, "and did not want for food." Did that make her a privileged bitch? Probably. Jinx had grown up amongst family and friends of her parents, two of the greatest wolves the Seahawk Valley had ever known... And she was quickly making a name for herself here in Teekon Wilds, albeit not a positive one. But, she thought, Nanuq and Koios had not been viewed favourably initially by many refugees... At least, that was the biased account of things she'd heard. No doubt it leaned in favour of Shearwater.
The black-furred, strange looking hybrid introduced herself as a name that Jinx misheard as Plump, which earned the dark female a quizzical expression for a moment. For a wolf who seemed so hell-bent on eating only to survive, it was a strange name, for sure. Slim might have done better. "Nice to meet you," she said, halting a little at the end, uncertain whether saying the name again would be disrespectful or not. She decided to assume she had heard it wrong, didn't understand what it was supposed to be, and simply said, "I'm Jinx. Jinx Kesuk."
As if somehow the name mattered, which it obviously did, since they were the best family in Jinx's opinion.
"Silly..." Pump muttered under her breath, when Jinx announced that she had grown up in a strong pack that did not want food. Surely that was a lie, because if she had not eaten, she would not be standing here before her. If you didn't eat, you died - that was a very simple rule, that was, how Pump's mind worked. She rarely delved in double meanings of words and phrases and it did not occur to her that Jinx might have meant something else.
Anyhow - it turned out that this gal was also the one with two names. What is with these people? She wondered. One name was perfectly enough for her, but maybe it was because hers wasn't so short and easay to pronounce correctly at the first try. "So - which one do run by then - Jinx or Kesuk?" she asked to clarify the matters and avoid trouble in the future.
She pushed herself to her feet, stretching and then shaking out her wet fur before Pump had a chance to speak. She didn't catch what was muttered, but for the time being, she didn't care. She was more interested by the audible question, which was perhaps the strangest one Jinx had ever been asked. Her brows tilted, skewed in askance, and without much grace blurted, "Come again?"
The young Kesuk had grown up around wolves whose family names were their pride and joy. To her, the name of Kesuk was something to be feared and respected. It was not her only claim to fame—she yearned to define herself with victories and conquests, and the name they sang when they sung of her would be Jinx—but nonetheless, she was proud of her family. Perhaps she shouldn't have been, given that abandonment was writ into their genetic code as surely as dominance was... But she didn't think about negatives. In her mind, she had no faults.
Her head lifted somewhat when she recovered from her confusion enough to answer, "Jinx, Kesuk, and Mambo. Name, family, title. I answer to allllll." Her ears tilted back as she reminisced about the days when they had hailed her as Mambo, but it was a brief thought, and soon her molten gaze and the cup of her ears were again upon Pump. "Do you not recognize family where you are from, that you would ask such a thing?"
Name, family, title. Well, that was a very complicated background Jinx or Kesuk or Mambo came from. Mouthful and hard to remember, Pump wondered, whether there was a single wolf, who called her in all three names. Probably there wasn't. And what was of importance anyway? She was named Pumpernickel, because grandma had thought that out of her all grandchildren she was the one to deserve a real name. Maybe she liked her better (it was hard to tell, because most of the time she was cold-hearted hag) or maybe she had thought that this pup was remarkable enough to be named.
Anyway... "My family is not very fond of naming the kids. You are not born with a name, you have to earn it," Pump explained. Fair and simple. You were nobody, until you got a name. "Therefore second and third names seem a bit odd to me, when one is just fine. No offence intended."
The explanation took her aback, somewhat: wolves didn't have names at birth? It seemed a strange concept, so foreign and nonsensical. How did one refer to a cub without a name? Even as she mulled this over, and privately thought to herself that even assigning numbers would be as good as naming them, she purred a soft, "I see." Though she harboured a secret desire to have been born with a northern name like her sister and her brother Arktos, Jinx nevertheless held her name dear. It had been the first and only gift from her father, if one did not count her uncanny likeness to him in her pursuit of voodoo supremacy.
"I admit, it makes sense," she offered, even though part of her still failed to understand the usefulness of the custom. "The strongest are the most worthy, yes?" This said something about Pump that Jinx could not actually confirm, because she had no idea whether Pump really deserved her name or not... For her standards might differ from those of whoever had named the tousled wolf. Despite this lack of knowledge, she nodded her head once as if in affirmation of her own observation, unwittingly paying a compliment to the new Horizon Ridge wolf.
She shook herself off once more and then stretched, wrapping up their meeting with a, "it's been nice getting to know you, Pump. I think you will do nicely here." She paused, shot her unusual pack mate a lopsided and sincere grin that was somehow still kind of creepy looking, and said, "I must be going, but see you around," before turning to lope away across the strand.