Gilded Bay When you gonna get grown?

Wylla was still cackling intermittently by the time she reached the coast, having greatly enjoyed the affront writ on the face of Tindome's lead male when she brought up his cajones. Admittedly, that had been rude even for Wylla—somewhere in her was a flicker of guilt for that, for the guy had seemed genuinely kind—but there was just something about following such young leaders that put a stone in her belly. As if they couldn't ever possibly be mature enough to make important decisions for a group. Hell, she wasn't even old enough to make important decisions for herself no matter how she denied it, much less for a whole, and being as self-involved as she was, Wylla naturally measured everyone in the world relative to her own self.

She hadn't realized how close she was to the coast before she descended a dune onto the cold strand itself. Wylla paused, swallowing back a tide of uncertainty that welled in her breast. She had been born and raised on the coastline, so she wasn't at all uncomfortable in the sand—in fact, after several missteps, she regained her rolling grace over the speckled shore with familiar ease—but the coast was like a little black box she had been trying her damnedest to ignore. She had been lost to the mainland for many moons, at least half her life if not longer, and part of her was afraid to go back to the coast.

After all, what if they forgot about her? What if life was better without her? Well, Lusca's life might have been, but what of Ingram? She strode along the strand with a confidence that didn't reach her soul, staring down at the dirty foam that rode up the sand and graced her paws with every crashing wave, thinking of it. What if the coast would swallow her whole because she had abandoned it for so long? Too late now, she thought sullenly as a gull's cry overhead drew her gaze upward.

Raptor had plucked a crab from one of the bay's pools and had taken it to a smooth slab of stone, where he stretched out his limber body belly and knees down, forepaws forward and rearpaws... rearward. The crab was still alive for now. It scuttled one way and another way, finding himself corralled by the sable pirate's front paws and limbs every few paces. This was the yearling's entertainment for the time while Smokestep and Sandpiper were off doing this and that. Looking for their siblings and their rock.

Raptor pulled a face: ears back, muzzle wrinkled, lips pursed, and a faraway look. Like a kid focusing as it takes a hard shit in its diaper. It was hard to what was going through the thief's mind. Some swallowed pain or envy, or a begrudgingly decision that it was time to do chores. His eyes went back for the crab but it had scuttled out in the brief window afforded it. It had not gotten far though. In half a tail's shake the crab was scooped up and crushed in the swarthy wolf's jaws.

He noticed another figure on the beach while he was still noisily crunching and smacking over his crustacean. The she-wolf's confident stride intrigued him and he started to lope toward her.

"Hey, you!" He sang out. "Hold up."

Her eyes remained on the skies, tracking the black tip of the gull's wing as it flapped past, long enough that she may well have never noticed Raptor if he hadn't spoken up. Jet ears flashed backward when his voice rose from the sand and she paused mid-stride, her hackles flaring with momentary irritation. She turned slowly to meet the rogue head-on, expression a hearty mixture of Get The Hell Away From Me mixed with The Fuck Do You Want, and when his crab breath washed over her, she pinned back her ears and made a face.

"Look, it's not for sale," she informed the masked wolf, taking him immediately for a rapscallion in search of a little bit of fun at her expense. Wylla simply wasn't the type to engage in such nonsense, and she neatly punctuated her statement with a flip of her mottled tail as she turned sidelong in hopes of deterring him from whatever it was he wanted from her.

He put the brakes when he got closer and as she was turning to let him know that it was not on the market.

"What ain't?"

Raptor's tongue could be quick but sometimes his mind stalled before a witty remark could be sent to it. Such was the case here. His brows came together as he cocked his head and peered around her. She had no food. No treasure. The only thing she had that he might even remotely desirable was her boo—

Oh.

The pirate narrowed his eyes and grinned. Her testy manner and sharp tongue left him mighty convinced that she was one of the elusive siblings he thought she might be. She was, after all, not unlike Sandpiper, just maybe a bit more salty. But he was not about to let the topic at paw go without a comeback.

"Aye, good thing, lass," he replied, "'cause ye wouldn't be able to give it away." He immediately launched into the actual reason he had troubled himself with meeting her, hoping to cut her off before she could say much in her defense.

