Sequoia Coast from the ground up

he had finally gotten out of the taiga, relatively speaking. crossed through the fields after climbing down the through the ravine and all. the coast was a bit warmer, he would give it that, but the wind still fucking blew. literally.
at least the high tide had taken away most of the snow, even if it the sky was still spitting flakes down. it helped travel when he didn't have to plow through snow up past his ass and pray he didn't magically find a hole in the ground that would swallow him up.
the ocean was pretty boring though; he had seen it a handful of times before and honestly the novelty of it had worn off really quick. the beach was nothing special—there was the standard fare of seadwelling creatures and their weird ass faces, the gulls, driftwood... sand... sea glass... all of it pretty bleak just like the rest of the day.
and then there was lakhos, the dumb bitch, standing out like a sore thumb, tongue lolling out of his mouth like he hadn't a care in the world. he was hungry, as usual, and right about now one of those tasty gulls loitering on the beach looking for some handouts for easy taking sure looked good.
he stalked them in the same way someone about to steal something and bolt would; nonchalant and smooth, eyes not quite focused on the prize but willing to assess it all the same.
soon.

The coastal she-wolf was out and about doing her usual business -- patrolling the surrounding territories of Yuélóng. The route she decided to take today was quite far off (and probably nowhere near the borders...at all.) though that didn't really bother the young otter too much. It would do Aimi some good to scout out the whole of the sequoia coast for future reference -- ecspecially when she'd been living here for a while now.

All this walking was beggining to make the sandy femora thirsty, and for a moment, her mind drifted off in thought of which direction the river might be. Probably frozen over -- but she could always try cracking a hole into the icy surface. God, she hated winter.

A flock of birds were spotted just up ahead -- her boredom-plauged mind instantly carried her feet in quicker pace with every intention to scare them away -- An activity Aimi probably enjoyed too much ever since puphood. However it was within the washing of waves and screaming gulls that she failed to notice the other's presence sooner. So when their scent was finally picked up and her seaglass gaze was casted sideways, the stranger was met with an alarmed growl and a prick of hackles. This man scared the living shit out of her. Was he always there??

The young otter took a few moments to look the stranger up and down suspiciously, and was quick to straighten back up and clear her throat akwardly. Aimi was not aware that he'd been hunting the seagulls she probably scared away with her presence by now, and was under the impression that it had been her he was moving towards. "Who....who are you?" Yeah, it was definitely 'who are you' and not 'who you'. At least her common was getting better....

the gulls grew closer, not quite alarmed by him. they probably didn’t think he was there to harass them, that he was any sort of predator because honestly he didn’t look like much of a predator. good for them to have an ounce of naivety.
much like the other competitor that entered the picture, who appeared over a patch of sand and sea grass. lakhos had tunnel vision—he didn’t see her so much as she didn’t see him—and the appearance of her in his line of sight with a startled, unfamiliar expression threw him off the hunt immediately.
he skittered to a stop, hind end almost going over the top of him in the process.
a scowl crossed his face as she made questions, the lilt of her voice accented well enough to prove that she was weird. somehow. she was small like he was which definitely made her competition numero uno. but he didn’t have to so much as give her a flash of teeth or a snarl to back off before some of those features relaxed… and not that it mattered anyway.
the gulls were in flight now.
“who am i? who are you, other than the interruption of my hunt?” he fired back crass and pointed. “can’t get food yourself so you’re ruining my chance? jeeze.” he scoffed, bristling with simmering, leftover emotion. was it anger or grief? didn’t matter, he wasn’t gonna be eating any time soon.
the disappointment vocalized itself in a groan that came with the dramatics he did best, stepping away from her with a roll of his eyes. there was no opportunity for her to even respond. he wasn’t done being theatrical.
“i haven’t ate in three whole days and even then it was someone’s leftovers. finally, finally—i find some chow. and this yokel girl from the sand comes along and party crashes. before that i had some asshole in a smelly cave trying to pull my tail off,” he went on as a gull screeched overhead. “and they say i’m the mannerless one.”

