Presently, she bobbed in the shallows, her body stretched out like an alligator's and her head held above the surface. She paddled weakly but otherwise just let herself float. The sun was peeking through the clouds and felt good on her face, as did the cool breeze that swept down the creek and made her whiskers quiver.
Ira had been continuing to work on his stalking skills, and had begun his eavesdropping skills, eager to pick up on useful tidbits of information to relay to Jinx. So far, he had not caught anything that he deemed worthy enough of his Mambo’s time, and accordingly the Princeling would move on. The challenge of moving with stealth and whisper was gradually increasing the larger Ira became, and already he was gaining on Jinx, not nearly as little as he had been when she had first taken him in. His eyes had chilled to a frosted crystal blue, having lost the milky hue they had during his earlier months, and his winter fur (and adult fur) had grown in - though these were minor things that Ira paid little attention to. He was more concerned about his paws and awkward movements that were less than regal. He had considered socializing but contented with the notion that he did not feel like it - mostly because most adults (except for Jinx and Fox so far) did not seem accepting to his insolence and demanding behavior. It mattered little, in truth. Ira only listened to Jinx, and even then, it was purely out of his desire to please his Mambo -- that wasn’t to say he wouldn’t rebel against her someday. Instead, he had decided that he would be on the search for bones - or if he was luck enough a rabbit he could take down and use to make his talismans to strategically place at the borders to scare off savages.
He had tracked down a rabbit but scared it off when he had missed a step and kicked a rock that clattered noisily against the others. Ira had chased it before he had, irritated, surrendered. A scowl played across Ira’s lips as he walked away, giving the fleeing rabbit a chillingly cold shoulder, swearing under his breath - though if he was swearing at his too-big paws or the rabbit he wasn’t entirely sure. The sound of water moving - beyond the sound of the current - caught his attention abruptly, and ears slid back to his skull to see a darkened head sticking out of the water as it swam. It looked canine and young - around his age roughly - but he could not determine it’s exact gender and was sneeringly contended with mentally calling it ‘It’. “Isn’t it cold for a swim?” Ira called out to It after a few moments of observing, brows raised ever so slightly in a inquisitive manner, though his movements were coy and curious as he padded towards the bank.
"Not at all!" she replied emphatically to his question. A mischievous light flickered in her pale green eyes when she suddenly shook herself, certainly catching him in the spray. "It's refreshing! And it helps with me cuts that I got the other day." Young Bones paused for all of a second before excitedly demanding, "Did you hear about the mountain lion that attacked Fox? And how we fought it off like the brave and scrappy crew we are!" This last part came out less as a question than a proud declaration.
Ira watched It paddle closer to the bank before it rose - exposing the initial shallowness of the water; that he had misconceived as deep given how she had nearly been submerged within in. It turned out to be a she, he noted with a distasteful idleness, as he watched her spring agilely onto the shore not too far from him. The Princeling’s eyes did not once waver from her darkened form - a stark opposite to his own coloration. Ira’s initial emotionless expression twisted into one of dubiousness as she contradicted his assumption that the water was warm simply because he did doubt her. A soft scowl tugged faintly at the edges of Ira’s lips as his eyes, fleetingly, left her to glimpse at the waters she had emerged from confirming that he did not see steam that would suggest that it was warm, before they fell firmly back upon her. Repugnance colored Ira’s expression as lips parted to let out a protesting “Hey!” when she shook her coat free of the water, as the water slung in his direction. Temper seething dangerously beneath his skin, he contemplated pushing her into the creek (though he wasn’t sure if he could have accomplished it, nor if she would have gone willingly) but soothed those thoughts as he settled discontented for an audacious glare and a smooth recoil of his body away from the proximity of hers.
“Feels fucking cold to me,” Ira grumbled under his breath, repeating every bad word he’d ever heard. Again, Jinx did not chide him for his uncouthness and so this meant it was acceptable - no matter what anyone else told him. She excitedly went on to babble in a rapid tone that had Ira cringing slightly (he was not used to being around other puppies his age, or rather girls his age) when she spoke of Fox being attacked by a mountain lion. Ira’s expression darkened, however, and though he wanted to inquire about their leaders’ well being (for he kind of liked Fox) he resisted, giving a nonchalant shrug. “No, but I was busy.” Which was not a lie. He’d been busy working on his talismans, painting the bones he’d collected with blood, but of course he was not going to express that to her. “Scrappy?” Ira repeated as the word, though a few moments behind finally caught his attention. A soft snort of amusement slipped from pompous lips as he shook his head slightly at her. He wouldn't exactly call Swiftcurrent Creek scrappy (and as a future King he wouldn't want his pack to be called scrappy either) but he wouldn't rock her boat, he supposed. At least, not at this moment. Switching gears, “Where are you from?" came from his lips demandingly in the next moment, because he didn’t recall ever seeing her before - not even at the meeting.
