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

They stood there for a time in a silence that felt less tense than it probably should have, but eventually Pied moved, and Jinx started as if she had been in a reverie. What she had been thinking of while she watched the awkward bobbing of sea lion heads as they mingled fled her mind instantly, never to be recovered, but any irritation at losing her train of thought was smoothed away. It was a strange day for the Kesuk to feel any irritation melt away like that... But then, some time ago, she had not been susceptible to rage and annoyance as she was now. Perhaps it was simply a long lost part of her resurfacing for just an instant.

Pied went on to speak about Atka, and although Jinx wanted to protest the dappled female having any part of her religion whatsoever, she remained in stony silence throughout. She had resigned herself to the butchery of her faith by wolves like Hawkeye, whose insanity was easily manipulated... But Sos did not speak to wolves directly but in visions, and those instances were rare even to the most devout wolf. It was a loa plaguing her, or the same affliction that had claimed Clarice's sanity... And Pied, who planned to name her daughter based on an Atka dream, was being more than a little offensive to Jinx based on her previous slandering of the Kesuk's beliefs, but she said nothing of that.

Instead, she huffed lightly. "Atka is the bearer of life," she said, gesturing back to the sea lions briefly. "She populated the sea and land with all manner of creature, but the gods chose wolves as their most devout followers, and gave us the knowledge to serve them." Although Jinx was more likely to steal or slay Pied's babies than care for them in any capacity — she also mused that Akhlut was insane to not only allow Blacktail wolves to tread on his soil freely, but to grant breeding rights to a completely new and unproven (and in her opinion, flighty as the wind) female, even though he hadn't yet — she turned back to fix one molten yellow eye on the Omicron, and said, "Atka is weakened presently, I do fear, but naming your daughter in tribute would without doubt aid in her... Recovery."