Trudging his way through the thick undergrowth of the cedar forests towards the sound of the ocean, Azrael led Mireia from the scene of their recent slaughter in search of the coast. Although he had been victorious, the Saxe brute had unfortunately broken his last injector in Vaso’s neck during their scuffle and was now without his most invaluable tools. That simply wouldn’t do! He couldn’t go back to his family’s new pack without any of his supplies to begin his work immediately! Gods knew what Sephiran's reaction would be, though he could only imagine it would not be pleasant. There was no two ways about it—he would need to craft more of his injector vials before they made their way north to join the Syndicate.

Emerging from the shade of the tree line out into the open sunlight, Azrael blinked sage green eyes in the brighter light until his vision adjusted. The cove they found themselves at was in its low tide, the ocean receded from the shore to reveal the many pockets of tide pools. Perfect timing! With a whimsical little smile, Az glanced back over his shoulder at his newest Sidi and beckoned her forward with a swish of his tail. "Come along, Mireia! We're going shopping!" Leading the way with smooth, graceful strides, Az stepped down the rocky beach head down into the cove, maneuvering carefully between the pools while sharp green eyes scanned the shallow pockets of crystal clear water for the reason they had come here.

"Mind your step," he called back to her, nose lowered to the ground so he could peer more closely at the rock formations beneath the water. Pausing at one of the larger pools, Az stood perfectly still and waited, watching a single out of place rock at the bottom of the pool. After a few long moments of study, the brute saw the rock give a subtle flick of a fin. A triumphant grin spread across his lips. Gotcha! Reaching his paws down into the water, Az ever so slowly moved them closer to the camouflaged fish... then snatched up the fish with surprisingly quick reflexes. There was a splash of water as Azrael pulled the fish out of the water, tossing it down onto dry land and swiftly drawing his knife to plunge it down into the fish's head. The fish spasmed a couple of times in its death throes, then laid still, dead. One down.

Setting his knife aside, Azrael lifted the fish that looked like a spiky rock to show it to Mireia. "This is a stonefish. This is what we're looking for," he explained to her, handling the carcass carefully to avoid pricking his paws on its spines. Today was not the day he planned on dying. "The dorsal spines on its back are extremely sharp and deliver a deadly venom if you get pricked by them. I need these spines. So you're going to help me gather as many of these fish as you can find for me." Setting the dead fish down, Az began to carefully fillet the fish with his knife, carving away each individual spine from the fish's body along with the venom sacs. He'd had plenty of experience doing this by now and handled the dissection like a master. "Look for any elongated rocks that have fins or shuffle your paws sideways through the sand. Grab them from the side or the tail and kill them quickly. Oh, and do not step on them." Az shot Mireia a wicked grin. How unfortunate it would be to lose this gorgeous new Sidi so quickly. He hoped she wouldn't be stupid enough to get stung, otherwise he supposed he'd get to watch the final show as her life came to a swift and painful end.

"Azrael Saxe"

Mireia followed behind her new master happily, a rejuvenated spring in her step after the murder of her previous, terrible master and a long, delightful night of getting to know Azrael very intimately. Azrael was proving to be the most curious and unusual brute she had found herself tethered to, but he was by far the most satisfying and fun to play with so she hoped she would get to keep this one for a long time. He led her through the dense foliage of Auster until they reached the shore line and he seemed to find what it was he was looking for. He declared that they were going shopping and she tipped her head curiously, muttering mostly to herself, "¿Compras?" This was no market nor did she see any traders anywhere along this beach, but she followed him dutifully all the same while she waited to see what they had come all this way for.

At his warning she did as he said and was careful about where she put her paws, checking each spot before she stepped as she walked over to stand beside him as he crouched next to a pool. She watched the water, glancing at him occasionally with a question in her ruby gaze. What were they looking for? Finally, Azrael seemed to spot what he was hunting for and she watched as he reached for something under the water and suddenly snatched up what had at first seemed like a rock, but was instead a strange fish. "Aye!" she called out with surprise as he tossed the fish onto the shore, making her hop back to avoid the flopping, wet mess of it. He stabbed the thing to death and she blinked with surprise.

