Sea Lion Shores cake by the ocean

Since the gathering beneath the ominous red moon Screech had been eager to encounter the group again. He didn't know where they had scattered off to, but he knew to keep to the coast; so he did the smart thing and retraced his steps. He followed the river north out of Ravensblood and then puttered along until the grass became gravel, and the gravel became sand, and then before long he was traipsing along the edge of the world - or so it felt.

Unfortunately for Scrteech, there were no signs of the Cortens. No bubbling laughter, no chance encounter with a reuniting family. It didn't help that he'd arrived on the opposite side of the river this time and headed south, but you can't blame him for trying. His sense of direction wasn't the best and it didn't help that he had only one eye to work with. So he wandered, he inspected the strange things across the coastline (seaweed, shattered shells, a large crab scuttling about with its pincers raised like fists against him), but soon the boy grew bitter. The thought that he'd ever find anything like that party again was more like a giant fucking pipe dream.

The pirate was scouting for a hunt. He had managed to gather enough wolves together that it was time they brought down a real treat of a meal, and he knew that winter had held a tight grasp on all of them. Sea lions were fatty and tough, but they provided enough to eat for several, and he could not have imagined a better feast for the crew. Still, they did not always roam the shores, and it had been a short while since the pale-coated young corsair had seen any in their typical hangout. Nevertheless, the hound had traveled there frequently in search. He knew it would not be long before there would be a small slew of them on the beach. As he had come up over the small sloping hills of the inland territory, Smokestep perched and watched with a disappointed gleam in his gaze.

It took a short while before the pirate had moved from his stance and had floated down toward the beach. Perhaps he had expected more, and the sea lions were not common to that area at all. He imagined that there was a chance that his meeting with Awinita and Wirt had been by complete accident. The thought frustrated him mildly, but he knew that he could return the next day for another chance. Lifting his gaze upward, the young pirate caught sight of an unfamiliar figure moving depressingly down the beach. Kingfisher watched the youth for a minute or two before enough distance allowed for him to bark a greeting.

“Ahoy there, lad!”

Screech was startled by the sound of a bark — it carried easily through the open expanse of the seaside, and was both louder and of stronger timbre than the rotund lions that basked nearby. He stopped abruptly and canted his head to try and locate the stranger; initially he tried to turn on the wrong side and of course, was met with a roaming blackness. He cursed softly at his own stupidity and fixed his good eye on the white blur. His eye focused and then, upon realizing this was a complete stranger and not a wolf from the Corten's party, narrowed.

A silence swept between them and it was during this moment Screech realized he should probably say something. Introduce himself or ask a question or... Something. He awkwardly clears his throat and says, Didja want somethin'? and mid-sentence shakes out the tension in his shoulders, his fur flying wildly across his scruff.

The unfamiliar boy seemed to regard Smokestep with a gaping hole of an eye before turning his head the appropriate way to peer at him with a sharp yellow-orange bite. The heterochromatic wolf blinked at the peculiarity for a few moments before he realized that the stranger had asked if he needed anything. The pirate then shook his head and cast a yellow-toothed smirk at the young fellow before moving around to peer at the missing optic with great interest and a lightly flagging tail.

“Well, no I did not,” he answered after a few moments of study. “But now that ye mention it, how'd ye get that great big hole in yer skull, lad?” the corsair then inquired with a slight cant of his crown. Smokestep did have a tendency to lack social graces, and had never really tried to be socially acceptable around other males. The Cairn males did not give way to any other, his father had told him, and so he carried that statement with him no matter who he happened to cross.

The question was a common one. It was the first thing everyone noticed and most of the time, the only thing on a person's mind when they encountered Screech. Granted he had not encountered many people since he'd been rescued by the wolves of Ravensblood.

He rolled his eye and made a show of looking off at the sea before he returned to watching the white wolf, at which point he said: Well it all started with this hawk my sister somehow tamed. I got jealous and thought, fuck I wish I had a bird like that! But I couldn't find anything as big or as cool. I did find a buncha gulls though. He couched the story in truth although it twisted his gut to think of Towhee or her damned bird, X. 'Course gulls are the rats of the sea. Sure you know all about that.

Screech glimpsed at a section of ocean where sea met sky, and watched as a couple of gulls swept about on the currents. I baited 'em with whatever I could find. Finally they started doin' what I wanted, but uh — I got greedy. Started skimmin' on their food. A trio of 'em got bold enough to attack me one day and ripped out my eye. Stupid shit birds — he resisted the urge to smirk at the thought of the Cerberus in bird form, but there was a shine of mirth in his remaining eye.

