Wheeling Gull Isle if only time flew like a dove

Confusion, and then dawning hope overtook him again. She didn't seem to resent any of the liberties he was taking...thank freaking goodness. Driftwood remembered how to breathe again, dizzied by a mixture of sudden lessening of anxiety and Moorhen's wondrous scent. His tail unthreaded itself from his half-curled hindlegs and waved itself more and more widely as he smiled up at Moorhen. He was further relieved to see that her own tail was a blur between him and the cloudy skies, sending the occasional snowflake cartwheeling out of its original path, and if her own smirk was rather toothy and accompanied by a rolling growl at least it was broad and sincere. Driftwood shivered again, more pleasantly this time, as Moorhen's teeth scissored playfully through his ruff and across his snout.

"Driftwood give up?" Oh, ah... It took Drift a moment to comprehend the words. Uh, I dunno, he said, and then, with what he slyly suspected was a deliberate misinterpretation: You've still got an awful lot of sand on you; maybe I oughta... And he cut off with a squeaky little yelp as the air was forcefully pressed from his lungs, mock-snarling Moorhen squashing him down into the chilly and oozing beach's edge (oh shit another wave oh gosh oh GOSH that's COLD—but if this was where she had chosen to assert herself, and if this was what he had to suffer through to keep her here with him for now, maybe even forever, so be it!) leaving Driftwood to wonder how the heck he could have ever made the mistake of calling her small. She might be shorter than him—most wolves were, really—but she obviously had no trouble whatsoever throwing what leverage she had into the ring and using it to full, even unfair advantage. All right all right I give up! Oh please don't crush me, great and merciful Akhlut, he drawled with what was rather overdramatic breathiness. He turned to gently take her nearest forepaw in-between his teeth as he gazed up at her in starry-eyed adoration. And despite his Shakespearean protests he also instinctively moved to hook a hindleg up and around her body while she still pressed herself close.

Driftwood wasn't entirely sure he'd survive a whole lot of Moorhen's sort of play, given how sheerly and gleefully physical she liked to turn it all, throwing her weight around so indiscriminately...yet somehow Drift couldn't really say he minded, still. And he was finding too that he cared less and less how out of character she had him acting. He'd never been particularly crazy about his usual awkward self anyhow, and to be riding high on a wave of instinct and not have anyone upbraiding him for it, to have this enchanting creature he'd previously known and yet never actually met not only tolerating his most daring attempts but also reciprocating in her fashion—it was heavenly. He didn't care if his fur froze right to the sand with these sinister, interfering waves (which seemed to be ever so gradually creeping in higher and higher): Driftwood realized he wanted to stay here forever, exactly like this.