Wheeling Gull Isle eeyore's house

He'd managed to clear a patch of the beach with the help of a few wolves, and by the time they collectively realized how much work it was (and that they needed a break), most of the group had splintered off to different sections of the isle. Titmouse could see @Moorhen's pile from his vantage point but he didn't see her anywhere; it was more likely she was settled somewhere atop it, guarding it shrewdly like before.

As a means to relax after a long few hours of work, Titmouse found a patch of exposed sand and dropped in to it. Most of it was still damp and quite solid, but there was a segment hidden beneath an overhang of trees that sifted with his weight. He rolled there for a few moments, stretching out his long limbs and sprawling, then wriggled and rolled until he rolled to his belly. From here, he could see a few sticks clustered against a ridge of exposed stones which he could clean up, send off to sea — but they were out of the way, not really an issue.

So he got up and wandered over, investigating the pile and then testing the branches. He placed one of his paws across the nearest beam and pressed his weight upon it, feeling it lurch a little — suddenly, a lot — and then SNNNP! the branch came apart, causing Titmouse to flail and collapse upon the small pile moments later.

Moorhen was not guarding her pile, but dragging the stiff, bloated body of a pelican down from where it had been killed, dashed upon the cliffs of Skybowl by the storm. It had been a good find not for the meat it would provide, but for the ruin of feathers that covered its body. If Moorhen was careful, she thought she could groom the pelican back to plush cleanliness, and then strip it of its white coat to line the floor of her den.

When she saw Mou, however, she was quick to hide the pelican in her pile, not intending to play another game of keep-away with the other wolf. Only when the pelican was safely ensconced in the small cache 'round the leeward side of the wood pile did she come out into view, watching Mou as he laid ruin to someone else's woodpile. Not surprising, but not something she would fight him over, either. If he looked her way, she would offer a tentative wag of her tail, still confused over their last interaction and feeling - oddly! - as though she needed to apologize for something.

His chest smarted after he'd collapsed upon the small wood pile, but he sprang up without much care for the damage caused. Nothing was broken, and nothing was bleeding. He'd probably have a bruise or two in the next few hours, but Titmouse had been through far worse in his short life and had a pretty substantial threshold for pain. He got to his feet and managed to poise himself upon the small pile with some defiance, his front limbs suspended on the awkward angles of wood while his hindquarters remained planted on wet sand.

For a while he was ignorant of his accomplice; the stench of the dead pelican wasn't much different from the rest of the beach so he didn't even look up when the aroma drifted his way. He was focused on the pile, looming over it and reaching with his long snout for a piece of wood or something — and came away with a segment of the broken branch that had snapped beneath his weight in the first place. As he turned, pulling at it, the stick he'd chosen made a xylophone-effect across the various other beams.

Once it was clear of the pile, he let go and worked his jaw at the air, stretching the tired muscles there, which turned in to a brief shake-off. Just as his coat settled in to place again he noticed movement off to one side of his view — Moorhen, her tail wagging — and his own tail lifted high and bat about eagerly. He dipped his nose and grasped at the segment of wood he'd found and pulled free, hastily moving it away from the pile and towards where she was standing, but only made it partway before he had to pause and re-do the stretching of his sore jaw.

Some time and distance from The Event had left Moorhen with a little more understanding of what had happened. She allowed that - perhaps! - with a little more warning and a with something she was less possessive over, the game might have been enjoyable. Thus, when Mou lifted the stick and began dragging it toward her, her tail fanned a bit fast, a dark flag in the cool, salty air.

Moving forward in what could only be described as a prance, Moorhen made a gentle grab for the other end of the stick and made to drag it away from the muted male. Her ears swiveled uncertainly atop her dark head, the pale markings on her cheeks almost like blush on her face as she showcased her discomfort and uncertainty over this act. But her eyes were bright and wholly willing, so long as this action did not make Mou as angry as his earlier actions had made her.

His intent had been to deliver the stick to her pile, but if she was here, that made things much simpler. Her interception didn't make him angry in the slightest but he was a little bit confused when she reached for the stick, thinking that she had accepted the gift even before he had offered it - and so he dropped his end, assuming she now claimed it as her own. To add to her pile, and make up for whatever slight he felt he'd perpetrated during their last game.

The expression on her face was bright and focused. Titmouse should've clued in to what was happening but, being kind of a dumbass, read her enthusiasm as a thank you more than anything. He licked his lips to remove the pine-y flavor of the tree limb's bark from his muzzle, and took some hasty strides away from Moorhen, eager to investigate the pile some more and see what else he could drag out.

