Totoka River Now I'm on the outside

Maybe someone from Bonechewers...?

After setting out from Moonspear at daybreak, Wildfire didn't stop moving until nightfall. Despite a long day of traveling, she didn't feel particularly spent. She only stopped, really, because a river materialized, blocking her path. She could use a water break. However, when she dipped her smudged muzzle down for a drink, she spat out the brackish water immediately, nose wrinkling. She could hear the pounding sea surf in the distance off to her left and smell the salt on the breeze. The river likely emptied into the ocean, which meant she was probably drinking from a delta. Wildfire's tongue scraped against her teeth.

She pivoted and loped inland, stopping to test the water again only after traipsing half a mile. It was cold, sweet and very fresh. Wildfire lapped greedily, only finishing when her stomach felt filled to bursting. With a sigh, she backpedaled a few steps and sank onto her haunches. Despite all the water in her belly, it grumbled hungrily. She would have to hunt soon. She was a pretty skilled small game hunter at this point and it was perfect timing to pick off one kind of crepuscular critter or another.

For the moment, though, Wildfire took a moment to just sit and enjoy the stillness of the February evening, the strange allure of her surroundings and the sense of freedom and elation that came with solo scouting trips like this one.

The swabby seemed to spend more time off the ship than on it, but that was to be expected. Pirates were a violent sort and he hadn't made it to four years of age by hanging around with the brawlers. The constant upheaval was a good distraction and he was able to slip away across the plank and up the shore a short ways, as always in search of treasures to bring back to Blackbeard. He'd picked the grave to death and was satisfied there was nothing left, but a nearly obsessive compulsion sent him back in the direction of the bay, only to be stopped by the sight of a conspicuous red against the dark sand.

Momentarily he stood there on swaying limbs, squinting, but then his little pig eyes picked up the outline of a canid and he grinned wickedly. "Ahoy, wench!" he called up the river, swinging his tail briskly in a hail.

She didn't even realize she had zoned out until a loud voice startled her so badly she jerked, then rose halfway to her feet. Her amber eyes snapped to a small, scraggly figure making its way toward her. Wildfire sniffed, catching his scent, straightening out and pivoting to face him. She didn't know what to make of his greeting. She had never heard the term "wench" before and didn't have the slightest clue what it meant. Nor did she know the term "ahoy," though it sounded like a substitute for "hello."

"Ummm, hi," she answered, widening her stance ever so slightly as he came nearer. He was small and didn't appear threatening, though his strange vernacular made her feel a little wary. "What does 'ahoy, wench' mean?" Wildfire queried, eyes squinting ever so slightly in the dim, dusky air.

Blurryface licked his teeth pensively as he closed the next few feet and stood well within viewing distance. He combed his eyes surreptitiously over the woman's figure, and refocused readily on her face when she addressed him in kind, though with a much milder tongue than his own. He half expected her to get up and try to run right away, for that seemed to be a common reaction to the rattish coywolf's approach, but instead she posed a question, one that made him chortle.

"It be a secret passcode," he lied, swaying his tail gently as if he was quite pleased to know the secret. "Thar be a club o' explorers wit' a secret cabin 'round here and ye needs the secret passcode to join 'em. Ye mus' not be a member if'n ye don' know." Well, pirates were certainly explorers and the passcode was simply being brave enough to walk the plank, and there was absolutely no guarantee that this red-haired wench was even remotely interested in exploring, but hey, Blurry was all about making shit up on the fly. He flung his tattered ears forward and asked, "ye wanna meet 'em?"

His response made Wildfire's face crinkle slightly in confusion. Why would he go around shouting a secret password? She would be lying if she said the entire thing didn't intrigue her, especially the way he talked. She found herself enjoying the strange lilt of his voice; there was something sort of fun about his speech patterns. Unfortunately, she was so caught up in the individual words—particularly all those "ye"s and the rolling "R"s—that she didn't really string together the meaning of them in its entirety.

Realizing belatedly that he had asked her a question, Wildfire replied with another, "Ummm." She mentally backpedaled, then squinted through the dusk. "Meet them? Who's them?" And, for that matter, "What's a cabin?" That one she couldn't decipher, even with contextual clues.

Blurryface could hardly believe his ears! Hadn't he just finished telling her about the secret-and-oh-so-fake league of explorers! "Th' bloody explorers, ye wench!" he roared excitedly, not unlike the joyous heckling of a rather drunk sports fan, and in his tone there was a lack of hostility that surprised even him, given his track record. The four-year old pirate wasn't exactly great company most of the time, and having lived a life of crime, he wasn't exactly a good friend to have, either, yet he played the part of overly excited explorer extraordinaire quite well.

