She leapt not to kill, but to study. To learn. However, as the next winter-bird flurried into the skies, the frosted sands whirled about the brana who landed just out of reach. The vëa may have found some peace today, and for that, she held envy for it; it had all mannerism and pretense to acquire what it needed; it could rage or calm when it wished. All of this, of its own accord and especially not out of politeness for the whims of others.

In a way, the sea was also like a mother, she was coming to learn. A mother who threw briney tantrums. A mother who could birth, could give, could feed the children of its shores—and just easily take it back.

Heavens... if only it were the same with the winged. A bit more than winded, Aure’s breath stuttered as she languidly cast herself back into the sands, pillowed along the fronds smattered among the ridges and rises. Neck bared to the morning, her eyes fluttered closed with a soft grumble.

She’d try again. Later.

Her own voice came languidly, tinged with a foreignness and undoubtedly vexed, ”Then teach me, dearest kru, so I may ascend to be as unparalleled as they.” With that, the pale she-wolf’s head snapped up, wringing sand and salt from her snowy ruff before fixing the feispera with a bemused gaze. Lashes narrowed just as his own had, but the soft, cheeky curl of her lips said otherwise; the red hurts that spiderwebbed along her façade said otherwise still.

Feathering her tail along draped hinds, she leaned forward in admiration—both parts mocking and genuine. ”You are champion at this, are you not?” Slim brows lifted imploringly, mouth parting in a little ’o’ of intrigue as her gaze bored brassily into the cornflower-topaz of the creamed one. 

Her attitude, the suddenness of it all, was usually jarring to most who didn’t know her, much less meet her. If it had to be explained with the male before her, it was less of a challenge, and more of a plea for tutelage. ...Of course, to him, to others, it may have seemed the other way around entirely. In the meantime, the hare of a she-wolf watched him expectantly, utterly impish—to bite at her with words, or a bird.

As it was, Aure didn’t have the slightest inkling who she spoke to—his rank, his name, none of it. Plainly put, her regarding of him had been on sprightly basis alone. So when he affirmed it for her, her eyes widened incrementally, her slim brows curving in gullibility.

”Really?” It was with a sudden calm and quiet that she leaned back, taking the image of the male before her more carefully. Her pale eyes roamed, favoring the thickset and lean of him; but her speculation was anything but inviting, more-so curious and considering.

Bringing her gaze back up to him, she inquired, ”Would it be terrible of me to ask you to teach me? Something as easy as pup’s play,” adding, lip curling, elvish, ”unless you’d rather peck my eyes out instead?”

The kru most certainly get nowhere with mere, unreciprocated banter, so she instead tried, ”I meant it, though. Not ze pecking, huh, but ze teaching. What if birds are all there are to hunt one day, and exemplary catchers such as yourself have been low and few?”