Gilded Bay and all we need is two good wheels

tegan was convinced that if he and @Niamh brought back enough of these toothed hand-foot c r ab motherfuckers that they could get some serious points in raven's book. and maybe even quixotes book, since tegan thought he was cool asf and kinda wanted to befriend the alpha. 

but, besides the point, they made a detour. 

maybe everyone else already knew this, but tegan was very surprised to see a large number of packs along the coast. like, the plan was to travel up the coastline but it was kind of hard because they kept running into claimed territories. so, instead, tegan and niamh travelled inland-- but still by the coast. kinda. he'd report back, maybe it'd be useful. he counted at least three packs, including drageda(since undersea was kinda outta view). whatever.

tegan slowed as a weird little red thing crawled into view. his ears pricked and his nose twitched. the fuck. "is that a crab?" tegan asked in disbelief. damn! they for real did have teeth for feet. 

Niamh had been fairly quiet most of the trip back- but had been doing her best to hide her dismay. Fortunately, Tegan was the kind of distraction one couldn't exactly ignore, and she did find herself forgetting what she had to be distracted from. They made a quick detour toward the beach, and she watched his reaction; she was glad, then, that the beach was as cool as he'd thought it might be- otherwise she'd have to listen to him complain the whole way back about how lame it was. 

She moved around through the shallows, looking for a good crab- some she saw were fairly small, and she wanted something that could obviously make a lot of babies. Tegan spoke up and she trotted over, looking down to see a red crab near him. She nodded, then nudged him to step back. "Yep, that's a crab. Just...Be careful, 'cause they do bite with their feet and it hurts." She said. That'd be all the warning she gave him, though- she wasn't about to babysit his ass. "If youwant to pick it up, probably go from behind...I'm gonna try and find a nice big one."

there was a brief moment of silence where tegan paused, nose twitching and his ears angled forwards. he was thinking, probably, it was a mystery if he ever did actually think. "imma eat it," was his only response, which gave no clear indication on whether or not he was listening. he probably was though, he had a tendency to act like he wasn't when he was, but we'll see.

he rounded the sideways moving creature and snapped his jaws at it's backside which actually was really hard and hurty and even though it crunched and cracked under his teeth it still was a big ow. but he wasn't a pansy, so he crunched all the way through and then dropped the thing on the ground. his nose dipped and he stared at the limp shield of a creature curiously. "how do i eat it?" he then ventured to asked-- becuase he didn't understand it.

Tegan decided that the crab he'd found, which wasn't quite as big as some of the others, was good enough for eating, so she sat down to watch him go at it, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth with amusement. Fortunately, he'd listened- and went at the crab from the back of it, struggling a bit with the shell, but he managed to crack through before he dropped it. He didn't seem to know what to do next, so Niamh took a second to find her own crab, and brought it over to him. 

She too crunched through the back part of the crab, and dropped it to the ground. "Get rid of the pinchers first," She said, reaching down and putting one foot on the crab's back while she pulled each of the crab's pincers off. "Just in case. Then you just kinda," She half-explained, cracking through the shell here and there with her teeth, before she began to pull bits of it off, revealing the soft inside. "Then you can just kind of eat the insides from the bottom of the shell," She said, pulling the crab between her forepaws, holding it still with her claws and started to eat the delicious crab meat from within it.[/b]

"oh," said tegan quietly in response, his ears pricking as he watched her bite into it. okay fine, that seemed easy enough! tail waving, tegan dropped to his stomach and copied niamh, tearing into the broken shell and-- oh shit!!-- revealing a beautiful and strange looking meat. it wasn't anything he'd seen before but... well, niamh was eating it so, it must be safe. 

he chomped into it, happily surprised by it's taste. "oh, word!" he exclaimed. he finished the rest of what he could find in the crab before his head canted to one side and he looked up to niamh. "how do you think we're gonna get some back to the plateau?" he asked here with a curious gaze.

Tegan seemed to catch on, so she left him to his own devices as she ate the soft, succulent insides of her own meal. There was a saltiness to it that appealed to her, and the watery-soft texture was surprisingly pleasant, for a wolf used to tearing through meat and plucking feathers or ripping a tough hide apart. The only tough bit with these was the shell, and that wasn't too bad, as long as the pincers were avoided and you kept your tongue out of the way of the shell's sharp edges. 

Tegan made some happy noises as he ate his, and she was pleased that he, too, enjoyed the taste of them. They weren't too filling, but tasty enough and super easy to catch. She felt that if they brought a couple back to the pack and they multiplied, at least they;d make a meal for anyone too tired or hurt to eat, so other wolves wouldn't have to hunt for them. Tegan's question, though, was a valid one. "I think we're just gonna have to carry them, kinda gently," She said, kicking the bottom shell away once she'd finished it. "Liiiiiiiike.." She began, as she searched for another one along the shore. Once she found one, she herded it away from the water, which was where it wanted to retreat, and hopped over it so she was approaching it from behind and scooped it up. Its pincers waved wildly in the air, but couldn't quite reach her cheeks or eyes. "Liss." She said, and put it down. "Sorry. 'this.' Like that." They had a few days ahead of them, so that was someting else to consider. "We'll have to find some way to keep them in water, but keep them from getting away while we sleep." She said, and shrugged. "Maybe like....Use rocks or sticks to keep them in one place, but with a bit of water?" She asked.

carry? all the way back? tegan didn't like the sound of that. it sounded like effort... and like, also like he wouldn't be able to be spouting out any important comments. there had to be a better way. 

he looked around, eyes scanning the area as he looked for a better way. and then, he spotted one-- duh-- cause he was a genius. "less tie em up with that green stuff," he suggested out of nowhere, since niamh had been talking about something else. of course, tegan was talking about seeaweed-- but how was he to know? "and then we can pull em behind us, we could probably take more that way too," he explained, watching his friend curiously. 

"i bet we could corral them with sticks and stuff though-- we could ask a hunter or something too," he added.

Just wrapping this up because it's so old, heh

Crabs on a leash. It had kind of a ring to it- like it'd make a pretty good name for a sort of horrible punk band. She weighed the option for a moment, considering that they'd have to somehow tie them up (without opposable thumbs) and then drag them or lead them- whatever worked. She wasn't entire sure she'd be able to do it, but for Tegan, she'd be willing in the very least to give it a try. 

"Sure," She said. "How about you grab the sea-leaves, and I'll like...Dig a pit, and start hunting down crabs?" She asked, nodding to him so he could get started. It ended up being quite an ordeal- but in the end, the crabs would make it back to the Plateau, toward an uncertain future.