Sea Lion Shores living single thought by single thought.

Hello! I hope Sizzle is okay! ♥

Within Szymon’s jaws today was a fine catch indeed — a spiny dogfish that had been pursuing a school of smaller fish before the youngest Cairn ended its life in a series of merciless snaps. This one was not fully grown, only about two and a half feet in length, and perhaps youth had driven its fatal decision to cast itself so close to the sea lions’ shoals. Careful to avoid its venomous spines as it arched its back instinctively again and again, Szymon received a parting gift from the dying mud shark — an open and bleeding wound on his foreleg. It was shallow and he judged it would cause him no lasting issue so long as he treated it appropriately, but allowing it to bleed was the first step. Without licking at it — Szymon didn’t know personally whether poison lurked within the spurdog’s fangs; he knew only that bite wounds did not seem to cause the same internal havoc as puncture wounds from the spines — he dipped his muzzle to catch a familiar-unfamiliar scent: one of petrichor, bark, and subtle pine, brushed now with the indelible tang of salt.

It was one of the wolves he had not yet met, and Szymon wondered why this one was wandering the outskirts of the shoals — if memory served, his scent had been tinged with blood at some point, although that could have been the other familiar-unfamiliar scent. Bearing his kill proudly in his jaws, he followed the other wolf’s trail, discreet of the bulls and their harems, over which they were aggressively protective.

Szymon was not close enough to read Tetsubo’s expression, but his posture — despite the unnatural cant of his head due to his snakelike burden — was neutral as he offered a low, bass-toned rumble of greeting. His tail twitched as it always did, batting the insides of his scarred hocks with frenetic energy, but the slope of his shoulders and back were deceptively relaxed. In truth, the coil of his lean musculature was fitted for action; though the steely-furred wolf in Szymon’s sights was ostensibly loyal to Skellige, the sulphureous-eyed Cairn did not know him personally and could not let his guard down. At a break in the wind — although there never seemed to be a pause in the raucous barking, even at night — Szymon released a guttural chuff that billowed his scarred lips around his prize, a sound meant to carry over the short distance to the familiar stranger’s ears. The wildspeech version of Doe’s, “Hail.” What nature of beast was this wolf, and what nature of meeting would this be?