"I was busy too—fending off a lion!" she chattered at him with a broad, teasing smile. "Aye, scrappy," she added confidently, not quite sure where he'd been going with that. Perhaps he'd just never experienced the word before. "Feisty," she explained, "ass-kicking." His own use of curse words hadn't fazed nor impressed her any more than his stony attitude. Cussing was such a natural part of her own lexicon that she hadn't actually noticed that either one of them had sworn.
"I'm from Tortuga!" she answered him blithely. "It's a big ol' pirate pack down the coast," she further elaborated. "I left me wench mother and those ruffians behind. I'm here to find me father and live me own life!" she declared, wet tail waving and pastel green eyes shining.
The snort and according eye roll that left Ira’s muzzle when the girl spoke of fending of a lion was demeaning in it’s skepticism. “Oh a lion was it,” The Princeling drew out in a devilishly teasing manner, that was anything but playful. Ira was attempting to rile her up by intentionally being mean because as far as he was concerned no one - meaning himself, of course - would believe such a ridiculous tale!. “I might have been convinced,” Ira paused, his tone suggesting that he was anything but convinced. “if one, there were actually any lions around here, and two, you wouldn’t have used the term ‘we’ which implies that you aided in taking down said cougar.” Ira spoke the emphasized words with heavy sarcasm. Of course the last part was a mere assumption, but he was confidently sticking to his assumption, nevertheless even if it ended up making an ass out of him - though he was sure that wouldn’t happen. When she explained what scrappy meant, Ira rolled his eyes again snapping, “I know what it means,” before he let out a ‘tsk’ sort of noise. “It also means, disjointed, and untidy.” He ‘humped’, eyeing her with cruel distaste - though there was a part of him that covertly sort of …admired her. In her own way, she was on a slightly equal footing as him.
“Tortuga,” Ira repeated impartially, as if he could careless. In all frankness, he sort of did despite that he had inquired as to her origins beforehand. “I see.” Ira remarked coolly, wondering what exactly conditioned them as ‘pirates’ except for perhaps, their speech if Bones’ was anything to go off of. Then she basically gave him her life story - at least that was what Ira thought of the extra, not necessarily needed information was - and he snickered to himself slightly, before the snicker darkened as he eyed her unhindered and without seeking permission, studying her carefully. His own ’parents’ - which was an extremely loose and inaccurate term used to describe the creatures that created him - were dead, and even if they weren’t physically dead they were dead as dead could be to him. Abandoned and left for death, Ira had vowed to never love or let anyone in enough to love him. Things were easier that way. At the end of the day, Jinx was the only living creature he would have considered himself close too and even then he was contented in their agreement and pushed her away if he feared he was letting her get too close. She was the only one he had in his life. “That’s conflicting, you know,” Ira informed her coldly, his ice eyes boring into her, surprisingly bright green ones. “If you find your father, you won’t be living your own life, you’d be living the life he wants you to live, providing he even wants you in the first place.” Ira was rather an expert at being unloved - even before he had strove to make it happen by his behavior.
Young Bones listened patiently when he refuted her remarks about her father, her tongue lolling from her ashy gray muzzle in a sort of bemused smile. He was such a Lauren! She could tell now that he was being purposefully nasty and, perhaps deep down, it bothered her. However, she did not show it. She continued to smile at him, her eyes sharp and glittering with mirth.
"If I find me father, it doesn't mean he'll take control of me life," she scoffed good-naturedly. "Whether he wants me or not, he's gonna get me!" she added in a chipper voice.
In the next beat, the six-month-old licked her lips and wondered, "So, got a name, blaggard? Me name's Crossbones but ye can call me Bones," she told him, eyes twinkling as she awaited the next round of unimpressed comebacks that she'd already come to expect from her surly fellow youth.
The girl winked at him - as if she were sharing some sort of inside secret with him - as she corrected him, putting emphasis on the ‘mountain’ part of lion. “A mountain lion and a lion are two different animals so you can’t shorten mountain lion like that.” Ira scoffed at her, scowling fiercely, attempting to hide the bubble of humiliation that he felt. It was a disgusting emotion that Ira certainly never wished to feel again, detesting the creep of heat in his pallid cheeks. In a swift movement he turned his head away from her, staring out at the rippling surface of the water as he attempted to dampen and smother his embarrassment for misunderstanding and looking like an ass by assuming. Ira was always so confident in everything he did that he did not leave room for marginal error, though error certainly left room for him. Yet, the insolent Princeling was determined not to let his embarrassment show - least of all in the company of his companion.
