Sea Lion Shores Stolen Life

Forward dated to the 21st. For @Marlow.

The suns first rays reached over the horizon like grasping fingers, signaling the start of a new day. Already, since the darkest hours of the night, Tzila had been wide awake. Sleep had yet to claw at her consciousness. It was perhaps, her newfound sense of freedom that gave her this unnatural energy flowing like a river through her veins.

Most strangely, after she had tucked away into the more confined depths of the Bramblepoint, she found herself drawn north, back to the coast again. She didn't bother trying to make sense of it. She allowed her paws to willfully guide her, all emotions suppressed. She could worry about those later. For now, she just wanted to enjoy the simplicity of the view this stretch of beach had to offer her. The sandy stretches were broken up by multiple, shallow pools. Basking within them or nearby on the pristine white sand, where the silhouettes of sea lions, their dark pelts glinting in the early light. Standing a fair distance afar, the midnight wolf eyed them with a scrutinizing squint. She had tasted these beasts before, but not in many years. What's more, she had never actively participated in hunting them, being too young at the time, fit only to watch from her seaside home. With a decisive flick of her tail, she edged closer, to search for weakness within their numbers.

After her disastrous berry eating contest, Marlow had followed the pull that tugged her northward. She could swear she smelled salt on the breeze, and that sent both a feeling of excitement and a feeling of dread through the young wolf's chest. For one, she loved the sea. It was freedom and waves and gulls screeching and life. But the issue here was the baggage that came with her love. She just as well hated it, for where she used to live and the deplorable conditions she and the other women were kept in. Used, abused, beaten down. Subservient. It had been disgusting.

            But it wasn't the sea's fault. The sea had done nothing wrong, and so she sought it out, craving the feeling of floating weightlessly in the waves once again. 

           She came upon it slowly, and then all at once, sprinting forward when her ears picked up the crashing waves on the shore. Long legs carried her quickly over grass that melted into sand and then stopped on a dime when she spotted the sea lions. There hadn't been many where she had come from, but they were a rare delicacy, and here? There were plenty. Of course, she'd never been allowed to hunt them. That was a man's job. 

           Marley was just about to run forward when she spotted the other wolf surveying the group. Markings eerily similar to her own, but in red instead of white. The leggy wolf crept forward, trying to make sure she was in the other girl's line of sight so she didn't startle her. 

           "Want to hunt one?" she questioned, golden eyes glinting as she looked over at the girl.

Tzila had been about to take a step down onto the beach from the slightly higher, rockier ground on which she stood. Only she didn't have the chance. Well within range of her vision, came another wolf. Her ears cupped curiously. She hadn't realized she was alone all out here. Words failed to immediately form on her tongue, for the Shadow Queen was momentarily captivated by the stark similarity between herself and this dark stranger.

Where there was scarlet red, there was white. Gold replaced silver. It was like looking in a mirror, at a polar opposite of herself. And to think, if she hadn't come back towards the coast, this fated encounter would never be! She shook her head, knocking herself out of her stupor. "Oh! Yeah, sorry." She peeled her eyes away, not wishing to be rude by staring any longer. A look at the countless sea lions again. "I was actually just looking them over now. Maybe if there's a sick or old one..." She was thoughtful, past memories as a witness to such hunts reminding her that these beasts packed a nasty bite. "But I'll warn you...I'm not exactly an expert." A grin, sheepish though it was.

The similarities between the two of them were quite interesting, and if Marlow had been more interested in things like fate, she might've been more awestruck by the other girl. The same height and everything, though the reddened one was maybe a bit curvier - a bit more feminine. But Marley didn't exactly want to be feminine at all, did she?

          "Oh, you were looking for an expert! My bad," she jested, nudging the other girl in a friendly manner. "I've never done this before either, but I used to live on the coast. I've seen 'em do it a few times, and you gotta get it from behind so it doesn't get you." Those things bit hard - she'd seen a few wolves incapacitated for a few weeks over a chomp from one of them. "I think I see an older one over on the edge - it's a little thinner, but it'll work."