Thunder rumbled off in the distance, though the storm that was surely brewing in the distance stayed in the horizon. It'd been raining lightly all morning but Tatum wasn't perturbed by it. The pressing humidity caused her damp agouti earth brown fur to curl at her nape, and the tan fur to curl slightly on her chest and aside from causing slight discomfort where humidity was concerned, it wasn't unbearable. The rain offered a cool relief as it fell from the heavens, soaking through the tendrils of her fur and cooling off her warm skin, eliminating the need to pant out the excess heat. Besides, if she felt too uncomfortable she could just go for a swim — literally. FitzDutiful had taken her by the falls (the name of which she couldn't remember) when he gave her the tour of Silvertip. At least Tatum had remembered it's location, which was currently the important part. It struck her with a bought of nostalgia, despite that it was unfamiliar to her. It reminded her of Foxhound, even if her memories were   (for the most part) not all that pleasant. 

Tatum absently noted the rich abundance of herbs on the way down as she navigated the terrain down to the bottom of the falls where the water fed into a pool that appeared to snake into a river, further down. She had no use for them, though. She wasn't a healer, and had no intentions of being one despite that it was probably useful to have even some basic knowledge; but she didn't have the patience that it required. She was as stubborn as a mule and would allow her wounds to fester before she saw help for them: she had a thing for scars, thought they added sex appeal.

Silver eyes studied the rhythmic and cascading progress of the water as gravity pulled it down, letting the soft noise become something akin to a lullaby as she stretched out on the dirt beneath a tree, shaded from the rain by it.

 This is the and worst weather ever. It was humid and raining? Not the best combination. "It feels like I'm inside a mouth," he grumbled to himself as he walked around the herbs. This was the worst thing ever. He had never been a fan of water at all. Its only importance was to quench his thirst. At least that was his opinion.

 Despite the rain, he was warming up to his new home. It was a whole new experience. A challenge. And he always wished for a worthy challenge. He was an adventerous guy. He always liked to get into trouble. Never bothered him. Might get himself really hurt someday, but that wouldn't matter. So when he saw the shape of another, some mischevious light flickered in his mind.

 As he got closer, the light became brighter. Oh, it's a girl wolf. He snickered to himself. "Hey there missy," he said in a sort of husky tone, "What's a pretty girl like you doin' in a storm like this?"

Her “shade” tree wasn't a perfect umbrella — more like an umbrella with holes in it — but it kept the bulk of the rain off her, and henceforth served to Tatum's purposes. Though there was likely plenty of things she could have been doing, like patrolling the borders or something else useful towards Silvertip, she was bored. It was one of those days that sucked the fun out of everything, giving her a sleepy disposition all day, though this was likely borne of her boredom. The sound of footfalls was lost in the roar of the falls and her focus upon it, so when a voice seemed to melt out of nowhere, Tatum startled, slightly. Ears rose, alert, atop her crown before they slicked back to her skull, her teeth pulling back from her lips, forgetting in the wild moment, that she was relatively safe within the borders of Silvertip. Old habits died hard, however, and weren't as easy to kill as she would have liked. 

Tatum rose to her paws, shaking her coat free from whatever droplets had collected, silver eyes zeroing in on the ebony wolf as he approached, finishing his husky greeting with a question that struck her as flirtatious. Tatum resisted the urge to snort softly at the irony of how many times she got hit on by male wolves. This guy was the second in these Wilds (at least Tatum assumed FitzDutiful had been hitting on her), though was a number in a long list of men. If she had to count on her toes how many men had hit on her in her brief two years of life she'd run out of toes to count. She liked males, and was sometimes attracted to males but she found that it was the fairer sex that intrigued her the most. It was easy for her to find females that attracted her yet unbelievably hard to find one that returned the attraction. There was something about that hunt that thrilled the young rebel.

However, she had a specimen that seemed willing to verbal spar and throw flirtations around with her and she wouldn't so readily turn it away. “Pretty, huh?” Tatum mused, choosing to focus on one part of his question at the moment; he'd left an opening for her to tease and she couldn't help herself. “I keep hearing that and if you guys keep saying it, I might actually believe it,” Tatum spoke coyly, shifting her weight under the tree, ducking her head to avoid a low branch as she stepped out into the light rain. “Getting wet, obviously,” She teased him, offering him a wicked little twitch of her lips. Her attempts at trying to stay dry were futile and she didn't deign to spend all day in her den. “How about you, handsome?” Tatum returned the question with ease, wondering if this stranger would be as easy going about her sense of humor and nature or if it would scare him off.

He got the reaction he would have liked. That's a first. "Getting wet like you, he replied with a grin. "And maybe trying to get lucky." He laughed at himself. What where the chances he could get some? He wasn't the smoothest talker in the world and definatly not good at pursuadeing.

 He backed of to shake any droplets of rain off. But what was the point? The rain was still pouring down. "This weather is shitty," he grumbled. "There must be someplace more dry," he stated. "Somewhere more private." His voice was hinting and he hada cocky smile on his face.

