Ankyra Sound that good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed

The small wolf returned to the scent-marked timberline, carrying her humble offerings daintily between her teeth. She had a fresh caught mackerel and a long sliver of smooth crimson sea glass. Her pale seafoam eyes were brimming with excitement and her tail swished merrily behind her. This was it. This is what she had left home to do.

She was confident but she could feel her heart thump to a quicker rhythm as she prepared to hail the denizens of the stately forest. "Okay," she breathed, stooping to carefully lay her gifts in front of her delicate paws. She arranged them so that the deep red glass was balanced neatly across the fish in an X shape. Reef took a moment to appraise her work with a cant of her head, and then shuffled back a step and sat down.

Tilting her slim head back, the flaxen girl howled a melodic greeting, and then waited with baited breath and cupped ears for a reply, or for someone to come say hello.

ingram had been rousing along a rotten root for mushrooms (for wylla, naturally -- he found their aroma and taste positively nauseating) when a call filtered through the forest. it was a light and gentle song, and reminded him in a way of a birdsong. he pulled from the entangled mess and made for the borders at a ground-covering clip.

there was a wolf attending the borders, but the way she stood drew his vision to the ground naturally -- as if she were standing over something and protecting it. on the thin rags of snow there was the corpse of a fish, with a strange translucent stone placed carefully atop it. ingram's gaze shifted from the supplication to the wolf, who reminded him in many ways of the southern shores; a soft seagoing tan and cream, with white-capped tips. she painted a pretty picture, but she was still feet away from his home -- instinctively his tail went up and he raised his muzzle above hers, indicating she was too close for comfort despite the offering she brought. "need something?" he asked, trying to adopt wylla's unwelcome inflection but failing at mastering it.

She was not waiting for long. Reef forgot that she intended to sit politely and calmly and lifted to her feet, fanning her tail amiably as a dark figure emerged from the trees. "Hi!" She chirped, bubbling with her enthusiasm.

"Need something?"

"Yes!" she answered at first. "I mean — no! I mean—" Reef caught herself and cleared her throat. Her excitement was getting the better of her and she took a moment to center herself with a deep breath. Her effort to recompose was aided immensely by the black wolf's roguish aesthetic, and his stance of authority. She figured him a leader.  

"I want something." She clarified with her shimmering gaze laid upon his toes. "I want to join. I brought you a fish and this pretty thing as my promise to contribute." Reef lowered herself and rolled gracefully onto her back, folding her slim ankles over her chest and tucking her wiggling tail between her haunches.

"My name is Reef!" She smiled.

as he closed the distance between them and she spotted him her posture shifted from prim to excitable. ingram watched wryly, noting the happy fan of her tail and the brimming enthusiasm that bubbled from her slender frame. if they were not in the grim halls of his home, he might have been much more receptive (and even interested in interacting) of her presence.

she shifted her speech often, halting and jostling each word, rapidly changing her thought pattern in a manner that suggested to ingram while her intentions were good she approached at too scattered an angle. he tilted his head to the side, rotating his ears to the side as he considered her words.

she mentioned the bundle at her feet and he looked at it again, his expression nonplussed. wylla would not just accept this -- lycaon might have, but he knew wylla would have said 'so?'. he did not want to puncture the wolf's enthusiastic bubble with his sister's wickedly-equipped barbed humor, so he tried a more tactful approach that met in the middle of 'WWWD?" (What Would Wylla Do?) and pleasing his own selfish desires, which were obviously to let the pretty girl in.

"that's nice, but we don't need stones. and this is a family pack." he knew the bad news would probably cause her bright features to cloud, and felt bad for it for all of a second. "if you want to be allowed in you have to do something for us."

Reef was not so easily discouraged. She might have been if she had been turned away for offering the wrong items in her well-meaning gesture without a chance to prove herself otherwise, but the swarthy male opened a window when he closed the door. The fair girl, known for her optimism and strong spirit, latched on to that and never wavered in her enthusiasm.

"Sure! I understand." She remained as she was, with her belly exposed to the blue skies overhead and her forepaws curled against her chest. It was more than simple submission and proper deference — if she wanted him to trust her then she believed she had to trust him first. "Tell me what I can do!"

it pained ingram to be so stern, but it was for wylla and his family. plus, he had no interest in interacting with the business end of wylla's teeth, which he was certain to get if he came traipsing back home with a vagrant every time one showed at their borders. especially one as soft-featured as reef, who ingram knew immediately wylla would take a disliking to simply by principle of her attractive features.

on that matter, would chusi like it if he was nice to another girl? probably not. he stiffened, eyeing reef's prone form with a newly donned sense of austerity. her display was appropriate given her station and the acceptance she entreated, but if he said to wylla "b-but she exposed her belly!!" wylla would probably just accuse her of looking at her boobs (all eight of them).

"um." she had taken to his proposal surprisingly easily. if ingram was a little more deviant minded, he would have given her a very smarmy wink and thought of many terrible things -- but he was like sixteen, so, he wasn't there yet. oh! the mushrooms he had been collecting. he looked about them furtively. wylla would flay him alive if he let reef in to hunt with him.. it was tempting, but the girl would need to go somewhere else for her scavenger hunt. "stay here." he instructed, turning then and trotting off behind the trees. it was several minutes before he reappeared again, a single slender mushroom stalk clutched between his jaws. "these are the favored mushrooms of wylla.. the alpha. if you can collect as much of them as you can, and come back in a few days and howl for her she might let you in." she might bite you too, though ingram thought, but didn't mention.

"Okay!" She replied.

