Wheeling Gull Isle it's a hard-knock life

Stockholm's bafflement confused Driftwood further, for a moment. He'd thought the one followed pretty clearly from the other... but obviously the Great Crab-and-Wolf Territorial Declarations were not in fact a thing, or at least had not yet been ratified. But if the overseer wasn't going to concern himself with the details of it, then Driftwood after a moment's careful reflection decided it probably wasn't worth worrying himself or inquiring further about either. Fortunately the overseer also didn't seem overly concerned about any missteps Drift might have made in greeting him, so Driftwood figured he was also safe from getting voted off the island or anysuch, at least for now. (Unless the crabs got a vote. Did crabs get to vote on pack matters? No, no, surely not; that notion was simply too ridiculous to consider...right? Right. Sure.)

He knew nothing about crabs, though. Except that this one, at least, still seemed to be free of fins as far as Driftwood could see, although he didn't entirely rule out the possibility that it would open a secret hatch and reveal an entire fish tail flopping out behind it, any moment now. Driftwood craned his neck up and over to try and catch a peek of where the invisible seams of a secret hatch like that might be concealed—because it would have to be somewhere in back, or at least all the fish tails he had ever seen had been, though with a creature this freakishly alien who knew—but the search was a fruitless one. No hatches, no peeps of any not-quite-hidden-well-enough extra fishy appendages... Surely it can't swim, he said, though it came out still sounding more like a question. Meantime he was reaching out an experimental paw to poke the thing, now that he was reasonably certain he wouldn't be transgressing any treaty boundaries—what was it made of?! It was so strange and shiny-looking where the sun glinted off its shell! Then Droman's words about the pinches penetrated Driftwood's consciousness and he hastily yanked the overcurious paw back out of reach. The crab clacked its claws a few times, twitching its freaky little eyeballs in their direction and then back toward the sky. Driftwood, eyes wide as he decided discretion was probably the better part of valor, hoped that his quiet step back and sidewise was too smooth and ninjalike to catch either of the others' attention as he did the first thing that crossed his mind to make himself a bit safer from these crabs and slunk back a little further into Droman's shadow. He was of course rather larger than Droman in just about every dimension, making the maneuver's helpfulness all the more questionable, but Driftwood felt the youngster had a much better handle on these aliens than Driftwood himself did. And besides, the crabs were a lot shorter than even Droman, so one had to reason that any attacks would have to go up right through the younger wolf to reach him, right? Right. ...Sure.

Um, I think maybe we'd do better hopping in the water, especially if that guy has any friends coming along... The notion of a swim sounded like the opposite of dumb to Driftwood. Downright appealing, in fact. It's a hot enough day, he added hastily, trying to make it sound like a swim was not in fact a cowardly crab-walking retreat. Driftwood moved another step closer to the gently beckoning waves as his eyes followed the vague waving of the little crab's claws. The pinchy crabs could have the beach. But he tried to keep his voice nonchalant, even if his nervous paws didn't want to stay in place on the cool wet sands. A swim sounds nice. Right...right?! ...Sure.