Smokestep listened to the story unravel by the stranger. He would – of course – respond with the appropriately timed 'aye,' and 'ye don't say,' as the conversation called for it, but otherwise remained perfectly silent until the one-eyed boy had concluded his massive tale. Once it had been concluded, the corsair looked to the ground as if he were composing himself after a wild undertaking. The pale brute was well versed in the art of what seagulls could take. He'd lost more than a good meal to them, even on good days. Still, he had never heard such a thing as the birds taking someone's eye. It took a great deal of force to remove the optic; he knew.

“Yer tellin' me, that a bunch o' gulls rioted against ye an' scooped out yer eye?” Smokestep asked the boy again with an incredulous look on his face. “Ye don't want to pick another beast?” he prompted, trying to give the lad a way out of the mountainous fib. Still, the seafarer looked as though he was completely baffled that anyone would conjure such a peculiar tale of fabrication and imagination. Either that, or the real story was far too awful for the young wolf to share. That was something that piqued his interest.

“Not even a bunch o' gulls... three? Only three, lad?”

The pirate had probably met squirrels who could accomplish more than the annoying flapping birds. They were good at getting grub, but they would also eat damn near anything, so he wasn't keen on believing that Screech had lost his eye to a trio of seagulls. Even if they had been starving to death.

Okay, so he was caught in his lie and would either have to agree, admit he was telling a half-cooked tale, or fabricate more details and hope it would be enough to satisfy this dude. Not that it mattered either way — it really didn't matter if this stranger believed him or not. A part of Screech felt some pride in his story so, maybe it was only that. He wanted to avoid mention of the real culprits and all the trauma associated and the easiest way, in his mind, was to tell a great big story.

Nah man, there were lots of them, a whole flock. But they got all pissy with me and a few were hecklin' me so much that they got some good shots in. Stabbed in the fuckin' face, and I had to scoop my own eye out once it had gone bad. He couldn't really turn green with illness right there, but there was a quality to Screech's voice as he remembered the pain caused by his eye's excavation and the tumutuous roll of his gut when he'd woken up to partial darkness. Just to be safe though he added, What do you know anyway, dude? Who the fuck are you?

Smokestep wasn't entirely sure why he was humoring this boy's story, but some part of him felt that he had taken a good amount of time to fabricate it, and it was worth helping him to solidify the feat. With the prompts, it seemed as though the story changed to something that seemed more reasonable, though still was not believable for the pirate. Nevertheless, he humored the one-eyed lad and nodded his head enthusiastically. It was not until the young scrap inquired as to who the pirate was that he took some great offense. Of course, the Cairn imagined that he should have been the most well-known across all of their territories at that point. He was, after all, building the most fierce and terrible crew they would ever see.

“Well, sink me, lad. Ye don't know who yer talkin' to?” the pirate asked, mocking offense. Smokestep was all about dramatics, of course, and so he puffed his chest up and peered at the other male with one eye squinted shut. This left a crimson orb to stare into the male's face with a glint of chaos in its depths. “Yer talkin' to the one an' only Captain Smokestep o' the Ironsea crew,” he introduced himself. “An' who'r ye?” the corsair then asked, roaming his vision up and down the other male's body with a disappointed expression.

Screech had met a few self-involved creatures in his day (himself chief among them), but never had he met anyone with such a ridiculously dramatic title such as Captain of the iron sea. The boy could not avoid feeling a little impressed, even envious, that he hadn't concocted a big name for himself since his arrival along the coast. He could've made something up on the spot right freakin' now, but it wasn't going to come anywhere close to that.

I'm Screech. Just Screech. I live in the forest 'tween the mountains. Followed the river out here to the beach. Maybe it was a bad idea to (more or less) give this guy directions to Constantine's land, but whatever. They were strong enough together, and while Screech didn't know Smokestep all that well, he figured the guy was too invested in himself to care about the budding pack.

A thought occurred to him though — Have you seen any big groups out here? Family-like? Maybe he would know if the Cortens were still here. I'm lookin' for someone but obviously I can only do half the job.

The dramatic nature that he had adopted certainly did not come from the teachings of his father. Skellige had been quite disappointed in the boy when he had discovered Smokestep's penchant for all things rogue and pirate-like. He had been fortunate enough to come upon a wandering band of corsairs when he had been younger, and they had shaped his life in ways that he never would have imagined. The dramatics had been a byproduct of such an experience. The young pirate was grateful that they had offered him a different way of life; he did not wish to turn into the iron claw that was his father's reign.

