Neela smiled gratefully at Titania's words and dipped her muzzle in thanks; storms were difficult enough to deal with out at sea and having to worry about landing on another packs territory during one was another worry in a situation where it could well prove fatal."Thank you, storms are deadly enough without having to pass over shelter"
Neela was fairly surprised when Titania expressed an interest in seeing her boat; the rumours floating around had put New Dawn as rather opposed to human (Or in the Meria's case human-inspired) creations. Still Neela had no problem with this, the opposite in-fact. Neela enjoyed showing off the Meria to those who showed an interest and her tail began to wag at Titania's excitement. "Of course you can." Neela said, smiling as she started to walk over to the ship.
As Neela walked she examined Titania. It hadn’t been immediately obvious but it was rather surprising to the older woman just how young the New Dawn Alphess, her "my pack" comment seeming to indicate this was indeed Titania's place, was. The white and red wolf wasn't even a yearling if Neela's sense of smell was correct. Still even if the wolf herself was young she had the weight of an entire pack behind her so Neela's body language remained friendly, but polite.
As Neela reached the boat she began to talk, unable to resist sharing some information about her boat, gesturing up at the side of the boat where it's name was written, "The Meria Lea is Luperci made, designed her myself and oversaw the construction. She's based on a mix of some old human boat designs modified for canine use by myself; whatever faults they had they were good at building things." Neela ran a hand over the surface of the boat, walking around it to the ladder as she did so. "She's made of cedar mostly and measures 35 feet from bow to stern. Designed mainly for fishing but she can handle long journeys as well; got me here from way down south." Neela turned back to Titania here, a proud smile on her face.
"Err you can have a look onboard if you want but well…" At 35 feet long the Meria was fairly tall and required the use of a ladder to board in absence of a raised dock. Neela wasn't entirely sure how opposed to using Optime for might be but decided to venture it anyway, "You'll need to shift to use the ladder, I don’t have any timber long enough to make a ramp and from what I hear being hoisted on and off with the winch is rather painful" Neela grinned to show the last part as a joke, not mentioning that she had actually had to do that when somebody sailing with her had broken their leg during a storm.
"Erm that’s if you want to of course." Neela nervously backtracked, hoping that the Alphess wasn;t offended by the idea. "If you do want to I can go first and show you how? Its rather tricky." The Meria's "ladder" was far from standard. Consisting of a series of slats cut into the wood and surrounded by raised sections nailed on it was a hard ladder to use if you didn’t know about the hidden handholds and grips in the wood around it.
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