Ankyra Sound death-pale regrets

The silence of the shore was split by a voice, sharp and venomous, cutting through the fog like a blade. From the haze emerged a figure painted in red. Her eyes, bright and burning, fastened onto him with the precision of a hunter, the kind that saw weakness long before it was spoken. Still, Astier stood unmoved,  the cold autumn wind threading through his pale coat as invisible claws. Only the faintest narrowing of his gaze betrayed thought, calculation.
The rhythm of his steps slowed to nothing, paws sinking slightly into the damp earth before he turned to face her fully. The ghost tilted his head, one brow arching in quiet, almost amused regard. „I might ask the same,” came the low reply, voice smooth yet edged with frost. The shoreline, from what he knew, was untaken, wild, claimed by no soul. And if fate had thrown his body upon it, well… he owed no apology for surviving.
His gaze, glacial, dissecting, traveled from her crown to her paws, studying the crimson stranger as one might study a riddle written in blood. „There is no need for hostility,” he murmured at last, the faintest echo of a smirk ghosting his lips. „I am merely passing through.” Even so, he did not hurry to leave just yet.