The Sentinels Oh won't you come with me,

Umbra was growing obviously skinnier, and weaker as the day go by. She could feel her leg slowly mending better, but was far from officially healing. She could not put any pressure on it, and limped around the area, scavenging for food, and sad attempts at fishing. Over the coarse of a few days she learned a few techniques.. One being, throwing some plants into the water and watch the fish squirm toward. 

Though it was difficult, because she could not go far into the waters. The best she could do was remain by a stream, hoping her dark paws could reach far enough to paw them out. The seafang wouldn't stand around and watch herself slowly disappear-

but she couldn't do anything. Only Sunhawk could help her, and so did the medic that came around. 

Too many favors, so little she could do.

yunxu can't say for sure whether aimi has come this way. all he can say is that the bay is empty, as was the path from neverwinter forest to the coast. he can't imagine her leaving the sea without a reason.

aimi doesn't have his...temper. but neither does she avoid conflict, and if she's met some of the people he has – 

that's another thing he'd rather not consider.

for a time, he follows the line of the cliff, the waves crashing below. without the storms of the past month, the water rolls off to the horizon, and seabirds wheel in the clear sky above.

the walk might have been called peaceful, but it doesn't last. he noses through a tangle of burnt wood, muzzle wrinkling at the ash now clinging stubbornly to his coat, and catches sight of a figure ahead. for a moment, he thinks it might be her. but aimi's coat is sand and seafoam, not thundercloud black, and – 

oh no.

yunxu freezes, delicately setting his paw back to the ground. there appear to be no others here, though his search is rather hasty. sticking around when there is no one else here to draw her ire seems rather a poor move, not one he's keen to make.

the young seawolf turns on his heel, tail tucking along his leg, and something cracks under the weight of his foot.

he flinches. shit.

Startled, the kraken lifted her head and looked around with a calm expression. She thought perhaps it was Sunhawk, or even Wraen that was supposedly in the area. Though instead, while a familiar sight, it was not one Umbra wished to see ever again. Her white, stormy eyes glared at the black figure, and a scowl rising with a snarl to her maw.

"You," she hissed out with pure disdain. While it may not have been his fault Sunhawk fell to the cliff, as her memories were faint on the battle.. Umbra blames him. If he wasn't there to be between the fight with the gray-priest, the seafang felt confident she would've won. Then this, her leg? It all came together, as those two wolves were in the same area.

"Why are you here?" Except the kraken needed to be careful. Her leg was away from his vision, and she kept it was still as possible. Umbra couldn't let it be known how weakned she was.

for a moment, yunxu considers running. his shoulder has healed by now. it wouldn't be hard. but despite the startled pulse in his throat he turns at her hiss, ears flicking back even as he draws himself upright. he keeps his gaze averted from her own.

his eyes flicker as he looks the kraken up and down. there is the temptation to ask about his sister, but yunxu can't think of anyone he'd like to reveal that information to less. there's one thing that lingers and keeps him in place: the blood in his mouth and the cliff crumbling away, a gleam of suntouched gold in the rain and a streak of storm-black in pursuit, vanishing together into open air.

he curbs the instinctive retort that rises on his tongue. "i am not here for trouble," he says, measuring his words carefully. with the memory of the cliff comes the memory of the blind fury that had taken him, and he's not eager for a repeat. as long as there's no one else intending a fight, he should be fine.

should be. he remembers owlglass; he's been wrong before.

"...when you jump from the cliffs," he says. "do you find the man who fall?"

"You sure?" She snickered, moving upwards to pose herself in a more regal way. Her limb hissed as it twisted in ways she should not let, but did not wish to show weakness of the broken bones. Her face stiffened at the immense pain while sitting upwards, and covered it with a glaring frown toward Yunxu, "If it wasn't for you, I would've won."

"He is alive. Do you want to end him as well?" Umbra humphed toward his direction in disdain.

her laugh grates on yunxu's already-thin patience. but it has always been thin, and at least he is better equipped to deal with it now. he sets his jaw and instead focuses on the kraken's paws, affording him a view of the unsettling way in which her back leg twists as she moves. but a quick look reveals nothing more than her stony glare, eyes the pale silver-white of a fish's scales beneath the water.

yunxu looks away.

"no," he says evenly. "i do not want him dead. i want to –" he pauses, frowning, and shakes his head. "i hope he is okay. i hope you will know that, because you dive after him. so i am glad to hear."

eyes fixed on the grass, the young seawolf clears his throat. "is that how you hurt your leg?"

