Sea Lion Shores From my mouth I could sing you another brick that I laid

She reacted to the tension when Pied started by tightening her jaw into a thin grimace, but otherwise resisted the urge to bristle and make the wolf crawl in the dirt like she had previously wanted. Those feelings were fleeting, and had left her already, though there was no telling when they might surface again. For now, Jinx was secure in her position as the pack's Kappa, presently Akhlut's second, and felt no need to be overbearing about it. One could say a moment of tranquillity had stolen away her aggression... For now.

A pregnant silence stretched onward, in which Jinx craned her neck over the figure of Pied to watch the sea lions, a silent sentinel lest the dappled female tried anything stupid. Her opinion of Pied was low enough to think she would, but still some part of her clung to hope that the newest arrival in Horizon Ridge wasn't entirely an imbecile, and wouldn't draw nearer to the goofy lions on the beach. It reflected poorly on Jinx if she was truly stupid, since Jinx had once numbered her among her trusted subordinates.

Thankfully, Pied didn't move forward. She turned sidelong, her gaze somewhere else (Jinx might have bristled at it any other day, but today she was nothing but a grim soldier standing watch), and asked a question, to which the Kesuk couldn't help but to pull the corner of her lip up, though not mockingly; she remembered asking her mother the same thing, once. "Sea lions," she said quietly. "More aptly sea wolves, I'd think. They are important creatures of Atka, and fiercely territorial."

Maybe Pied didn't want to hear the name of any of Jinx's gods, make-believe as they probably were, but Jinx didn't think about what Pied might or might not want... She simply spoke what she thought.