An ear twitched, eyes drifting to where the other had touched then carefully tracing a path back to a gaze already set elsewhere. Mhm.

Not bad.

Benji remained patient as Citalá fell quiet, contentedly listening to only the padding of paws, their breaths, and the nearing roil of waters. Fish hung in the air fairly strong now and the scent clung to the back of her throat comfortably. The mild discomfort in her stomach dulled now at the promise of a meal. In turn, Citalá's voice pierced her thoughts, thinly straying as they were.

She nodded although this not being the other's land was easy to infer, and truly she wondered if it was anyone's. Did every wolf who roamed these lands once used to roam elsewhere? The children that ran amok through Howff's territory implied perhaps this was an affliction only older sorts were privy to, but even then she couldn't be sure. Benji's ears fanned out to the sides of her head... sympathetically. Drowning was no easy death. The way Citalá spoke, though, it led Benji to believe it wasn't the act itself that bothered her so.

Must've been some sort of ritualistic thing. Or, the illusion of one. Clearly she'd been tricked.

Benji struggled with emotionality. Either she felt verbally stiff or she was verbally stiff and that - that didn't do much good at all. But, well, saying nothing wasn't great either.

"Seems it wasn't," she said, tone flat but the pitch of her voice stayed low—warm. "Sorry that's how it turned out for you." Benji shook her head. "Gods are fickle I fear. I've prayed to many and none answer. Don't take winding up here to heart."

She looked away, off to the left where she spotted the glistening surface of water. "It's no fault of yours that your Cisin didn't speak in truth."

With a little huff and a full body shake to rid her skin of the tension beneath it, she pulled ahead by just a step. "Is that where we can fish?"

The quiet after she speaks prickles her skin, watching, painfully waiting for a response from Benji as her heart seeks out that which she cannot give herself. Then, the raven lady can almost breathe in relief. Making eye contact with the plain spoken wolf, Citalá can almost smile in comfort at the words.

”Gods are not kind,” she agrees. The water ripples, waves licking up the sand and churning foam. Citalá could watch it all day; deep blues, swirling, pulling and pushing out. So many passengers can exist in the realm of water, and she can, too. ”I need no Cisin, now.”

The softness of her voice is a contrast to her fangs that jut over her bottom lips, the narrowness of her eyes. If Cisin rejected her, she is right to reject him as well. She is the deity of her own story.

Trotting ahead, she grins, a flash of white against her dark head as she pulls close to the water.

“Fish here, yes,” she agrees. Greeting an old friend, she enters one limb at a time, the waves soaking up to her elbows. Her toes dredge up sand, turning the water dusky. She stills herself, steady as she waits in the cold waters for Benji. ”You must catch more than I do, yes?”

She couldn't stifle the twitch of her mouth as it shaped the faintest impression of a grin. "You need no Cisin at all," she encouraged, gently bumping the other's shoulder. "Look at you now. His loss."

Benji fell a step or two behind, arriving at the water when Citalá stepped in. She looked to their left then right, sniffing as she did so to ascertain they were the only bodies around before she, too, pressed forward. Rewarded by the cool rush of lapping waves announcing this arrival with great disturbance. This was her element and she knew it well. She took a step back, sideways, dark eyes tracking dark shapes that swam against the whorl of the tide. "Catch more... Ha," she laughed, dry but lacking no mirth. "You have to catch more than me."

A friendly challenge... of sorts.

Benji planted her forepaws firmly in the water, silt packed between the webbing of her toes, ears pricked forward and attentively listening for any uncouth splash of startled fish. So much of fishing relied on waiting. Patience, typically, was her strong suit but Citalá's watching gaze coaxed her into performing. She dropped her head low and a roll of her shoulders situated her like some heron above the water's surface. She waited, waited, and—

—sprung at the first darting shadow.

Something smacked at her amidst the arterial-esque spray but she reared her head up and out with a muffled yet triumphant, "Woo!" teeth sank firm into the slick flesh of a very, very small fish. A fish nonetheless. "Try to beat the size of this." Benji flashed a fang grin, struck by brazenness more than true pride as she flaunted the fish as though it was not a terribly unimpressive thing.