Seeing that her invitation to play had gone unanswered and unnoticed, Moorhen dropped the stick and stared after the male, head cocking to the side as she tried to understand what he was up to. The stick lay forgotten between them for a moment, until it caught Moorhen's eyes again and she set a paw possessively upon it. Now it was a gift, since Mou had relinquished it to her. She thought about bringing to her pile for a moment before abandoning it there in the sandy, snow-covered grasses and following Mou to what she thought might be his pile. It was wholly underwhelming, and not nearly as well-crafted or massive as her own, but she still kept a respectful distance, tail fluttering uneasily as she watched him snuffle through his paltry pile of sticks.

The rest of the sticks were okay. That wasn't good enough for him though, and certainly wouldn't work as an additional gift to Moorhen, so soon enough Titmouse was getting distracted by other things assembled along the ledge by the storm's chaos. He shuffled along with his nose inches from the ground, unknowingly leading Moorhen through a thicket of sad looking trees (saplings at one time probably), before he slipped down a steep overhang and found something a little bigger.

As he hoisted this next prize free of the sand, he came up butt-first along a gap in the stony overhang and with some positioning of his hindquarters, managed to pry free a red-cast segment of something like a branch but decidedly unnatural. What he thought was some vivacious chunk of rare special tree was actually a beam of processed wood. Its red glow was a thick layer of paint which was scored and chipped away in places.

The boy huffed and puffed for a few moments and pulled again, pushing with all his might and straining his neck to try and get this thing completely free of the sand below him, but it didn't work and when the tension ceased, he went tumbling. The beam was about ten feet long (with only six or seven feet exposed), another cast-off from another world.

Mou's antics were amusing enough that Moorhen was able to relax. She watched him with bright, curious eyes as he beheld his own pile, following his steps at a careful distance. When he came upon the red beam, her scepticism showed clearly on her face - she'd decided almost at once that she did not like it. But when he failed to lift it from the sand, she came forward, sniffing along the colored paint and finding herself even more offended by it than before.

With a sneeze of distaste and another dubious glance cast in Mou's direction, she moved to where the beam disappeared into the sand and began to dig, taking her paws through the earth until they scraped against more wood. Then she moved down further, revealing more and more of the beam, until she thought enough was exposed that Mou might try again. With a commanding snort, she gestured to the exposed end to convey that Mou ought to try once more.

For all of his effort, Titmouse wasn't a strong creature. He could fight with the beam all he wanted, bite at it, gouge the paint from its surface with his teeth or claws, but he would never be able to carry it like he might a piece of discarded pine. That didn't mean he wouldn't keep trying — although Moorhen found the object offensive, Titmouse had the opposite reaction, finding it intriguing. He kept on trying to drag the object, but only managed to score the surface with a flurry of marks, scattering dried paint and chips of wood all over the sand, at least until Moorhen chose to intervene.

As she began to work at the sand rather than the beam, Titmouse stood and watched her. Half his limbs were precariously balanced on the beam, and the other half were either planted on some loose sand or - in the case of one of his forelimbs - lifted and tentative, giving him the look of a hound dog pointing at a hidden quarry. He slipped off of the beam as Moorhen worked, drifting closer until she gave him a cue to try again. With a huff, and a deep breath punctuated with the assumption of a serious expression, Titmouse rose up on his hind limbs and lunged at the beam. This time his paws came in to contact and the entire thing shuddered, and then violently moved away from him.

The sand was loose enough from the woman's work that it could no longer root the beam, and Titmouse's intervention caused the massive thing to go sliding down the burm until it collided with a few of the large and immovable boulders by the seaside.

Although she was not terribly keen on the strange artifact, seeing it moving away from her at haste spurned the Akhlut into action. Nothing ran from her and escaped!

Intent on catching up, she lunged after the beam down the burm, skittering on loose sand and debris as she went, but ultimately keeping her paws underneath her. And then, when the beam stopped, she did as well, no longer interested in a target that was no actively trying to escape her.

"We win!" she declared, wheeling around and prancing victoriously down the beach, excited to have Vanquished the Enemy. After releasing that excess energy, she circled back to sniff at the now-exposed section of the beam, still a bit confused and entirely put off. "Mou - what?" she wondered aloud, taking a few steps back as some flakes of red paint came away on her nose and gave off a faint but acrid stench.

When the beam came to a halt, it wasn't because it had lost momentum, but because the boulders blocked the way. Somehow the red shape had turned on the sand and when it collided with the stones there was a flurry of red particles set free, like fireflies. The wood groaned and settled against the sand after that, wedged against the boulders. Beside the dislodged beam was Moorhen, prancing around happily.