"Wha's a cabin?" he repeated, then began to wheeze with laughter. "Ye don' know a cabin!" Ludicrous. "Ye don' 'ave a place ye calls home? Whar ye keeps your booty an' yer galley an' whar ye rests yer pretty skull when the sky be full o' stars?" Leave it to Blurryface to come up with more pirate slang that Wildfire probably wouldn't quite understand. But you couldn't blame the guy; he had never spoken differently in his life and wasn't even sure he knew how to.

He veritably roared, which caused Wildfire to lean back a little, though at least he didn't sound overtly aggressive. Then again, what did she know? She could still barely understand him. Although the strange words pleased her ears, they frustrated her brain.

He began to laugh at her and Wildfire's ears flicked as she straightened. Evidently, a cabin was another word for home. She blinked loudly at the words booty (like, butts? Was he talking about her butt?) and galley, though the next bit made a little more sense, at least...

"I have a 'cabin,' yes," she decided to respond to one of the few parts she felt she could. "I live at Moonspear, that-a-way." She motioned toward the distant west. "So, where's your, er, cabin?" Wildfire had already forgotten all that password business. But she wasn't keeping up well in general, so that was par for the course.

She affirmed that she had a cabin and Blurry nodded, though his eyes only briefly darted toward the mountain range she gestured at. The sea was a true pirate's calling and anything else lost his interest quickly, though he was sure her cabin was fine enough, even if it was on a mountain. "Wha's a Moonspurr," Blurry asked, but then he quickly switched gears and began to laugh raucously.

"Arrr, ye wee wench!" giggled the coywolf, shaking his head as if it was the funniest thing he had ever heard, "'M just a swabby, me cabin be the wide open beach an' surf. Swabbies ain't got cabins, ye 'member." She probably didn't remember, because she wasn't a pirate, but Blurryface wasn't thinking about that. "But me Cap'n Blackbeard, aye, he's got the finest cabin ye ever did see. The finest booty, too." He squinted one eye and widened the other and fixed it on Wildfire, and with a coy yellowed grin and a wave of his tail, he asked, "do ye wan' to see it?"

He seemed rather amused by her question, if the shouting and laughing were any indication. Once more, Wildfire found herself swept up in his whimsical language, the strange words tickling her ears pleasantly even if she had trouble following their actual meaning. She did her best to decipher, though she couldn't think what on earth a swabby could be. Apparently, he was one, though, and didn't have a cabin. The yearling tried to make sense of that.

Although the promise of a fine booty was definitely amusing (and the name Cap'n Blackbeard mightily intrigued her), Wildfire shook her head. "I generally don't get too close to other pack's ter—er, cabins. And I'm assuming this guy is your leader? There's no need to disturb him. I'm not important enough to be summoning leaders and all that." And she really wasn't even out here to meet anyone, Alpha or otherwise; she was here to explore and map the lands.

"I don't know which direction to go from here," she admitted after a moment, in an attempt to make conversation now that she had declined the swabby's invitation. "I'm seeking—I don't know—interesting places, I guess. Any recommendations...?"

For the second time, but the first intentional time, Wildfire declined his invitation. Blurryface pulled a bit of a face and said, "arrr, ye be no fun, wench," although it was really disappointment that he couldn't present a gift of a wench to Ferahgo. No doubt the captain would appreciate it, but Wildfire was either too sensible or too intuitive to let him take the opportunity. Even the wily coywolf knew when to give up.

"Me ship be tha' way," he said with a sharp gesture toward the silhouetted island, "an' inland be that way," and he jabbed his snout at the wilds over Wildfire's shoulder. "Ain't no pirate know nothin' 'bout inland, wench, ye be on yer own." It was as true as he could tell it, too. He simply knew nothing about the lands that way, and was only vaguely familiar with this stretch of beach. If Wildfire didn't want to accompany him to the ship and into Ferahgo's hold of wenches, then he couldn't do much to help her find her way.

She peered over his shoulder, noting the faint outline of the island in the distance. "Wait," Wildfire said, momentarily ignoring his jabs, "you live on an island? How does that work? Do you have to swim any time you want to get to shore?" She had about two dozen other questions, yet gently bit down on her tongue to stop the flow and let him catch up to her a little bit.