When Ira looked back at her, he was momentarily perplexed to find her smiling at him - as if his cruel words had no effect on her. Icy eyes narrowed as he squinted refutably at her, unsure if he found her maintained level of optimism admirable or annoying. Perhaps, Ira allowed, it was a infernal mixture of both. “What are you smiling at?” Ira demanded in a superior tone, before he let out a ‘tch’ noise when Bones spoke her rebuttal. “You can’t force yourself on him,” Ira contradicted her sharply. “If they don’t want you, they’ll never want you no matter how hard you push.” It was cruel, yes, but as far as Ira was concerned - for he knew from personal experience - it was just another fact of life. “And anyway, what are you going to do if he isn’t all you dream him to be? Real life hardly meets up to fantasies’ expectations.” He asked in a tone that was matter-of-fact.
It was abundantly and abruptly clear to Ira that Bones and him existed in two different worlds. “Did you ever stop to consider that you’re better off without him? Better off without them? Others only prove to disappoint you.” Yet, even as Ira spoke that, he was not so sure that he believed that anymore. Not fully, at any rate. Jinx had yet to disappoint him, and though Ira denied it resolutely even to himself, he had grown to care for his guardian (despite that he rationalized that ‘caring’ and ‘loving’ were not of the same vein). “What did you just call me?” His eyes locked onto Bones, demanding an answer. Ira, suffice it to say, was not adept in her odd words - though his vocabulary was something he tended to pride himself on. “Anyway,” Ira scoffed, rolling his eyes again. “My name isn’t blaggard,” The word rolled foreign and errantly off of his tongue. “My name is Ira.” It was the first time he’d ever introduced himself as such without his favored nickname following after. Perhaps, he considered, Jinx had not been wrong about his name; maybe it wasn’t so ‘girly’ after all.
Although Bones enjoyed the teasing, all in good fun, he clearly didn't. He scowled, then rebuked her before turning away. Bones rolled her eyes, her tail waving absently, and let the matter drop. Some antics, she thought, unaware that she was bungling the word semantics.
"I'm smiling because you're so grouchy, all the flowers would die and the creek would dry up if I didn't," she jested lightly. Inwardly, she flinched ever so slightly at his viciously nasty words, yet Bones didn't let it show on the surface. "Whatever happens, happens," she added, deciding not to dignify his pessimism by answering to it.
His next rant went in one ear and out the other. Only when he demanded to know what she'd call him did Bones's attention focus. "Blaggard," she replied, then prepared to explain that it meant roguish and black-hearted. She didn't get the chance, for he scoffed without awaiting a reply.
Ira?! she thought, tempted to tease him. Instead, she asked an honest question, "Did a crab crawl up your butt and die, Ira?" An easy grin rested on her face as she peered at him, largely unaffected by his dour demeanor but very curious about it at the same time.
Ira opted to remain silent, though this was mostly because he did not really have any comeback to her comment about him being grouchy. In some small corner of Ira’s mind, he could not help but agree with Bones though he preferred hardened or even cold over grouchy. At the end of the day, Ira was not the child he had once been, was never supposed to be by any stretch of the word a “normal” child. He had felt the backlash of his parents’ abandonment, had seen his pack mates slaughtered by an invading pack as he hid amidst the shadows. His early childhood was bloody and traumatic and that had obvious side effects upon him. Jinx was all he had, all he grudgingly allowed himself to have in this world (even so he was full of trepidation afraid that if he allowed his already affection for her to grow she, too, would leave him) though at this point if something were to happen to her, or she did leave him he would be devastated. Somehow, in the content-ness of their no affection agreement they had settled upon Ira had though he had been pushing her away, when in reality he had been unknowingly pulling her close, allowing himself his one coveted thing. “I’m more of a realist,” He corrected softly but otherwise let it drop. Bones could think what she wanted of him, he didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t need her approval.
At her next question, Ira let his icy eyes settle upon her, his gaze settled and unwavering as he peered at her through heavy lids, squinting as he contemplated her question, rolling his eyes slightly. In truth, he wasn’t exactly sure what a ‘crab’ was having never seen one, or even really heard of one. It was true that he had lived, briefly, in Horizon Ridge with Jinx until they moved but he had never ventured to the shore. Bones was grinning at him again, the stretch of her lips appearing to be easy. “As amusing for you as I’m sure that would be,” Ira began cynically, giving her a twitch of a devilish grin. “No, nothing crawled up my ass and died,”. In truth, he really didn’t want to get into his past with her. Jinx knew some of it because of Tark the stupid old fool but Ira had never actually went into details about all that he saw happen (and he’d seen quite a bit of morbid things) - it was not something that Ira designed to speak about. It didn’t much matter anymore, anyway. “I just am how I am, does there have to be a reason for it?” He demanded, though in truth, there were many reasons for it.
