pretty like blood on sand

The stranger approached unbidden and Mochi's shoulders stiffened, her tail held out straight behind her, level with her spine. Her ears folded against her skull and lips pulled taught across her teeth. Not a snarl, not yet, but the warning was there as she looked at the man sidelong, or as best she could with her feet in the water and he somewhere off just behind her.

When he spoke, she exhaled and shook her fur, chasing some of the tension from her bones. You didn't talk to people you intended to attack without warning, or at least she thought you didn't. She wouldn't.

Turning her head to look over him properly, she kept her mouth closed and let the silence drag out just a little longer, a slow blink as she considered. He looked about her age, she'd never met anyone about her age outside her siblings. What did one talk to strangers about? The world being swallowed by the sea apparently.

"Is that supposed to be unsettling? Should I cower and beg to be saved?" She tipped her head considering, before looking back out over the cresting waves. "I think I would welcome it."

"speech"