Ankyra Sound, for the most part, was unexplored by the wastrel -- and today, of all days, she had elected to pursue familiarizing herself with every niche and corner it had to offer.

For the most part, the sound was replete with things all bays and salt-water corridors were endowed with; brine, marsh, raucous callings of birds. The occasional sideways scuttle of some disturbed and irate crab. Even the occasional flotsam expelled from the heaving spume held little anomaly or interest to the dark-helmeted poltroon. But the sound did have something no other sound did - her 'kin' -- and somewhat reluctantly, she set out to meet them.

She had already met the scarce few that habituated the sound -- and while she knew most from passing glance and could scry a name to a face, by and large the small populace was foreign to her. She was slightly allayed then when she saw Junior pace the shoreline -- in a way, Caiaphas was relieved of her investigating -- and with a stringy trot she set out towards the dark youth. She noted that the female seemed to be testing the wind -- wind of which Caiaphas was most unhappy to admit had a sharpness to it she remembered all too clearly. With a sigh to announce she was close, she stepped towards her -- an almost rueful smile besieging her muzzle.

"Fancy seeing you here." She ventured slyly, as if the cards had been flipped and it was not Junior who had led her here but someone else. She was not sure how the youth would take her advancement -- or if she would even appreciate the dry humor behind it -- and complacently, the girl stared somewhat dully at the brisk and choppy sea until Junior replied.

Out of the corner of her eyes she watched Junior wade the biting water -- much like the dark furred female, Caiaphas had no interest in letting the algid water overtake her -- and unlike Junior. Caiaphas was not brave enough to sacrifice the comfort of her toes in the froth-frought shallows.

Junior wheeled quite quickly, and Caiaphas' eyes fell full upon her, though there remained no sense of challenge or cheekiness in her gaze. Sulkily she noticed the cutting apathy in her words. Hyperborean in the same manner as the grey spume. She shifted, gaze adverting.

"Do you not want company?"

Slyly, the coywolf watched, breath half abaited to see if her charade had worked. Junior's resolve seemed to slightly dissipate -- and while she answered quite coldly, she had not given Caiaphas an outright dismissal. Her tone seemed even, and Caiaphas wondered for a moment if she was sincere in her admittance.

Junior then pivoted to face her, and Caiaphas stifled the urge to stiffen, though her slender muzzle straightened slightly as she studiously watched the female in a somewhat suspicious manner.

"We all have choices. Well, I guess not if you're a consort." She added with an unruly giggle, her wicked little eyes focused on the frigid strand. "What have you been up to?" As unbalanced as she was, she was genuine in her question -- and admittedly, did not mind the company of the younger wolf.

The shrewd creature watched Junior as she responded, perhaps inadvertently, to Caiaphas' digging comment -- a reaction that was in itself quite revealing. Caiaphas, true to her restive self, instantly latched onto that quiet struggle -- her eyes hard and sharp as she assessed the dark wolf. She often did things like this -- read the inadvertent body language of her peers so she could best figure out how to disarm them and make them feel like she was a comrade and not an outcast.

"Oh, much the same as you. Traveling, exploring." She answered airily, though she leaned closer as she devised how to calculatingly place her deliberate charge. "I have to say, it takes some getting used to." She frowned, diligent to charade she was playing -- and the way she knit her brow was quite convincing.

"I just keep forgetting that males aren't our equals.. Why, the other day Atlas followed me to these islands to protect me! It was so... strange." She finished with a fretful expression, though inwardly the devious coywolf wondered if Junior would take the bait.

The female grew silent as Junior proffered a quick and repudiating reply. Her rawboned muzzle drew back in a silent frown, her gaze falling somewhere ambiguous and purposeless.

It occurred to her that their age, as close as it was, provided the two of them with a sense of competition. Even if she were to engage in the sense of contention, it was painfully aware to her that she lacked the loyalty and solicitude that Junior had. She smiled in reply, and said nothing.

The conversation switched back to the consorts, and this was an exchange in which the flippant coywolf felt comfortable partaking in. "Nah." She said, her tone without malice. "They stay here because they know of no other way. This makes them either stupid or complacent." Though, in her opinion, the two traits were often parallel and if one was demonstrated, it was likely the other was too.

"Me neither. But that's because I'm smarter." She said dismissively -- a statement that to some was debatable.

As Junior stared out to see Caiaphas wondered to, what their obliging nature made them. Clay? Spineless males, eunichs - jellyfish without ambition or clause? She shrugged her shoulders indifferently - what they were or if they were brainwashed meant little to her.

"No, I don't think so. They are capable of thoughts, and capable of drawing up their own actions. They just choose not to." Unlike Junior, Caiaphas did not worry about the males not knowing better -- it did not bother her at all. They were fed and housed and treated, for the most part, decently.

As far as Caiaphas thought, it could be worse.

The youth's reluctance to look at Caiaphas directly, coupled with the sudden change of topic, made the female suspicious. She said nothing to placate the sudden tension she felt -- and no sooner had her tongue wrought forth small and un-uttered words did the dark youth spin on her heels and trot off down the sound.

Somewhat offput by this (and highly offended one would elect to quit her lovely company) Caiaphas rolled her shoulders and threw back her head in a gurgling howl -- a howl which struck clearly a note of possession -- and eagerly she flicked an ear to hear the rejoin of any nearby packmates before she too trotted down the strand after Junior, her head bent to tend to scents and mark here and there the stamp of the Nereides.