Ankyra Sound the cloth i'm cut from don't take too kindly to being held down in restraint

my tags never work, sorry!

Like a delinquent schoolboy Lusca was dragged by the collar––heels towing ruts in the soil––back to the grotto by the pale-knuckled fist of her capturer. Caiaphas was bound and determined to keep Lusca firmly in place on the strand, and to what end or for what reason she could not surmise. She was not assigned to any tasks, she did not possess any esoteric talents that made her a valuable asset to the pack, nor did she provide for them in any meaningful way. So what purpose did she serve the Sea Witch? Potentially none. Potentially more than she thought. Maybe this was all for sport; a foxhunt in which her role was that of the vixen running scared from the bay of coursing hounds.

Contrarily, the wraith spent long stretches of day slinking the coast, avoiding the peeled eyes of wardens and throwing her voice morosely for the ears of her pale suitor. She was at her most productive when scratching around for food that did not find sanctuary in the sea. "Contributing member of the community" was not her make or model. 

Casting her sights about, she took stock of her dawnlit surroundings before breaking into a jog-trot across the littoral. 

The shape of the dark female stood out against the pebbly shore, as vividly as her own rich brown coat did. This female was darker, more along the lines of ebony. She vaguely recognized her from the chase they went on briefly after her induction into the pack. 

She had not formerly been introduced to the girl, nor had she gotten to know her as of yet. It was high time she began meeting her pack members she decided as she rose to follow after the larger woman. 

She trotted alongside the woman, barking softly to greet her. Her eyes moved sideways, raking over the female she had been ordered to keep an eye on.

The chuff drew her ears and Lusca stopped short, withdrawing from the seal brown woman with mistrust aglow in her gaze. Having never met this wolf, and presuming her approach had been at the behest of Caiaphas, Lusca felt the need to elucidate her lack of misbehavior, ears pulling sidewise. "I'm not doing anything wrong." 

Her brows furrowed, she hadn't reprimanded the dark female. Rank mattered not to her, they were both people. She cared not if this woman was Omega or Alpha, she treated all with the same kindness. 

"I'm not here to hurt you or guard you. I'm here to formall meet you," she reassured, stance neutral towards the woman.

The hackles of learned defensiveness remained flared. Lusca was reluctant to invest trust in any wolf who voluntarily integrated into Saltwinter; thereby sustaining it, giving Caiaphas more clout and a stronger whiphand used to cast her javelin of royal bitchiness. She wasn't buying it. "I'd argue that formal meetings are the gateway drug to formal beatings." Lusca said, eying the female in anticipation of her reaction. 

She felt pity for the woman who had, under assumption, been beaten before. It might have even been by the hands of her pack mates. Rayen had never been one to hurt any of her pack mates or to pit herself against them, she didn't have any plans to hurt the female.

She hid her emotions beneath her usual unassuming, serene facial expression. "I've never formally beaten anyone, I don't plan to start now either. Trust me or not it makes little difference to me. I thought we could get to know each other, we are pack mates. If you wish for me to leave you be then say the word and I will go," she told the other woman sincerely.

"No," she blurted, hoisting her chin far above and scanning the treeline for prying eyes. "Maybe if you walk with me they'll leave me alone." The leery imprint in her gaze receded. Lusca hauled forward, an inviting sweep of her muzzle encouraging Rayen to keep abreast. "We shouldn't idle here." 

The question of who may be watching remained on the edge of her lips, balancing on the point of a knife in the prison that was her mouth. She had a feeling that she was only being used as a means to be left alone from the other members of her pack who might bother this other woman.

She nodded anyways and padded after the woman. "My name's Rayen," she offered though the other had not asked. "Who might you be?" She glanced over at the other with warm honey colored eyes that held only curiosioty, no malicious intent.

"Lusca." She said curtly, walking alongside Rayen but often looking over her shoulder with paranoia evident in her tense comport. They continued in silence for a bit, until Lusca couldn't bite her tongue any longer and she turned to face the chocolate woman directly. "You don't seem like an asshole, so why did you decide to group up with a bunch of them?"

Rayen held no offense for the women's words, she wasn't so deluded as to think that she was irrevocably loyal to the Alpha woman, who's name she couldn't begin to prounounce, or Saltwinter. In time perhaps, but not at the moment seeing as she hardly knew her pack mates. She wasn't about to cause any trouble either or do anything to get thrown out.

She raised a brow,"You've only just met me, could be I'm a special kind of asshole that just comes out on rare occasions. And I don't personally know the wolves here, I'm just here to survive. I didn't care what they were like when I stumbled on them, I just knew it was a place I could find food to put in my belly and a roof over my head. Why are you here?" 

It was more than she had spoken in a long time, her thick accent marring the words slightly in her lilting, high pitched voice. Her honey eyes locked on the woman, questioning Lusca's own reasons for being there.

As the other explained herself, even going as far as to defend her potential lack of assholery, Lusca schlepped along, sighing her words. "I think that's called 'being normal'." She turned her muzzle sharply. "Like... there's kitschy bitchy. Then there's Caiaphas who is, like, plain bitchy? Always?" She worked her brow into a puzzled furrow, contemplating her word choice. Plain bitchy just seemed too... magnanimous, for the woman's description. 

Why are you here? For a moment, Lusca considered utilizing one of those "honest bones" often spoken fondly of. Unfortunately, she was in possession of a body that hadn't stocked one of the things––which was, come to think of it, probably the reason she scored it off the discount rack. 

Avoiding Rayen's intent gaze, she looked off towards the ocean with a vaguely resentful squint. "I just love the beach, and the sea is great, and the vast array of dietary options––crab, crab, crab... I don't need to be led to temptation, I can find it myself, haha y'know." She blabbed, casting another suspicious look over their backs. Her eyes trailed back, following along the woman's petite frame as they walked, and Lusca noted with private envy that the fresh recruit hadn't been custom fit for her Saltwinter ensemble yet. She didn't carry a bony frame, nor did she look particularly starved (though she spoke of joining with the expectation of readily available food, which was amusing). "Looks like you're used to more than just shellfish though."  

She laughed at the girl's explanation of Caiaphas, wondering who Kitschy bitchy was. She knew of none amongst the pack with the name but she hadn't yet met them all. She would decide in time who she liked here, Lusca being one she had taken a liking to.

"I'm probably wrong about the food, but I was tired of being alone," she shrugged, having guessed that food was scarce here in Saltwinter based on the bony, malnourished frames of those around her. "I've survived on less than you have here." Rayen had resorted to an omnivorous diet when need have it, the sea fare here was plentiful based on some places she had lived.