At first, it seemed such a crazy notion. How could a pack sustain itself on an island, of all places? But even as she waited his response, Wildfire had to admit that it was kind of genius too. They wouldn't even have to patrol, would they? The waters would take care of their borders for them. The whole thing sort of blew her young mind.

"Aye, ye wench," Blurryface said exuberantly, and a little questioningly. Tortuga was on the coast, and not all the wolves there claimed islands. In fact, few of them did. But what better ship than an island? "She be the finest vessel on the seven seas," he said with a twitch of his tail and a proud grin though it wasn't even his ship. But Cap'n Ferahgo was basically the only soul Blurryface lived for, having found a niche within the crude pirate's crew, and he lived for the man's satisfaction, sometimes to the detriment of his own well-being.

But, well, that's what being a swabby was all about!

"Thar be a plank," said the swab, refuting the idea that they swam to the island although all pirates were reputedly good swimmers. Surely if they had to, it would happen. "Ye want to see it?"

A plank? she thought, then decided he must be talking about some sort of sandbar or land bridge. Despite herself, she did want to see it. But Wildfire hesitated, squinting at him slightly. They had never exchanged names and he seemed particularly eager to get her closer to his home, which was at odds with everything she knew about being a wolf.

Her inner ranger and ambassador won in the end, though; she was curious to see this island pack (from afar!) and, well, she had no reason not to trust him, even though he was a stranger. "Sure, I'll take a look. What's your name, by the way? Mine's Wildfire." So you can stop calling me 'wench,' she thought with a twitch of her lips because she didn't really mind that much.

Excellent! Grinning broadly and just a little mischievously, Blurryface spun on his heel with a holler of, "ahoy, wench, th'plank be this way!" before jaunting down the strand a relatively short distance to the sandbar. Sadly for him, it was high tide and the bar was therefore submerged. "Not t'worry lass," he reassured Wildfire over his shoulder, assuming she had even followed him this far, "we pirates be the best swimmers o' the seven seas!"

Having already forgotten what the whole point of bringing Wildfire here was, the swab waded into the ocean where the sand bar ought to have been and was soon paddling his way toward the island. He believed Wildfire was following him, of course, but he would never know. About 20 feet from shore, a vicious undertow caught the coywolf's legs and sucked him under and sent him tumbling along the sandy bottom, and he re-emerged spluttering and coughing and choking much further out to sea than he had anticipated. Hell, he had gone past the island and was facing its rocky cliff face, somewhere he had no hope in hell of climbing.

"Ahoy, mateys!" Blurryface spluttered through mouthfuls of salt water, "swabby o'erboard!" But whether it was because no one heard him or no one cared, his crew mates did not appear to help him, and the ocean's current was soon sweeping him beyond reach of the island. Only then did panic catch up the waterlogged swabby, and that was his undoing. He began to splash and flail, and after not even ten seconds of it, some species or other of shark shot up out of the water, with him caught up in the barbs of its teeth, and ended his life just like that.

Not only did he decline to offer a name, he called her a wench again. Wildfire's nose wrinkled but it was more amusement than anything else. She trotted behind him, wary but curious, her head canting a little when he mentioned swimming. It was an enjoyable past time for her as well, though she wasn't entirely sure why such a declaration was immediately relevant.

Then he began to wade and Wildfire stopped up short, blinking. "Wait," she murmured a bit inanely, looking side to side in bewilderment. Nobody showed up to tell her whether or not to follow, not that she was inclined to do so. In fact, she took a few steps back from the surf, shaking her head lightly. Realizing she had lost sight of her strange escort, she then squinted out across the choppy waves.

She heard shouts and her ears quivered, rotating atop her head like miniature satellite dishes. She scanned the waters, then thought she saw his head bobbing twenty or thirty feet form the shore. He sounded distressed. Wildfire's eyes roved upward, toward the island, wondering if any of his supposed comrades would jump in to save him. If not, should she attempt a rescue?

But when Wildfire tried to locate him again, she saw nothing but the rough seawater pushing and pulling as the tide crawled up the sand. She stared and stared and stared. Yet he seemed to have vanished beneath the waves. Wildfire's throat clenched when she realized what that meant: he'd drowned! The young explorer stood there a long while, hoping he would surface miraculously, but of course that never happened.

Glancing around herself almost guiltily, Wildfire eventually spun and retreated back along the riverbank, unsure of what to make of everything that had transpired in the past few hours. She felt like she should do something or, at the very least, tell somebody. But nobody from the island came looking as far as she knew and eventually Wildfire's hunger and wanderlust pushed her further inland, leaving the strange and tragic encounter behind her.