Titmouse watched this from the burm. Seeing her displaying her glee was entertaining in one sense, and otherwise quite charming since his previous experience with her had been - well, not lacking in fun, but somewhat limited. It was nice to see her having fun. However, it didn't last too long — she dipped her nose and began to investigate the red thing's surface and he decided to close the distance, loping easily across the beach until he was on the other side, and sniffing at it himself.

Mou - what? she asked him, as if he had any idea what the thing was. But it had reminded him of her grand pile, and seemed like a good addition. There was no way for them to take the massive thing over to her pile now, though (as if they ever had a chance), so he could only shrug. Her little huff sent bits of paint chips flying of her nose, and he huffed an airy wolf-laugh at her — Cute, he deemed her.

Was to be pren-sen, um, gift? there, he at least could manage that word without too much issue. To make it a bit clearer, he motioned towards the section of beach where she'd come from, to the dark silhouette of her pile, and then grabbed the nearest portion of the beam and mimed himself dragging it that way.

Mou joined her on the beach with an odd non-sequitur. Cute. Moorhen glanced around but decided she must've just misunderstood him, because she didn't think the beam was very cute and there were no puppies or other cute things around and - oh wait, her? Either way, she studiously ignored the remark, because she wasn't sure if he'd been talking about her or if it had been a snipe if he was.

Instead, she turned her attention fully to the beam as he explained its purpose. Which was equally mistifying to the shewolf, as she had no idea why Mou would want to give her a present. "Fyrir mig?" she breathed, forgetting in her wonder to speak the common tongue. She corrected herself the next time she spoke, asking a simple, "But why?" On two counts. Why would he want to give her something, and why would he think she wanted that thing? 

She was still terribly flattered, and it likely showed on her dark face.

She didn't understand at first, or seemed flummoxed. When it dawned on her she spoke again and the sounds made his ears swivel. He didn't know what that first bit meant - maybe it was something that the islanders spoke and he'd just never noticed before - and then he took in the expression of surprise and subtle flattery that took hold of her burnished face. His tail fanned and wagged a few times, happy to have caused such a reaction.

He opened his mouth again to try and explain why, and didn't have much of a reason. So he did some mental reaching and tried to enunciate so that it was as clear as could be: For.. for say sorry, for.. stig-take-game, his mouth felt oddly dry as he spoke. You like st-ig, I want brig you b.. big, big sti-g. Is... goodt?

God he wished he could speak properly. Clearly. As he came to his conclusion he feared that Moorhen wouldn't understand. Mostly, he felt the dry constriction of his throat and was distracted by a dry, wheezy cough that prevented him from saying more. Once his throat relaxed he was alright, but looked a little flustered.

While Mou's speech was a bit hard to understand and certainly a lot to chew through, she did end up getting the gist of it. "Oh," she said, her mouth popping open in surprise. She was heartened to hear that her packmate had recognized her discomfort and had even taken steps to correct the slight. "Thank you, Mou. Forgive," she assured, moving forward a few steps to offer a friendly snoot-to-cheek boop.

But when asked if it was good, she stumbled slightly. "Um..." She wasn't one to lie if she didn't need to, and even then, she was not very good at it. Still, she made a token effort. "Yes, very good. Thank you," she said again, unable to look directly at the male.

Good thread. :> Maybe archive with your reply?

She understood, which made him happiest. When she came close and booped her snoot against his cheek he returned the show of affection, listening to her commending him for the gift. It wasn't hard for him to take note of her tone, and the not-so-subtle attempt to try and accept the gift despite not really liking it. It was charming, again. He smiled, knowing she was doing her best - but also deciding that he'd find her all the best sticks in the future. This one was big and strange and special, but not the kind of stick she liked. Titmouse would know for the future.

He nosed around the big red beam for a few more minutes before a sound far-off alerted him, and he turned his attention away from the large object marooned between the two boulders. With a happy little chuff Titmouse dipped his nose to Moorhen as if to say farewell, and slunk along the beach towards the sound's origin, distracted and eager to help with the continued cleaning of the beach.

Job finished, Mou went off to see to some other activity. Moorhen watched him go for a moment, thinking about gifts and the seawolves and about the swiftly-approaching spring. He'd given her an idea about what she ought to do next.

For now, though, she began kicking dirt over the red beam, hoping to make its presence somewhat less offensive before she headed off to capture a nice fish.