Sequoia Coast i've seen finer gods than you, child, and i've swallowed them whole—

After the decision had been made about their captive, and what good faith she can put in the woman, Antumbra heads north along the cliffs once she’s up and out of Hougeda. Ever since her return, she’s had very little time to herself but she does not seek it out anymore. Before, she’d go out of her way but she can’t stand the thought of sleeping alone. Oft, she sleeps in the cavern with her children nearby but it is not the same as a once loving embrace or kiss on her cheek.

She hadn’t really thought she’d miss it, and yet, here she is.

Trying not to wonder if the decision is the right thing to do (and she has some time to change her mind), she slips out of the northern most border and trails along until she finds the little outlet. Their beach is occupied with a captive and messing in the tide pools there, in front of her, isn’t something she’s about to do, so instead she finds the few in the north, nosing down in the water for any shellfish lingering in the cold water.

Again he proceeds north, scrounging for a painless meal or a place to lounge. He is drawn to the looming trees for succor, nesting often in their wood rather than out in the open. Forests will never supplant his veneration for ranges, however.

Forlornly, he gazes upon the grand Nova Peak in the distance. Must his adoration always resonate longing and gloom? He has undergone much since leaving home. There is no plausible way that they consider him kin after his oblique departure. Not after leaving like that. It might be a good idea to close that chapter of his life, much as it pains him...He'll do that when the time comes. Little does he know how soon that overture will be.

Sea song cajoles him from land, leading to an array of tide pools. Little of the sea he knows, but the sight before him is familiar. Familiar in an intrinsic way. Natjuk scrutinizes each individual pool, goaded by the prospect of food. He does not notice the commander minding her own, rapt with the bright life within these small spaces.

The water is cold but it does not deter her. She’s picked about five oysters, three mussels, and two half crabs (or is it one crab, split in half?) by the time she realizes she has company. Dark eyes peer up from the water, hovering low over her treasure chest and toward the stranger. Antumbra lifts her head and scents the air, the ocean air wafting toward her. She doesn’t notice anything in particular on him (or through the thick fish smell of the tide pools). He doesn’t look like any of the wolves that invaded from Rusalka, or carry their scent, so she remains still instead of defensive.

After a moment, watching him pick through a pool or two, she lowers her head and picks up one of her oysters and chucks it in his direction. Being a wolf without great aim, it lands in a shallow puddle not too far from him at least.

Natjuk has never had a taste for sea life but he'll take anything at this point. Hunger has become a constant. He tires of it. Being weak has done nothing good for him psychologically, either.

He amasses a miscellany of...stuff. Sea stars, sea anemone, shells, mussels, crabs. Pretty much anything that looks digestible (or pretty!) sits in a misshapen heap at his side. He snaps at a fleeing crab, setting it back on his affluence without getting pinched somehow. It's big enough now, more than he will likely be able to eat. Or just enough. Please be enough.

Just as he's about to chow down, a plop! makes him stand alert. He looks around, nearly toppling his pile of riches in the process. There's a wolf, looking more shade than canine. Natjuk tilts his head questioningly at her, wondering what it is she could want. Did she throw something? Why? Whatever the reason, he'll tend to her in a minute.

Keeping her in his line of sight, the loner begins to feed.

The attention she gains from him his short lived and questioned but does not incite anything further. Instead, he moves on to chomping through shells and crabs to get to the meat. She looks at her piles, scoops the two halves of a crab into her mouth, and chomps easily over their shell and in two and a half bites, it’s gone. The rest, she can probably take back in her mouth, but for now she turns back to another pool and starts again, finding a couple of mussels in the process.

After moving to another tide pool, however, she notices something out near the shore. Rhythmic waves lap at it every few seconds. Every time a bigger crest comes upon it, it moves just a little (and only by force), until a rubbery tail flops over with a final push, spat out of the sea.

He begins with the crabs first. They're alive and trying their damnedest to escape back from whence they came. Natjuk sets upon them, shoveling their bodies into his cavernous maw and biting into them with a harsh crunch! The shell gives surprisingly, crumbling as he chews. He swallows it once it is a creamy mixture with some bulges. It goes down smooth enough, tasting of brine and fish. Nothing like landbound prey.

The shade is doing much the same, he notes. Drawn to the line of her sight, his sunburst eyes settle for the swells on the northern shore. There is something being driven ashore. Something dark, substantial, meaty. Drool pools in his mouth. Amidst his collection and whatever that is, he's vivified. His tail sweeps excitedly against his hocks. Options, options...

He tears off with another shellfish in his mouth, speeding across the coastal terrain crudely. He has not toured many seacoasts in his life and it shows, gaining some semblance of balance upon the gritty sand. Closing in on the blob, he skirts around its perimeter, tentatively prodding with an inquisitive nose. He grows braver, slinking closer to the beached thing with a hunter's aspect. Once his cold nose touches silken skin does it come alive, unfurling brashly with a rowdy sound. He springs back, spooked, sending gravel every which way.

It's still alive though it seems weakened by some obscure affliction. A seal. Or a sea lion. Hard to say as Natjuk has never come across such a creation before. All he knows for certain is that he is going to kill it and eat it. As sure as the sun rises in the morn and sets at twilight.

