Dragoncrest Cliffs Icarus climbs higher

Requiem had been carried away by a bird, and now, Theo was missing too. She'd been assured several times that it was impossible for Theo to have been carried off as well, and she had learned to tell the difference between the gulls who circled overhead along the shore, and the predatory birds that both fished and hunted for small prey on land.

She felt safe on the beach, not too far from where the tunnel provided shelter and access to the rest of the packlands that sat high above sea level, beyond the cliffs. She liked to visit the tide pools, and see what little creatures dwelled in them. She liked to note the flowers and grasses that grew sparsely along the dunes, too. 

She wasn't the only one picking around on the beach, though. A white gull had landed near the tide pools, and skip-hopped from one to the next, presumably looking for crabs. She watched it for a moment- and noticed the slight crook in its leg. She gasped- it was possibly the same gull she and her Grandmaman had released. She crept closer, but the bird had already spied her. When she crouched, it eyed her warily, so she stopped, and sat up. It went back to scavenging. 

She realized that it might think a crouch meant that she intended to hunt it. If she kept herself very visible, it seemed more relaxed. She wanted to get closer to it, but the gull could fly, and winged to another clump of rocks when she got too close for its liking. She pursued, as casually as possible, and tried to look more invested in the tide pool than the bird. 

There was a crab in her tide pool. 

She looked to the bird, which was having no luck. She readied herself, balancing her paws on the lumpy rocks, before she reached into the water and grabbed the crab by the back of its shell. It waved its pincers around wildly, but she was quick to bite down through its shell, making it go limp. The crackling of crabshell got the gull's attention. Its expression was angry, but that was what she'd come to know as the gull's default expression. She pulled off a leg and tossed it toward the bird. 

The gull knew an offering when it saw one- McDonald's french fries were its favourite, to be honest- so it swooped in and grabbed the offering, and flew off hastily. She watched it go with a soft laugh. She would have fed it more, but it didn't seem inclined to beg, so she walked down so she could lay on the warm sand, and began to pull crab meat from the shell and would enjoy the rest of her snack by herself.