Oystercatcher Tide Pools and the devil makes three

They loped along beneath the overcast sky, half a day's distance from the ruffians whose teeth had left his snout flecked with red.

So yer tellin' me ye 'aven't 'eard of us afore? He questioned with a glance over his shoulder, speaking in a raspy slur with an uncanny lilt. The Black Tails? The cutthroats o' the coast? Fiercest and foulest around? He was nonplussed, but nothing about her face suggested she was lying. Tellin' me that I went an' dirtied me tail for nothin'? Badtooth as she knew him, waved his mud-blackened appendage—an apparently meaningless banner along these foreign shores. The castaway considered the implications of that with a grunt as he turned his eyes ahead and surveyed the stretch of tide pools.

From this distance the gulls were little more than pale stones, but their murmuring and squawking was unmistakable. Layered with the crash of waves and the breeze that rolled in with them, it was the music of the sea. To the keener ear, an underlying buzz of excitement was also a dinner bell.

Badtooth drew to a pause. Well. Not all fer nothin' I suppose. It scared that scrawny one off quick 'n yer all the way out 'ere now, aye? The Corsair reputation may not have preceded him, but that hadn't stopped him from coming away with the prize—one @Winterfinch.

Finch kept her eyes on the sky while her companion nattered on, giving him only a cursory glance when he tossed his head back over his shoulder. Not for the first time, she wondered if she had simply jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Tender bruises beneath her pale fur told a tale of what Mullins was capable of, but at least she knew that monster. She knew ways to play him, even if the opportunity rarely presented itself.

Badtooth, though... She followed because she had nowhere else to go, and he had risked his life to save hers, for reasons well beyond her comprehension. Finch wasn't naive; she knew there were always ulterior motives, and she suspected he had a few of his own. Time would tell whether he was better or worse than Mullins. At least Mullins was a coward. Badtooth certainly was not.

Yep, she replied, chancing another glance at the man. He was, at best, a few lean days away from skeletal, which gave the impression of weakness, but Finch knew better. It hinted at occasional desperation, and desperation was, perhaps, the most dangerous thing about any wolf.

It sounds a lot like y'just made that whole thing up. Maybe she was sticking her paw in a barracuda's jaws with even a passing attempt at poking fun, but she came from Mullins' crew. She could take a lot, if Badtooth turned aggressive. To impress ladies, she suggested with a sly, toothsome grin, since yer obviously missin' the physical appeal.

Gulls shrieked, and she thought, also not for the first time, about Badtooth's vague resemblance to those nuisances.

Huh. His jaw slackened and his expression opened as he feigned shock. The thanks I get fer savin' yer hide. Badtooth shook his head. Slowly—for emphasis. Besides. Bit unfair ain't ye? I think I be kind o' handsome fer a half-drowned rat. Me mother always said so anyway. Upon saying this, the white wolf clicked his tongue and winked.

But beneath the jest he was impressed with his travelling companion. His masquerade had at least been convincing enough to sow unease in the worm-eaten brains of her captors and send one fleeing at the start, and there were none more feared than he and his kin from whence he came. Winterfinch, however saw it for what it was. And it was just as well—the Corsair had already taken a liking to her and was relieved to drop the ruse.

His breath sighed through his nose. Seeing as you're not a believe in Badtooth the biter of sharks! The bandit of mothers and meals! The brazen! The... bad... well, you might as well call me Rex, then. His heretofore accent was gone. I have a lot of fun messing with wolves' heads with that whole act and it served me and mine well, but it's a wee bit exhausting to keep up. It's not all lies though. There's some truth in it.

You know that saying, Finch quipped back, meeting the buccaneer's gaze steadily for a moment before flashing her teeth in a cruel grin, about faces only mommy could love. He did look a little like a rat, she decided, with that one tooth protruding over his lower lip. At least it wasn't as yellow as a rat's teeth.

These were just jokes, of course. He wasn't the ugliest mug she'd seen, not by a long shot. He needed a meal or twenty, but aside from looking a little unhealthy, he wasn't hard on the eyes. Really, she wasn't ungrateful to Badtooth for helping her out of her predicament with Mullins. Quite the opposite; she supposed she was also following him now because she was at a loss how to repay him, and idle banter was easier than talking about what happened back there, how she ended up in that whole mess.

Or why he got involved. What he wanted with her. Whether he was as much a ruffian as those other crude, shit-for-brains pirates.

Finch was about to get an answer to at least one of those questions. A flat cast gradually blanked out her expression as "Badtooth" went on, only to drop his accent completely and give himself a new name. By the time he finished talking, her entire expression might as well have been W T F painted in large, yellow lettering across her soft grey forehead.

Her steps faltered in tandem with her changing expression until she stopped dead in the sand and asked, so, what, you just play pretend pirate like it's some... Some game to you? It wasn't a game to her. Granted, Winterfinch wasn't exactly a pirate by choice. Once, she lived in a resplendent valley of windsingers and greenweavers. But her time with pirates was no game. Mullins was no storybook villain, for all his cowardice, and she didn't know what to make of this... Rex, was it? Making light of it all for, what, his amusement?

Rex slowed to a stop a few paces ahead, angling himself toward Winterfinch. Her offense was not lost on him, and neither was the judgement he saw eddying in the sea of her eyes. But he was unbothered; nonchalant even as he considered the possible misfortune that she might decide to part ways. He bore a small, lopsided smile as his tail idled back and forth about his heels.

I'm a Corsair, he explained. My crew and me — we're just not as nasty and mad as we like for others to believe. Where I'm from it's the Red Tails you need to be wary of. Real terrible bunch, them. But they and just about anyone else will think twice before coming to pillage and plunder if they fear you or don't think you'd be an easy target.

His gaze remained with his silvery companion, but he straightened some and bobbed his snout, inviting her back to his shoulder and the path ahead.

The world is too often a cruel, cold, and ugly place. I just figure you might as well have fun and enjoy what you can of it.

Winterfinch brought her paws to a halt in tandem with him, waiting with some unnameable mixture of feelings for his explanation. It wasn't like she was in love with the guy—she barely knew him, and he was still a pirate, and she still had to consider the possibility he was just as bad as Mullins in another way, of course—but he saved her life. She was grateful for it, and possibly halfway hopeful he would prove to be a decent friend. Finch couldn't remember the last time she had one of those.

But a friendship built first and foremost on a lie was destined to fall apart, and she felt a sinking disappointment in her breast when he revealed the truth now, and not sooner. They'd been together at least a few days, hadn't they? Maybe not... Truth be told, the days were all blending together for Winterfinch since escaping.

So you fake being a pirate so others think twice 'bout messing with you, she summarized. Honestly, it wasn't a bad idea. It wasn't an egregious crime, either. Finch just didn't know what to think about the act; it sat weirdly in her stomach, somewhere between offensive and clever. Why carry on with it once we were away from them, then?

She watched him carefully, now, trying to get a bead on whether he was simply toying with her.