The other wolf spots the same thing she does and is faster to react. Antumbra hands back a few seconds when she spots a ragged breath, turning to nose through her pile for anything that might crawl away and, upon finding nothing, trots between the s=pools and wet sand until she’s on the other side. He’s poking and prodding at the (likely) dying sea lion. One ear twitches, keeping her distance from the loner. She does not have to fight her food and she does not go out of her way to take from a kill that would feed more than them alone.

She hangs out several yards away, watching. Sea lion weren’t anything to mess with when they were living and healthy. One on death’s door, there’s no telling what fight is left in it. The lack of grace on the shores leaves Antumbra to wonder what this wolf knows of her home terrain but she waits to find out; or the very least, wait until the last breath is taken.

Eyes on the prize, Natjuk steadies himself and attends the sea lion. It's not moving much. Each exhalation is highlighted by vapor expelled by its nares, obviously labored. If he does not slay it, some other inevitable will.

Plunging with a gaping mouth, he rends at the pinniped, cutting where its ribs should be. It writhes, issuing a warning and trying to take a chunk out of him as a result. Natjuk knows this dance all too well, backpedaling as soon as the blow lands. The sand here has been lapped by age-old waves but he gets away easily enough, buckling ever so slightly with each step. Not the perfect escape but his attack tipped him off to something about the sea lion's throat, cutting into its blubbery neck. Whatever it is, it has been there for a while, reeking of infection and exposing pink tissue below. So that is what's wrong with it.

He circles it. It is still in charge of most of its faculties. The fact remains: it is dying. Slowly and tortuously, choked by man's credulous hand. What a cruel fate. Collared and exterminated by plastic.

Natjuk lunges, again and again, wearing away at the beached animal. It grows complacent with each successful blow. It slows. It doesn't bat an eye at his savagery. The will to live has been sapped by the packaging strap now wound so, so tightly around its throat...Natjuk tries to end it, having never been one to play with his food. With some work, his teeth find the sea lion's throat and effectively ends it.

He studies the flesh brought on by some ruthless force. The strap is so deep within the lion's neck that it is barely visible, ringed by rosy gore. A repulsive wound unable to heal.

Delving into the prey's midsection, Natjuk sups as kings do. Sad though the animal's circumstances may be, he gets to eat. For that, he is thankful.

Antumbra watches while he investigates perplexed but determined. The fiery look in her eye holds her attention and as he starts to move around it, dashing at it here, there, biting where he can. Over time, he drives it to exhaustion and eventually offering the mercy the creature deserves. If it were not them upon it, it would be someone else. Or it will wash back out to sea. Either way ends in death and she is content to watch.

Eventually, the sea lion succumbs and the loner doesn’t waste any time digging in. Though her stomach is content, their numbers keeping them fed, she feels the stirring in her stomach for a fresh meal and though she has as much patience to spare, she inches closer from the opposite side. She does not try to take from him with plenty to share between them, but he does not have it as well as she or any other Drageda wolf has it so she hangs back a while yet.

Delicacies first, everything else later. The organs are inadequate in the prison of his chops, gliding down his slavering gullet and falling profoundly in his hollow stomach. His stomach lurches uncomfortably. Slow down. Too much too fast. So he does, consuming at a leisured pace.

Rigidity crackles at the spectacle of her. She hangs back, indicating that she may have eaten earlier today. That, or she is pledged. He's appreciative either way, digging into his meal as the coil of mistrust bleeds from him.

Glutted, he withdraws from the cadaver. Blood and gristle glaze his snout. Natjuk approaches sluggishly, stopping some lunges away. Prowess is draped along her pitch body, neither overwhelming or overbearing. Someone who commands presence but does not demand it. Nor does she demand food, blessedly. Does she always let the rapacious feed or is he special? As if to test that, he trudges nearer, halting at the first sign of trouble. His aim is to sniff about her ruff, curious about the intrigues smothered in her pelt.

Antumbra hesitates further movement when he finally takes note of her. She freezes in place, waiting out the next few minutes. Eventually, he will have his fill. Normally, she would not take to seconds but she is not foolish with a loner over a meal, not when her stomach is already half full. She does not need the kill. She could leave and take the pressure off the loner but why pass up a free meal? There’s no telling what the future holds with winter upon them and though they do well enough, they are not guaranteed a meal later.

When he stops, cleans his lips, he does not leave and go on his way. Instead, he approaches and her head lifts, tail arches, and she picks up one foot to step back if the threat continues. The closer he gets, her brows knit together and she flashes teeth and as he tries to get close, she throws her muzzle to snap a warning in his direction.

Guardedness is met with compliance. The sabre of her tail is more than enough to placate. At least she is not as belligerent as that prig back south. Natjuk's encroaches no further than a few steps, reluctant to rile when there are no grounds to do so. She can keep her secrets.

Guessing what she wants, Natjuk meanders inland, leaving impressions behind. He retires heftily upon the driest of sand where the tides have not touched in some time, phlegmatic as always. Never does his notice stray, glued to the shrouded woman. Nothing exciting is going to happen but he watches hawkishly anyways.

She watches as he saunters away, settling somewhere nearby. She lingers on him a moment, no more interested to eat with an audience than she was when he tried to get too close, but after a while she decides to initiate an actual conversation. They’ve gotten far enough to be on good grounds and his performance with the sea lion had been impressive enough.

A few words are exchanged before she offers him refuge. When he agrees, between the two of them they carry the remains of the sea lion back to a cache.