Obviously, Ira was not good with playing nice with others -- even when others were appropriate to his own age; but most of it was intentional, serving his desire to keep everyone an arms length away, or have everyone hate him. Hate was better than loving and then have to suffer their destruction because he was it’s harbinger, a curse. Even as he grew, planning his ascension to leadership, and further, siring of children he would not require that his own mate even love him, only that the only children she gave birth to her were his (and to be frank that did not require much time together). It was selfish, but in the same time, Ira was so convinced of what he was, what he could do, that he was thinking about others, too.
"I like you," she declared perhaps randomly, starkly contrasting his unspoken desire to make others hate him. "You remind me of this pirate back at Tortuga we called Salty Swab. Not only was his fur always crusted with salt—he practically lived in the sea—but he was vulgar and ill-mannered, just like you!" As ever, Bones grinned as she said this.
Bones seemed contented to keep her cheery disposition - a stark contrast to his own surly attitude and coldness. At any given moment anyone could have easily chided Ira on the fact that he was “too young” to act as he did, but he found little enjoyment in the activities that he had once enjoyed as a more …carefree child. As it was, the youth had always been insolent, determined to play the game by his own rules and his own rules alone but maliciousness, usually intentional, was a newer development. Despite that he did not always agree with the things he said, or spoke them even if he did not truly mean them, it was something he forced himself to be, though soon, it would likely become a second nature of sorts. When Bones with an air of arbitrariness declared that she liked him, and seemed to genuinely mean it as he studied her face for any signs that she was attempting to pull one over on him, the youth bulked at her. What?! echoed viciously around his head as a genuinely perplexed “Why?” Tumbled in a dubious tone from his lips. Ira could not understand why anyone would genuinely like him considering how he treated mostly everyone - Jinx being the rare and single exception.
She spoke of how Ira seemed to remind her of one of her’s back in Tortuga but Ira was still busy trying to process the ‘why’ aspect of her blurted statement. Ill-mannered, vulgarity, insolence, pride, wrath, greed …they were, all of them, undesirable traits. Traits that he had been confident would make even the friendliest of creatures despise him. Did it not matter that he was a total dick to her? Did his cruel words truly have no measure of effect upon her? These questions echoed around Ira’s mind, hollow without answers, as he blinked at her a few times, unable to help the odd, perplexed look that seemed to be stuck on his face as his ears slid back to rest at half mast atop his skull. His lips parted to tell her that she couldn’t possibly mean it, that she shouldn’t mean it, but he closed his jaw with a resounding click of his teeth. It would be pointless to argue the point, of this Ira could already see. “You shouldn’t,” Ira spoke softly, diverting his eyes from her to the creek. He wasn’t exactly arguing, merely suggesting, to get out a fair warning. Of course, perhaps liking was different than caring for, and would not cause destruction to come down upon Bones. Even so, he didn’t allow himself friends, either.
Ira did not want to feel any more pain, and did not want to accordingly be the cause of it.
I’m not worth the pain.
It was like Bones could sense the inner turmoil or maybe see it on his pale, youthful face. "Don't worry, I only like you a little," she quipped with a chortle when a sudden breeze kicked up with surprisingly frigid teeth, which sawed through her wet fur all the way down to Bones's bones.
She shivered slightly and the cuts on her neck stung, which made her think of the whole fiasco with the mountain lion again. In the days since the fight, the resilient and childlike youth had mostly subverted the memories of the white she-wolf's miscarriage and even the Alpha's abrupt abandonment of the scene. She'd sort of sugarcoated the entire thing in her head, mostly because she didn't know what to do or think about all of that other bad stuff that had happened. Her youthful way of dealing with it was not to deal with it at all and blithely move on with her life.
The dreary recollections died down with the breeze and Bones blinked at Ira. "Whoops, I was twenty thousand leagues under the sea for a minute there," she excused herself. "I'm gonna go find someplace to dry off and get warm. I'd invite you to come with me but I know you'll say no, so... see you later, blaggard!" She giggled, then turn and sprang away like a young gray rabbit.
Bones’ casual approach to the complexity that would, as far as Ira believed, come with repercussions was not amusing to the youth, who scowled when she spoke that it was in part to “drive him crazy”. In the end, it wasn’t Ira had to worry about, it was whatever dark deity decided the punishments of those whom he was close to, or close to him. Yet, nobody seemed terribly worried -- to be fair he didn’t exactly go around parading his motto of ‘to love is to destroy, to be loved is to be destroyed’ but nevertheless attempted to make his intentions clear without the unnecessary detail. Ira snorted when she claimed that she thought he was sweet and mushy on the inside, willing to dispute that but deciding that perhaps it would better for her learn from experience that she was wrong then argue with her about here and now. “Good,” Ira rumbled, though in truth he preferred that she didn’t like him at all - for both of their sakes, but was forced to accept what he got. The Princeling beggar could not be a chooser. “Goodbye.” Ira offered to the wind as he watched her bounce off with a giggle, unable to help the thought that girls were inherently weird creatures.