Trying to get lucky? Tatum repeated his words in her head, though she'd understood them well enough. She perfectly understood the connotations in which the male'd been speaking, and resisted the urge to let out a largely unlady like snort. She couldn't exactly fault him for that particular way of thinking, given how much of an easy flirt she was, but now that it'd been made vocal without knowing even his name, she was faced with the realization that the game was over. He'd taken verbal sparring to the next level and while he was a looker, he looked younger than her and she'd recently hit her sexual maturity. She doubted (perhaps wrongly) his abilities, and deduced that she didn't quite like the directness in which sex had casually been thrown into the conversation, as young as it was. She couldn't explain why it suddenly was a huge turn off, and it was hardly personal towards him, but it was what she felt, regardless.

"If you're looking for a venture of sexual pleasure, I suggest you seek it elsewhere," The rebel told him curtly, silver eyes assessing him coquettishly, despite that. "I don't think you could handle me." Tatum put her opinion out there, wondering if he would take it and be discouraged or if he would take it as a challenge. It was always hard to tell with men. "Besides," The Zeta breathed with a lash of her tail. "I prefer to be on top." Might as well out herself while the opportunity was there, besides she wasn't feeling overly girly today. It wasn't the hard plains of the masculine body that she found herself craving but something infinitely more softer, lately.

He smirked at her words. "Oh trust me, I can handle it." That wasn't exactly true. He had heard of sex but never done it. That made him more curious and wanting. He moved forward, circling around the women, soaking her in. He felt lustful, but he held back his instincts. He was not in the mood to get bitten right now.

 He stoped and back away, his cocky smile plastered on his face. "I don't think you can handle it, missy." He was willing to keep up with this game. He sort of liked it.

Tatum's ebony companion didn't get the message, or at least this was how it appeared to her, though how more plainly she could have put it she didn't know. Her subtle reference to her sexuality (despite that it was open to either genders) had either went straight over his head, or he was blatantly ignoring it. While Tatum was plenty flirtatious, it wasn't often she progressed past it — not to be a tease but simply because she was either rejected or simply not interested in taking it a step further. Instead of picking up on what she'd hoped he would have, he assured her that he could handle her. Not likely, Tatum thought with a snort that left her flared, black, leathery nostrils. So maybe she'd been intrigued as to if he'd see the challenge or shy away from it, but she didn't mean to let him get any. What did she look like? She wasn't any dude's bitch, and he would either learn it the easy way or the hard way. “I guess you didn't get what I was hinting at so let me make it perfectly clear,” Tatum told him, bearing her teeth when he began to circle her. 

“Unless your dick magically falls off, you're not getting anything from me,” There. That was pretty plainly put. “I only play for the same team, sorry dude.” She wasn't really sorry; and it wasn't exactly true. She could easily find males as attractive as females, both physically and intellectually. The ebony male that circled her was pretty to look at, but she didn't even know his name. She was all for harmless flirting: like with FitzDutiful — who knew where to draw the line. If Issun couldn't figure out where to draw the line she would have to draw it for him, consequences be damned. 

“I'm not a missy,” From a personal standpoint she was fine with 'lady', 'girl' or any variation that painted her as female except for 'missy'. There was something about that particular sobriquet that made Tatum hate it without having much rhyme or reason as to why. As to his suggestion that she couldn't handle it she remained silent. It wasn't a matter of could or could not, but she wasn't about to argue the point with him.

 He took a step back as she bared her teeth at him. "I'd like to keep it, thank you." He sat down and looked into her silvery eyes. Maybe he had taken it tok far, but he was a stupid teen. Curiousity always getting the best of him. But as much as his body told him to calm down, he couldn't. Her words where taken as a challenge to him.

 I'm not a missy.

 He grined. "Well shit. Of course not. But I don't know your name so I'll just have to call ya' missy for now." He didn't really care about her name. Well, maybe a little. But he had never really called anyone by their real names. He liked giving nicknames. "You can call me Issun."

Tatum watched with barely concealed satisfaction when he backed off, her physical 'back off' hint having obviously been caught. She could have taken it a step further and snapped her teeth together menacingly, but so long as he kept it in his pants she wouldn't have to add to the threat. Though the rebel had no qualms about tearing chunks of him out, if it were to come to that, she much more preferred that he back off before she had to make good on her threats. After all, they were pack mates, and Tatum held the doubt that FitzDutiful would be as chill as he was when they first met if she tore into this ebony male before her. Tatum was all for harmless fun but there was a clear line she drew, a line that she respected when others drew it and expected no less when applied to herself. “Just keep reminding yourself of that and you should be fine,” Tatum told him with a mischievous smile, her attitude receding like the ocean's tide. It wasn't personal … she just found her interests based more in a female lover than a male; but she had always had a particular weakness for the elegant curves and sylph-like women, even as a small child — before she'd understood sex in any sort of way.

“I'm called Tatum.” She offered, hoping that he would cease using the word 'missy', now that she'd given her name in return for his. Tatum hadn't been her name at birth, no Musette had been what her mother had called her, a nod to the musical tradition of her father's family; but Tatum had never felt like a musette. At least Tatum was unisex and worked more perfectly for her, being non-binary such as she was. Just because her parents had accepted what she was hadn't meant that the rest of Foxhound had (they hadn't); and thinking about it made unpleasant memories rise. Quickly she pushed them aside, focusing her gaze upon her companion once more. “You new here, too?” Tatum asked suddenly, desiring to distract herself from thoughts of Foxhound and her parents.