Ankyra Sound And I'm not wearing trainers

mahler could not help the sway of his plume against his hocks when wylla rejoined with a curve of her lips, the humour in her features unable to be hidden by the pallor of needed sleep that limned the fine bones of her face. the musiker observed her quietly in the next thrum of moments, following the line of her slim muzzle toward the churn of the icy saltwater.
mahler was plainly horrified at the suggestion that followed; he tore his eyes from the brine to search the girl's features with resistance writ into the drawn lines of his face. but in the next moment, mahler had turned back to the sea, snorting a dry laugh at himself, and digging his foreclaws into the cold sand of the shoreline. he did not miss the pearled sheen of her teasing grin. 
"very well, vy — ah! wylla," mahler murmured, correcting himself, aware his place in grimnismal perhaps rested upon this footrace. "i am no sea wolf. but maybe today i will learn to be part of what you are."
and here his own dark jawline softened slowly with the unfamilar blossom of a smile, fleeting, strangely timid against his otherwise unsociable countenance. the dappled churl gathered himself to his height, preparing with purposefully exaggerated movements to pit himself in speed against wylla; here was a game he had not played before.