Continuing through his goal of making a leisurely visit to each island of the continent, Azure made the exhausting swim across avian estuary toward the crescent shaped island beyond. It was something his mother had done in her youth too, a decision she had made early on in her years as an alpha to gain knowledge of the world beyond her own little bubble. Azure did not put much stock in adventures and exploration, but he could see the importance of information.

This island was so far the nicest he'd seen, tropical in a way that was jarring in comparison to the last island he'd visited - Atlantis Isle in the cold north. It was a welcome change, the waters warm and inviting, the palm trees offering shade for the harsh and unrelenting sunlight. Azure kept to the water's edge, dragging his heavy paws through the shore and running his gaze up along it. There in the shallow sand, creatures scattered away from his claws. Crabs. Azure's head tilted as he recalled the taste, missing for the first time in a season his old beach front home.

If he were to catch some, he'd need some form of net. Stepping onto the warm white sand he moved into the brush and began to search out a material that would be suitable. It didn't have to be perfect, just enough to encourage the crabs onto the sand and out from the deeper ocean waters.

"Speech"

With most of the adults busy out scouting and so many small bodies to contend with it was no surprise that Deluge had managed to slip away. She might not have been having the best time of it, but she would be damned if she was gonna stop and ask for directions on how to get home. She could smell salt water and her home was by the beach so she couldn’t be too far away, right?

Her skin had begun a tell-tale itchiness that only salt water could sooth and it was during just a regular ol’ dip, like she’d taken many times before, that she managed to get herself caught up in a swift current, until the distant island was closer to her than the mainland she had left behind. She hauled herself up on the beach, sodden and coughing, heaving for breath before she knew it. She would have to recover before trying to get back home again, so she found herself a nice little patch of shade to curl up in for a nap… She wasn’t too worried about being caught out, this place seemed pretty deserted.

The sun was high in the sky by the time Deluge awoke. The sound of shuffling through the undergrowth startled the young wolf awake. Whatever it was sounded large, like maybe a bear! How had she managed to find herself on bear island of all places!? Well, Deluge was determined not to go down without a fight so she gathered gangly legs on too large paws beneath her and tried her best to put on a fearsome expression, the elevation in her heart rate made her glowing fur pulse.

But wait… Why was that smell familiar?

Azure moved deeper into the island foliage alert and aware, scanning his gaze across the greenery in search of something vaguely nettish and eventually noticing the familiar and fierce pup who he'd yeeted that day on the beach. It took a moment for the recognition to reach his eyes and then all at once, his mood soured into first anger and then annoyance. "Oh fuck off." He blew out a breath, turning his head from the child and stalking back toward the shore away from her. He'd catch the crabs with his own damn paws if it meant he didn't need to suffer through any tiny glowy pirate shenanigans.

"Hey I saw some shiny shit in the water, go swim for it. It's probably treasure." He called over his shoulder, lying through his teeth about a prize in the sand but desperately hoping the child was stupid enough to go searching for it - and bad enough a swimmer to not resurface.

Reaching the beach once more, he waded into the ocean until the water grew too high and began to severely limit his agility. Cutting parallel to the shore, he moved to get behind the crabs and chase them back onto the beach.

"Speech"

The young child bristled. He didn’t even have the decency to try and fight her again! While the suggestion of something shiny in the water was tempting, what would be even cooler would be if she managed to catch him, and take him back to Sparrow, and then she could be a big sin too! Tiny pink and black spotted nostrils flared at the big green man’s back as her honey-hued eyes cast about for some sort of restraint. She gathered up a few decent lengths of thin green vines and charged down towards the beach only to spot the big flailing about in the water. What was he doing? Not only that, but with a measure of the depth of the water so close to the shore, suddenly swimming back to the mainland on her own seemed even more daunting…

She dropped the lengths of vines in the sand, and allowed her ears to flick back momentarily, as she considered that perhaps it was worth calling a truce for now. “Oi! Wa’cher dooin?” she hollered from the shoreline, bringing her rump to rest on the radiating warmth of the beach. As if on cue, her stomach gave a surprisingly loud grumble.

Azure drove the crabs forward toward the landmass and to his disappointment, the pup was beginning to follow him and had stepped onto the sand. She asked him what he was doing, clearly not ready to leave him alone nor had she fallen for the treasure hunt plan. "There are large sea creatures with claws the size of your head under the water here, and I'm encouraging them to go get you." He commented evenly, weaving through the cool water and slowly herding the creatures further and further with an underwater wave of his paw. "And then when they're distracted cutting you up, I can come cut them up."

One crab beneath the water lost track of the rest, making the rash decision to run toward Azure's thick limbs and not away from them. He brought his paw down hard (which was much slower then he'd expected due to the resistance of the water) and managed to catch it's limb as it attempted to scuttle by. Closing his paw around the shell he sunk his curved claws into the soft fleshy openings, killing the first and tossing it back toward the beach (away from Deluge purposefully, so she wouldn't go steal the damn thing) before moving to continue herding more forward.

"Speech"

Deluge considered the man’s words with a scrunch of her muzzle and a cant of her head, followed by an audible snort. She was about to tell him that it wasn’t nice to trick people when he threw a rock up onto the sand, or at least… at first she thought it was a rock. “Won’t cut me up if I cut them up first!” the girl declared with far more confidence than she felt when the first crab came scuttling up on the beach towards her. Her back end gave an experimental wiggle as she pounced forward, paws closing on the hard exoskeleton and her baby teeth attempted to puncture the creatures armour. A pincered claw came up to nip at her ear causing the girl to yelp, throwing her head back and losing her grip, the swing of it’s descent bringing the crab back around to hook it’s other claw onto her lip.

The child’s eyes were watering but she’d be damned if she was gonna cry in front of this guy. Cat like claws grasped at the large flat body and scrabbled for any small soft spot that she could exploit, finally finding a mark that sent the hard shelled body as limp as it was going to get. She looked at the thing with some small degree of horror, it was like something from her darkest nightmares with those big nippers and beady eyes. Her ear and lip were throbbing and here came another one!

Well, she’d fight off the waddle-rocks and then she’d kick his ass for trying to send seafood to do his dirty work!

She pounced with more confidence this time, keeping her face out of range of the pincers and using her claws to seek out the soft bits to add them to her pile of crabs. She was certain now she had a bit of an idea she could catch even more than him. “If I beat ya can Hanana come and play?” It was asked in the sing-song voice of most children but there was a small knowing smirk tugging at the corner of her lips, leaving the words unsaid… Cos I know something you don’t know…

Unfortunately the small glowing shrimp wasn't immediately eaten by the wave of crabs, even managing to kill a few of them. Azure stomped out of the shore, drenched and dripping with salt water. Stalking toward the pup, he moved toward her pile of bodies and with one wide swipe of his claw, poached them off the sand and dumped them onto the bag hanging off of his shoulder. Why should the brat get the reward? He'd done all the work, and it wasn't as if she could carry them all back to shore - if she could get back to the mainland at all.

To the pup's question his tattered ear flicked back, uncertainty in his eyes but his voice firm. "No." He snapped. He did not know what the pirate child was alluding to, nor did he want to know. He wanted to take his crabs and get the fuck out of here before he yeeted her across a second beach. Turning stiffly, Azure moved back toward the shore where he could swim back to the continent.

-attempted exit unless stopped (with her dinner) ;P-

"Speech"