Cerulean Cape spring

The cape offered less cover than Riptyde's usual haunts, but the waves masked his motion, and he was still small enough to make the rocks his hiding place. Slick stones threatened to toss him in the water of so much as put a toe out of line, but he was well practiced. Mama hadn't named him after the sea for nothing.

But how good was this stranger? Riptyde had made a game out of seeing how close he could get to the crabeater without being caught, but how well he'd succeeded, well, he couldn't really tell. Sure, the man had given no indication he knew he wasn't alone, but strangers could be good at pretending, a wheeling gull once told him, and Riptyde considered this as he peered out over the edge off his rock.

Only one way to find out.

HEY! he punched his voice into the air in the moment the stranger seemed to settle into some kind of peace. If he turned around, round blue eyes would meet him, set within a mess of salt-spun fur and watching with s glint for lines of surprise, a startle, some way of seeing if this stranger was a pretender or not.