"It was because of you I had to dive for him," Umbra hissed with malice. She didn't believe his words, otherwise the whole incident wouldn't happen. She couldn't remember if he was the cause of it, but she did remember he was part of the problem. That and stone-priest, those two were the cause of her injuries, and the need to dive for some stranger.

Suppose now closer with Sunhawk, she was still angered by it.

The kraken rose her head, "no. The man's wife, came after me." Though of course she could not know if they were mates or not, but simply said as the woman attacked her with such force. There was no questioning why Umbra was at the cliff, only sheer anger. A packmate or not, that woman was now a cyclops.

it's rare that yunxu makes any good decision, when he fights the way he does. this might, perhaps, be the first to challenge that. all his injuries since his arrival have been at owlglass' teeth – she has done very little to him, in comparison to what he's done to her. in comparison to what the man and, apparently, his wife, have done to her.

"the –" yunxu pauses, hesitating, and tries again. "yes. he does not like you being there. there is plenty of other coast. you can leave cliffs alone."

"you will be okay?" yunxu ventures. he's not sure why he bothers asking. they aren't friends by any stretch of the imagination. but she is correct. her leap from the cliff was his fault, and even though she'd started the whole thing – that feels childish to even think, so he keeps it to himself – there was no need for him to kill someone over it.

almost kill someone. she might not believe him, but it is a relief to hear he's still alive. he's spent enough time thinking about it.

"It was not his claim. There was no scent- why should he stop me? I have no one to my name, i'm alone." She didn't understand the reasoning, her thoughts were not to claim for a pack, but to simply survive on those cliffs. No scent to be detected, and yet they were greedy bastards and wouldn't even let her lay for a home.

And so was this man, who defended him. Another snarl, but she could not step forward nor' attack with her injuries, only try to intimidate so, "I will take it again." And that, was a fact.

"I do not know," Umbra then turned her head away in a huff.

logically, yunxu knows she can't do much to him. the way she holds her injured back leg suggests it might be broken – she won't be able to attack him. if she tries, she won't get far. but he knows that even if he has ample room to flee, instinct won't let him. even though she's attacked him before, he feels a little nauseous at the idea of tasting blood right now.

he always does, until it happens. 

so he flinches when she snarls, the barest twitch of his shoulders. "you did not claim it, or i will have noticed you there," he returns. "you have same claim he does. and you are one wolf. he has pack, so he has many."

he says it very cautiously, hesitates between the words. he does not mean to turn this into a fight, but it is the truth.

and he hesitates again before his next, safe only because he's certain she won't take the offer. "it is smarter to come along coast. there is pack on island near cliffs, led by my sister, if you need place to heal. you cannot claim cliffs on your own, and it is better option than this."

"He already has a land, then what right does he claim for the one I want?" The logic may be true, but Umbra did not care. Her words harsh and with only pure malice to Yunxu, and the wolves by the cliff. How she only wanted to end and give them a worthy demise, but the best she could've done was injure the stone-man, and take an eye from the new cyclops.

"I refuse to join anywhere you may be, for if it was not for you, I could've held stronger. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be in this situation." Everything that happened, to the scratches, to the broken bone, to the claim the kraken will never get, she pinned it all on him. 

The very thought of joining a pack Yunxu was in filled her with a deep rage, and if joining, she could only see the waters be stained with eithers blood. None was entirely his fault, but she simply saw his presence as the means to her failure.

"I want to kill you."

it does not surprise yunxu that the man from the cliff doesn't want her nearby. a fight was her first reaction when she could fight and he doesn’t doubt it would be her first reaction if she wasn’t injured. yunxu has approached as politely as he could be expected to approach someone not of his family, more than she deserves, and still all he’s gotten from it is this.

yunxu has never been very good at reading people. he doesn’t need to be good at reading people to know she means her threat.

he licks his lip, eyeing her. it seems a safe bet she can’t move, or she would have attacked him instead of all of these threats – but it is a long moment before he’s comfortable enough to dip his head.

“stay away from yuèlóng,” yunxu says, keeping his voice polite and even. then he turns and shoulders his way back into the burnt trees. it will take some time to walk a wider loop around her, but it’s better that way.

She only snorted at his warning in a mockery. Why would she listen to a coward like him? While she held no grudges against the group Yuelong, there was now a resentment, and perhaps bitterness to the surroundment. A wolf like him joining their ranks, was surely one Umbra would not get along with.

Only did he finally leave, she relaxed back onto the beach, soaking her aching leg into the cold, salty waters.