Sea Lion Shores horse to water

As his fangs had sunk into the beast's skull, Kingfisher could feel the life as it was drained from the beast. He held his locked jaw to the crown of the sea lion until it had fallen completely limp in his grasp. When he did remove his fangs from within the animal's head, he cast a blood-soaked look to his party members. They stood with their lungs filling with air. Smokestep too felt the weight of having brought the creature to the ground, but he had known from the start that they were difficult to fall and if he hadn't had the present company, he would not have been able to endure it on his own. Even more than this, he was pleased he had not been forced to turn and search for Raptor before his hunt. Instead he could eat and help supply the caches in the bay.

“Good on ye, both,” he remarked to them with a firm nod of his skull. The pale woman inquired what they were hunting, and her companion echoed the sentiment in a few words. Smokestep glanced to their fallen prey and then back to the two others with a bit of a humored expression. He had imagined they were joking about not knowing what the beast was. Their features told him otherwise after a few moments and he blinked away the surprise as quickly as he could. “Oi! That's a sea lion, there,” he explained to them with a small nod of his crown. “Nasty brutes when ye fight 'em on yer own, but they're full o' fat an' they'll keep ye healthy through winter if ye can get 'em,” he then explained.

The pale corsair stood awkwardly for a moment before motioning with his muzzle at the sea lion in question and then back to the two travelers. “Go on, then. Fill up.” Of course, they had both shared the same inward fear that Smokestep would turn against them in favor of the meat, but he was as proficient as they came in the water. His father had taught him that those who starved in winter were never meant to have survived.