Luckily Azrael finally explained what it was she was looking at, telling her it was a stonefish and that they were collecting them for the deadly spines on its back. He didn't explain what he needed them for, but considering how he had incapacitated Vaso she could get an idea. He began to dissect the fish and remove the spines in question while giving her instructions for how to hunt for the fish herself. She wasn't typically tasked with anything more than just looking pretty and being available to fuck whenever her master wished, but she supposed she could adapt if she must. While he worked on the first fish, she went over to another tide pool and couched down at the edge of it, much like he had. It took her a while to figure out what exactly she should be noticing, but a bit of movement eventually caught her eye and she watched that spot closely to make sure she wasn't seeing things and sure enough, she spotted a fin move among the sandy bottom of the pool.

She inched her away around the pool to the side closest to her target and she oh so carefully began to reach into the pool, sliding her paw along the bottom to make sure she was staying as far away from its back as she could. As soon as she was close enough that she thought she could make a grab for it she tried to mimic Azrael's reflexes and she reached out to hook her claws into its tail. Her toss to get it up onto the shore wasn't nearly as neat or precise as his had been, but somehow she managed to get it out of the water and avoided being stabbed by the dangerous spines. Now she just had to kill it... Azrael had his dagger to use, but she didn't have any tools or weapons at her disposal. She looked around frantically for a moment till she found a rock that would fit in her paw and she hurried to slam it down on the fish's head before it flopped back into the water. Not a clean kill, but an effective one, she supposed.

"Mireia"

While he was cutting the spines oh so carefully out of the stonefish, Azrael would occasionally pause to glance up and watch Mireia as she hunted about for the fish in the tide pools he had instructed her to find. One by one, the experienced hunter removed each of the twelve spines and slipped them into his bag to be properly cleaned and sterilized at a later time. With the first fish successfully de-spined, Azrael tossed the mutilated corpse aside and went back to searching through the tide pools as well. The stonefish were sneaky and clever hiders, but he was a veteran of this game of hide and seek. He spotted another stone shift ever so slightly in one of the pools, then noticed the fins coming off the side of it. With a careful thrust of his dagger down into the water, he skewered the stonefish straight through the head, killing it immediately as he lifted it out of the tide pool for harvesting.

Azrael had no sooner begun making his incisions along the fish's back to remove its spines when he heard a cacophony of splashing water and looked up to see Mireia in an absolute frenzy of activity. She slammed a stonefish down onto the shore with a wet splat, the beached creature flopping about helplessly as it gasped for air it could not breathe. Mireia looked about in a panic—then grabbed a stone and brought it down with a smash onto the fish's head, earning her a slightly perturbed stare from the Saxe brute. Fixing his new Sidi with a concerned gaze, Az stepped over to her, looking between her and the mutilated fish corpse at her paws.

Without a word, the violet brute held his knife up to her, giving it a little wave in the air. "You could have asked for it," he remarked with incredulous disbelief at what he had just witnessed. "Did you not keep that knife you killed Vaso with?" With a disappointed sigh and a shake of his head and roll of his eyes, he went back to dissecting the stonefish they'd collected. "We're going back for it when we're done here. Just keep fishing."

"Azrael Saxe"

Just as she was washing off the blood that had splattered up her foreleg during her messy kill, Azrael walked over to her and she glanced up to see the concerned, baffled look her new master was giving her. She didn't immediately understand what the look was for before he waved his knife at her and said that she could have asked for it. Ah, so he didn't care for her method of completing his task that she didn't even want to do? She huffed and pouted in response, throwing a paw up in exasperation. "I have never been allowed to have a blade! How was I supposed to know I could ask for the knife? Or keep one!" He dismissed her and told her to keep fishing and she rolled her eyes with another huff, stalking off to another pool as she muttered under her breath, "Maldito cabrón, haciéndome pescar y luego criticándome por ello..." Honestly, why couldn't he just use her body for sex like every other brute that had owned her?

With a sigh she crouched down beside another on of the tide pools and started the process over again of watching carefully for any movement in the water and trying to distinguish the odd fish from the rocks that dotted the bottom. It took her a while to notice anything and she was beginning to think that she had just gotten lucky with finding the first or maybe there just wasn't one in this pool at all. She almost gave up and moved on to a different pool when she spotted a little bit of movement out of the corner of her eye. Looking in that direction, she watched carefully till the fish moved again and gave away its location to her. She crept carefully over to the edge closest to where it was hiding and then repeated what she had done before with very carefully hooking the fish and tossing it out onto the shore with a splash. "Aye! "¡El cuchillo! ¡Por favor!" she called out to Azrael, waving her paw at him while watching the fish to make sure it couldn't flop back into the water in the time it took him to get over to her.

"Mireia"