As the strange looking (and smelling. Was this even a wolf? She couldn't really tell...) began yapping his maw, Aimi drew her head back a bit and gave him an expression which was half "I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but don't you dare blame me for it.", and half confused. A part of Aimi was too lost at the moment to realize that she'd chased his food away -- with the other part of her still refusing to have any of that blame pinned on herself, so instead of figuring out what was actually going on and talking it out like a rational human being wolf, the sea faring girl decided to pull an "Aimi" and argue back.

"I can get food perfectly fine by myself without ruining someone else meal, ecspecially something better than seagulls of all things!" The otter shot back, tail lashing behind her like a whip. 'Yokel girl'? The fucking nerve of this guy, how dare he call her..............whatever "Yokel girl" meant........DOESN'T MATTER.  It was still an insult nonetheless, Aimi knew that much.

The otter was quickly getting side tracked from her original objective, so she shook her head to regain herself and referred back to Mr. "Haven't eaten in three days" guy. "I am Aimi of Yuélóng, I guard their borders..." The femora said after clearing her throat and straightening her posture. "I come here on patrol to see weird man hunting birds near pack and clearly get suspicious. Now, who are you?"

he rolled his eyes as she volleyed back a series of statements—of course she could hunt something better, she had a pack behind her! that implied at least more than one or two others since she had some borders to guard and more importantly, there was strength in numbers. he was just little ol lakhos, scrawny and scraggly and neither fully wolf or coyote.
man? man?? i ain't no man sweetheart, came his rejoinder, incredulous at best. i'm a mutt, that's who i am. it's just me, myself, and i out here so no shit you can hunt something better. he bristled hotly with a snort.
why don't you fuck off or something? go back to your... your... whatever your pack is called. sounds dumb. he couldn't wrap his tongue around whatever it had been called and it was probably for the best. she'd more than likely poke fun at him for now being able to pronounce it anyway, so why bother?

Aimi could understand him being insulted by the other childish insults thrown his way, but why he opted to reject her assumption of being a man and call himself a mutt instead is what confused her. What in the blue hell was a mutt? Is that what he was? The same reason he looked and smelled weird? Well, whatever this guy identified himself as held no significance to Aimi at all in this situation, so she'd shrug it off for now.

The coywolf's next words earned a raised eyebrow and quirked frown in disbelief. "Huuuuuh? What bullshit." the otter responded plainly, huffing air out of her nostrils dismissively towards his claim. "Mutt", "Being by himself" -- those just sounded like a bunch of excuses keeping him from better options. "What does you being out here by yourself or being.....mutt--" whatever a mutt was -- Aimi still had yet to find out. "--have to do with you hunting something good? You just chose to hunt shitty meal." Pack's helped each other, that was correct, but in Aimi's mind, there was no need for one to survive on your own. At least, thats what she was stubborn enough to believe -- accepting help for things like that was like an arrow to her pride.

Her next words were said with more irritation -- which was visible from her furrowed brows and grimace. The Jiang was particularly sensitive when others poked fun of anything related to her home language,  just like how Aimi was hurt by Orochi's comment about how bad her common was a few months ago. "And just because you locals can only speak common doesn't make my pack's name stupid, 鬼脸." Sure, the otter still didn't have a clue in hell where the name "Moon dragon" came from, but something about a local insulting it irked the dame.

she had called him something, of that he was sure of. but he didn't know just what and was probably better off not knowing in spite how curious he was. it was a weird tongue for a simple creature like him, but she was a weird little wolf. there were a lot of these, he would come to find, at least living along the coast.
what does being a mutt have to do with anything? plenty, he fired back. do you think a pack's gonna want my half-and-half ass? the short answer was no, for more reasons than just his hertiage. if they didn't figure out that he was a coywolf, they just assumed he was a coyote. lakhos had been driven away more times than he cared to count long before here—he assumed it would always be the same.
and i ain't a local, he tacked on. i'm just passing through.
and as though to punctuate that point, he started trudging along across the snowy, wet line of the shore. fuck this nonsense, he knew he wasn't going to get anywhere. he could hunt somewhere else, assuming she didn't follow him. but he had a feeling she would because when had anyone ever left him alone?