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Pike has a reputation among the Tidewalkers--those present, anyway--for his stealth. And perhaps it is this that explains how he manages to get so close, and perhaps it is only that Flint's been away too long, or is too lost in the rush of the waves. In any case, Pike's gotten the better even of Bitterleaf's eaglehound form, and he is no different in this case.

In truth he stands watching for some moments, cloaked in shadow; in his way he has his eyes narrowed to shade their gleam, and he has no glowing bracelets to betray him. Fewer things mark him out as Bitterleaf's descendant, fewer still to mark him out as Longstride's. He is his mother's child, but with a lean, hard body like a snake's, and when he gains Flint's attention it is by kicking a loose stone, creating the gentlest of rattles. He begins walking at the same moment, allowing his steps to crunch in the loose gravel and the sand, as though he had never had the buck at unawares in the first place.

He sees Longstride in Flint's face; he sees Bitterleaf in his expression, in his glowing arms. And he sees the ocean around his neck. This is no common trespasser, and Pike's entire demeanor conveys it: he walks without challenge, but with skepticism painted on his narrow, hard face.

"Your brother, I think," he answers after a pause, and his voice is surprisingly soft, with the softness of a person who does not need to speak loudly or roughly to be sure in his words. "Blood alone doesn't entitle you to be here, but you look our type."

And of course Pike knows who he is. He's heard stories--from Thousand, mostly, told in a sort of wistful voice--and he is bright enough to piece the situation together. But he goads him, nonetheless. Makes him think he has been forgotten here.

"Only that you've got Bitterleaf's blood, and Longstride's look, and Waterside's marks." He strides past Flint, unconcerned, towards the surf. He relents, a little: "I assume you're Flint."

"Pike. My sister Eel will be somewhere close--" and his tone is carefully devoid of inflection here "--and there are more of us. And more Tidewalkers, too, that came from elsewhere. I hear Jasper's tossed up a clutch, finally." A tidbit of gossip, to put him at his ease, perhaps.

And indeed, there is something about even this corner of the beach, so secluded at night, that seems... lived-in. Some lingering scent of warm bodies, some shadow of old hoofprints. "What brings you back?"

"That, and the others too."

"Oh," says a third voice, all cheery, "there're just heaps of us now. You don't even need to head down to the surf to go swimming any more, Flint; you can just wade through the pile of heaving bodies."

It's Fen--of course, who else would it be?--and when she slips out of the mangroves Thousand is not at her side. It seems Pike isn't the only one who's shed his usual shadow tonight. She dances a few stiff-legged steps, neck arched and tail flung high, towards the bucks. Pike's face is carefully expressionless.

"We've been inconsolable. I only just now stopped wearing black feathers in mourning. You should have seen them though, very dashing and tragic."

"Seems like a party," is the cheery answer. Skin tosses her hair from her eyes, squinting along the sand. "And a stranger," she adds, before noting: "Got the family resemblance to him, though, shape and bracelets. Prodigal son, perhaps?" She gestures at the gathering with her nose. "You'll have to come with me, and tell me whether you think he's my type."

"Hopefully," says Fen, "she's catching you a big fat fish because you have wasted away to nothing. Look at you. When's the last time you ate? Was it before you left? It was before you left, wasn't it. Nice necklace," she adds, leaning in to examine it while keeping her legs stiffly locked mid-step. "Isn't it nice, Pike?"

Pike says nothing, contributes nothing: in a way, this says all he needs to about his attitude towards Fen.

"Well, what else would Fen say?" She smiles, the closest Skin normally comes to laughing when she isn't in the water, and sets off towards them, where Fen is shaking her head.

"I can't. I've been too distraught by your absence, see. Real mourning." Perhaps Fen's mourning manifests itself in the form of comfort eating, since she, at least, doesn't look like she's been missing any meals. She's gone from the lean-and-deprived look of the typical beach-dweller to something altogether more sleek, but then again she's always been something of a hedonist, and life at the shore is not so cruel as it once was, although it remains harsh. "I haven't caught a fish in weeks. They're having to gently feed me while I swoon on my side. It's been great. You should consider leaving more often."