Gilded Bay keep your proud head from falling

A sharp voice nearly caused her to lose her footing once again. Muses scrambled along the slick rocks, trying her best not to fall, slip, tumble, or do anything else that would endanger her safety. "I'm sorry!" She yelped, and then more quietly, "I am sorry, I didn't realize I was yelling." Her ears pinned in apology, while her tail swayed cautiously as she attempted to maintain her balance, all four paws clinging to a single, large stone.

She eyed the pale wolf warily, equal parts ashamed, intruiged, and worried. Although the weather was warmer along the coast, it seemed, she had run into winter wolf after winter wolf. Perhaps their winters were extremely severe. Muses shuddered at the thought. The tone the stranger adopted reminded her of how the senior ranking females in her pack would admonish her for being so reckless from time to time. It was as comforting as it was alarming, but there was not enough familiarity in it to set her racing heart at ease.

"I just didn't expect the water here to taste so... salty." She finished awkwardly, trying to come up with an adequate excuse to defend herself. She had been told the water would make her sick if she drank from it, but, used to the sweet glacier runoffs in the mountains of her home, she could not fathom how any water clear as what was in the rock pools could be so thoroughly tainted.