ass over tea kettle

Dramatic? Absolutely. Playing up the theatrics of it all, but not quite the vibes of a wounded animal. Maybe a pouty child. Okay, listen, absolutely a pouty child. But he flops over, allows the boy to take a better look at his (admittedly dainty) paws. A hiss rising in his throat as the boy starts to pull at the thorns, recoiling at first. Tide yanks his paw out of Ioan's grasp, though he refuses to yelp. Shit. Okay, fine. This is for his own good, but he's going to be a bitch about it pretty much the whole time.

Though he doesn't apologize, he does offer it back. A bad patient, yes, but he hadn't tried to bite the boy yet. There's a question hanging in the air between them, one he doesn't know how to answer all the way. "Buncha my family have watery names. Deluge, Wake, Tempest, shit like that." Tide tries to distract himself from the feeling of the thorns being plucked free.

"Somma them call me Bait though, a lotta the time. I'm good predator bait, means we can smack 'em to death." Is he lying? Sorta, yeah. But if he's telling the story, then he'll spin the narrative to be way more fun than 'my brother keeps trying to feed me to predators.' Tide has to look cool instead of lame in front of his new friend, okay. And yeah, they're friends now. He's declared it. Sucks to suck, they're friends now.

"Tide"