Cerulean Cape blood canticle

he toiled in to the east from the tall trees. days passed—he kept company with sea-birds and their shadows. far out over the sea there was a darkness, a gathering breath. he watched this from time to time, too.
it was quiet here upon the cape. drusk descended across a sandlot; he explored a copse of battered trees which somehow had not been uprooted; the scent of food lured him along a stony ledge but he didn't get far, as his feet were not used to the barnacles clinging to everything.
the stinging of his paw-pads was not new, but the subtle trailing of his ruddy cracked palms drew the attention of a pair of crows. these he chased up upon another stretch of loose sand and intermittent gravel, at least until they cackled and wheeled away across the tideline.

Oh hello!

She knew how to use her nose—tracking, trailing, these came naturally to her. The rest was another matter entirely. She had simply been drawn by the briny breath of the coast, a place her sister would have loved, a place where she perhaps hoped to cross her path. But it was a subtle scent of blood—faint, nearly imperceptible—that had slipped into her awareness. A wound far too minor to cause any real concern. Still, she had followed the trail.

At the horizon, she glimpsed the creature that had left it in its wake. A great brown beast. The pale woman narrowed her eyes, as if doing so might bring it into sharper focus. She moved closer, gliding across the expanse of sand with her light, floating stride.

A man. A tall man, swathed in a coat of many hues of brown. Silent, she drew level with him—she’d even had to stretch her gait, shifting from her usual airy trot to a measured amble to conserve her strength. She studied him without a word. Was this what the hunters of these lands looked like? What kind of trophies could men such as this possibly bring back? The question lingered in her mind.

grains of sand caked his paw pads. he had ignored it for as long as he could but the salt that dried there among the grains burned in to him, and he began to limp. this was not something he would have done around others—showing such a small but obvious weakness—and it proved he was oblivious to the stranger tailing him.
it wasn't until she was level with his trajectory that he took notice of the shifting sand, the sound of weight pacing behind him, and he stopped to look over one shoulder. the darkness of his mantled shoulders, looking more haggard and pronounced given his recent thinning, prickled with an indecisive energy. was this a threat? was this something else?
he flashed his front teeth with a lift of his lip, but said nothing—not even a rumble.

Common sense and the subtle art of canine communication were not her forte. If only her sister were here.
In Hunting Ground, solitude was the norm. One mingled with others only to breed or to boast of hard-won victories. Exchanges—if one could even call them that—were typically swift, succinct, and often entirely one-sided.

Bared fangs had served as a warning—one the woman in the ivory coat had failed to read. Still, she had slowed her pace slightly, uncertain, ears lowered, eyes averted. Words—those she commanded well. Gestures, intentions? Far less so.

I’m looking for someone, she said at last, hoping to shift the dynamic, to defuse a situation she could not decipher.

You’ve been walking a long time, haven’t you? This time, her voice carried a hint of hesitation. She had only her earlier deduction to go on: paws roughened by the journey—traveler’s paws. Of that, there could be no doubt.