"I came here with yer siblings, they're lookin' for ye!"

Wow. Wow. Wylla stared, dumbstruck, at Raptor as he replied with a fencer's quick jab, proving himself not only seaworthy but also more clever than she. Wylla was like Lusca in some ways, but very unlike her in others—where her mother had never missed a beat, occasionally the daughter was left wallowing in sensitivity and unable to come up with a response. She took after Tachyon that way, although she'd never know it. Much of her attitude stemmed from insecurity, but you wouldn't catch her dead admitting it, no siree.

"Well," she blubbered lamely, frowning, "well, you just say that 'cause you can't have it!" Yeah, sure. She couldn't think of anything else to say and opted for stalking swiftly away from Raptor, though he ensnared her with a simple revelation and she skidded to a halt in the sand. Although acerbic denial welled up in her throat like heartburn, she turned around to pin him with a sharply narrowed gaze.

Should have said something about how he must like little boy anuses, she thought belatedly, but what she actually said, in a perfectly omg lmao wut pitch, was, "my siblings?"

She took the line he used so often (and had recently used on Sandpiper) and used it on him. He might have retorted if he weren't so busy grinning like yeah you are definitely one of us.

The salty lass was about to leave but he had her attention at the mention of siblings, further encouraging his assumption-turned-belief that she was one of the missing Cairns. "Aye, two of them anyway." He answered. "Come on. I'll take ye to them." Raptor did not wait to see if she would agree before he turned around and started down the coast to where Smoke and Sandpiper were — if she did not follow he would just let Smoke know where to find her.

Eh? Wylla only had two siblings, far as she was aware, and only one she was familiar with, but Raptor made his claims with such conviction that she brushed it off as a slip of the tongue as she fell in behind him with a bobbing step. A light frown crossed her features as she watched the sway of his hindquarters momentarily, and then she lifted her gaze up to the back of his head and asked, "how did a bastard like you end up with them?"

The answer was simple, of course. Ingram shared Wylla's wry and abrupt sense of humour, so it made sense that he might find himself in the company of similar sorts. Raptor fit. She didn't know much about her other brother besides his name, but she assumed that Royal Pain In The Ass was something of a family trait and imagined he was much the same as well.

He travelled at a brisk trot, skimming across the sand completely unhindered by the drag the soft surface put it on any wolf's paws. He was accustomed to it and his devil may care bearing reeked of (too much) confidence in his surroundings and in himself and a completely worry free attitude.

He twitched an ear back to catch her words. "Hah!" He exclaimed, sparing a quick glance over his shoulder only so that he could grin at her. "I might be a bastard but I'm great." Raptor looked forward, scanning around them for signs of Smokestep and Sandpiper as he recalled how he had joined with them. "Met yer brother when we were trying to pinch the same bit of grub. He said he was comin' this way to reunite the family and reclaim the old home. I had nothin' better to do and no one else t'run with so I figured I'd come along."

It truly was that simple. Raptor was impulsive and had no other direction or purpose, coupled with an unhealthy love of adventure and excitement.

Everyone loves a narcissist, thought an egotist as she trailed along in Raptor's wake, rolling her eyes so hard that she thought she caught a glimpse of her own brain. She was sort of disappointed. While she could imagine Ingram hanging out with a wolf whose inflated sense of self-worth was even greater than her own, she definitely didn't like it. As he blabbered on, she began trying to think of ways to turn her sibling's opinion against him.

"Well, yeah," she said, "but this isn't the right way." Maybe they just hadn't reached the Sound yet. She wondered if it might be better to just go back to Ankyra and wait for her brothers there, but ended up falling silent and continued to follow along. She didn't really want to drag Raptor along with her anyway, and she wasn't about to show him where their home was before her brother got there.

She questioned him. He slung his snout over his shoulder again to peer at her with half lidded eyes, folded ears, and a taut mouth, in a theatrically displeased expression. "Whose leading who here?" Raptor faced forward again and kept going, unsure of where she thought he was supposed to be taking her. To the old homestead perhaps? Regardless, he said he was going to take her to her siblings, and they were not at their old homestead yet. So onward he lead her down to the coast to where Smoke and Sandpiper had last been seen.