Yes, she had faintly heard the bark, a childish sound but she had been swift to continue as if she never had. If anything, her pace had briefly hastened in an effort to put more distance between she and the child and yet, such a thing did not matter when both destinations were the same. See, d'Mani knew one thing about children: there were always more eyes on them than any other, especially in a pack. If a child had spotted her then surely an adult would and...well, everybody knew how that ended for trespassers, right? Seldom well.
But after that, she had stopped thinking about the pup. Instead, her thoughts had quickly become consumed by the sand, the waves and the grand vastness of it all! She had little room to think of anything but how fabolous it felt to feel the sand between her paws and the way the salt clung to her fur and skin. She breathed a sigh of relief here and there as she sniffed and pawed about, testing the rocks with strokes of her paws; she nosed at the dried coral; she nibbled on the cuttlefish bones and driftwood. Her and there she went, consumed and oblivious to the sounds of tiny paws racing towards her.
But the child had not forgotten her! Oh no, the pup's voice damn well startled her as she raced forward. Wide eyed, d'Mani's head shot up, a small piece of driftwood still in her jaws as the yellow of her eyes shot down to meet the child with a tentative oh. Pretty lady, though? That made her brows rise up as she breathed a sigh of relief - no adults...yet. "You flatter me, kid." She lowered her head down after having then dropped the driftwood at her paws (though she seemed to almost stand over it a little bit defensively.) "I came to see the sea - that's what we used to call it, at least. You can see it from plenty of places but nothing quite like this, you know." She motioned towards the ocean then as a wave rolled in, its foam seeking to reach them but failing.
It might have been easy to assume that a wolf like her would not take to children so well but ah! She had been raised with many siblings, many pups, and though she had not been near them for some time, her early years were her fondest memories. It was easy to recall the faces of Alyeska, Iskra and even Vulcan, their dark little faces staring back at her from that of Tikal's. And so, she had a soft spot despite her gruffness. It showed in the way that she allowed herself to relax, a shoulder having dropped down as she glanced lazily out over the water. "Do they let you play in it? The adults, that is." She was more curious than anything. She barely intended it to encourage such behavior but, well...maybe the water wings in her blood were more genetic than she first thought.