Reef did as she was asked and never moved except to roll on to her stomach and cross her forelegs while she waited, believing that she had demonstrated her trust and compliance to his satisfaction. She smiled so much her cheeks hurt, and she hummed a quiet melody in anticipation of his return and of the task she would be given. She was eager to please and eager to show him that she could be counted on.

When the rogue returned, she lowered her jaw on to her forelimbs and skimmed back her slim ears. Her seafoam eyes went to the mushroom he carried and she committed the memory the slim stalk and the small bulb at its end. "I can do that!" She affirmed. She stood, mindful not to raise her head and to keep her posture crouched and deferential, with her tail sweeping across her hocks in joyous wags. "Wylla will need a whole cache to hold them all in. Thanks!" Reef started to pivot to go about her mission but she paused midway.

"Oh... can I have your name?" She asked.

ingram couldn't help but admire her willingness - if someone told him he needed to do something for them, he would have told them to fuck right off. it was probably good the roles were reversed in this particular scenario, otherwise ingram would have starved to death a long time ago.

the girl made to leave, but paused. she cast her sunny face behind her and inquired his name. he did not see the harm in giving it, especially not if she was going to come back. "it's ingram. and this is grimnismal." she could do with that information whatever she wanted -- be it return with a mouthful of mushrooms, or fade from memory as another nameless face entreating harbor on their cold shores.

"Ingram," she parroted softly with a smile. She cataloged the name of the pack too — Grimnismal — though she did not repeat it back. "Okay, I am going to go look for these mushrooms now. Thanks again!" Reef bid him farewell with a dip of her head and a wolfish sort of curtsy by leaning forward on her front paws. Then she chirped a friendly "bye!" over her shoulder as she frolicked toward the coast to start her search.

She heard the call and made toward the edge of the forest where the summons had come from. There was laziness in her stride as she meandered through the trees, figuring she would test the patience of their latest visitor before moving in to intercept them. By the time she caught sight of them, however, one of her comrades had already arrived and figured out whatever the stranger wanted before sending them on their way to complete a task. Nyx noted with amusement that the unknown wolfess' response seemed to be a cheerful one, and her stride away from the sound held an optimistic bounce.

The golden Ostrega rumbled fondly to Ingram, and eased to a halt alongside him to observe the sandy female's retreating form. "Can't resist a pretty face," she rose her brow suggestively as she turned her proud head to look playfully at the dark features of her pack-mate, "can you? Shall I prepare a banquet for her return?"

she was so dapper - ingram watched, somewhat mystified still, as the girl strode away with ebullience on her heels. what he would do to be that cheerful again, he couldn't say.

his ear slid back of its own accord as the tread of another wolf sounded out behind him; for a moment he half expected to spin around and have to forcibly remove the girl -- instead, his gaze fell on the golden-hued features of a packmate. he apprised nyx with a wry smile, returning her suggestive taunt with a wide grin. "can you blame me? i'm a sucker for a pretty face." he joked, nudging his comrade with a gentle slant of his shoulder. "besides, isn't that how you got in?" cue innocent blinking and a humorous upturn of his lips. while he thought no wolf was as pretty as chusi, he was not going to lie -- he certainly favored the ladies.

Ingram regarded her with his usual tone, feeding her mischievous nature by expressing his own. Nyx' smile matched his: a wide, Cheshire cat grin that revealed an impressive set of pristine fangs. She parted them when he bumped his shoulder to her own, clacking her teeth shut in the general area of his swarthy cheek - his first playful warning.

"Puh-lease," the tawny Ostrega snorted in feigned outrage at his comment, then laughed out loud, "we both know that you couldn't resist my excellent banter - this face was just a bonus!" She was not special, or even pretty, and nor did she want to be. She was simply Nyx, and she always played along.

his nudge was met with a clack of teeth - he exaggeratedly pulled away, a feigned expression of wounded surprise on his lips. "whoa!" he exclaimed playfully, his tail wagging as he trounced away from her feisty business end. he had no plans of falling prey to those pearly whites -- besides, he would hate to dull their pristine surface with his scraggly hide. "it's nice to have a face as equally good looking as mine around." ingram conceded with a joking grin.

he scouted ahead a moment just to make sure reef was really gone. her prints led far away from grimnismal, and content she had gone to uphold her word he swung back towards nyx in a lofty trot. for a moment it looked as if he would bowl straight into her -- strides before contact he altered his trajectory and issued a drive-by nip at a front leg before careening past her. "last one to the grotto is a hangry wylla!" he announced, turning his canter into a mach speed gallop as he pounded helter-skelter through the woods.

Fading this.  :)

The pair loped around one another, Nyx following Ingram close with bared fangs in silent threat to nip at him again should she find herself close enough, but he always remained just out of her reach. Her feathery tail lashed merrily through the air at her hindquarters and she followed her dark-furred comrade without hesitation as he veered away across their invisible border.

The energy they shared settled as they ventured with new purpose: Ingram made certain that their potential new pack-mate had indeed gone on her way, while the tawny Ostrega wondered what his next trick might be as she trailed several yards behind him. She paused when he turned on his heels and began toward her again, his stride seedy enough to alarm her, and she braced herself for impact.

She yipped in surprise when Ingram did not barrel into her, but instead ducked his head enough that his teeth met with her upper forelimb. She jumped back, rearing up onto her hinds to bat at him with bore forepaws, but her claws merely raked the dark fur of his hindquarters as he darted past her and deeper into Grimnismal territory with a playful beckon.

Huffing through her nostrils, the raven-tipped Ostrega swung toward him with a determined growl and thundered along her companion's trail with determination in her stride.