The strange young boy introduced himself as Screech. It seemed a fitting calling for such an imaginative lad, so Kingfisher bobbed his skull in response to the moniker. He then explained where he was stationed, and the pallid seafarer pointed his muzzle in the direction of the wood in reference. Brows furrowed slightly, he cast his gaze back to the wolf called Screech and opted for a thoughtful expression. “Aye, then. Hope it's a fittin' crew ye've got yerself wit,” he remarked.

It didn't take long before the boy asked for some information. Smokestep eyed him carefully as the question was presented; his expression remained the same. Screech was looking for a big family, then. While the pirate couldn't have cared less about whether or not the sad one-eyed thing found his kin, he was interested in the prospect of a group of wolves wandering about the coast. “Nay, lad. I've not seen the likes of 'em, but if ye give me a name I could keep two o' me eyes out fer 'em,” he said with a nasty jab at the other's disability. Still, if Screech was making jokes, Smokestep only assumed that he would be welcome to do the same.

Yet again he was at a disadvantage. When the seafarer asked him for names to go by, the boy just sort of.. Stared... For a moment. He hadn't really thought about the names of each individual from the party. What he did know was limited to begin with and it put a damper on things.

The family is uhh.. They're called the Cortens. I think. Nice going buddy, you sound like a great tracker right now. There was an older guy missing an eye, his mate - some of his kids - they were making a big deal about singin' and dancin', Okay, not helpful. If he'd been more mindful instead of a giant sad sack at the party, maybe he'd have remembered better. One of them is called Seelie? She's black and um, small, and... She's really um, really nice, and can dance - he felt his cheeks getting heated as he rambled and at this point Screech knew he had lost a bit of control of his tongue.

But he shut up, eventually.

The boy continued to talk about the family he was searching for, and Smokestep listened with erect ears atop an ivory crown. “There was an older guy missing an eye,” he had stated and the pirate crinkled his nose a bit with a small snicker. “Yer pa?” he inquired with a swish of his tail. “Like father like son, eh?” he then gestured toward the gaping hole in the other male's face with a swift motion of his dog. The more that he explained about the family, the more that Smokestep believed he wasn't part of the Corten wolves; Screech had painted a very different picture of himself in the first few moments of meeting him, and the corsair did not imagine that the one-eyed lad would be seen singing or dancing.

Then, his tone changed dramatically when speaking about a dark-furred woman. Smokestep became rather entranced with the idea of an inky she-wolf with such a beautiful nature. His smile curled and he narrowed both brows over his gaze. “Oi, right... I haven't seen the likes o' those folks, but I can keep both eyes out fer ya, lad,” he said. In reality, Smokestep did not imagine that he would ever share the prospect of a beautiful female with another man – certainly not one of his own crew.

Smokestep agreed to keep his eyes out for the Cortens, and so Screech had a thin hope that he might still find them. It was unlikely, more like impossible, but he was missing them. He missed Coelacanth most of all, already regretting his departure from her side.

But the other comment he had made - comparing the gray one-eyed man to a father - made him scoff softly. He didn't say anything, but it got him thinking about who his father really was; a topic Screech had never investigated before. He had always been happy with Raven, and by extention Finley and Elwood, although he didn't consider any of them to be father figures.

The closest thing he could think of (in this spur-of-the-moment spill of thoughts) was Rannoch; he felt the sting of homesickness suddenly, and had to hide a brief flash of cheerless want with a thin smile.

Thank you. Just uh, call me if you see them? Yeah? He didn't have to help, and maybe in the long run he wouldn't, but Screech was appreciative. I best be going - there's more beach to comb, and he wanted to be alone with his new thoughts.

The one-eyed fellow seemed to grow a bit distance and Smokestep wondered if he had worn his welcome thin. There was a large portion of him that did not care much about the feelings of the other wolf, for he was not certain that he needed friends from other packs to begin his settlement. Still, Screech mentioned that he would have appreciated a howl or notice if Smokestep happened across the Corten wolves or the one called Seelie. The pale corsair nodded his head and then bid the other goodbye with a swift flag of his tail in one direction. After Screech had departed, Smokestep wandered down the stretch of beach in search of further recruits. His mind trailed to the prospect of an inky young female with sea colored eyes and he danced with giddiness as he sauntered away from their meeting place.