Although it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Sundew to articulate it, she had grown up on the liminal zone between tundra and taiga in the interior of a continent. What that means, of course, is that she had never seen the ocean. The largest body of water she had ever seen were glaciated lakes that twisted, long and lean, through valleys and niches in between dramatic mountains. It was beautiful, sure, but was it fun? Ok, honestly, yes. Sunny loved sliding down snowy slopes and slick waterfalls. But this... this was something else. Sundew sat on the beach, utterly motionless. Her jaw hung swinging open in the breeze. She had been seeing glimpses of blue on the horizon for quite a while as she journeyed to the beach, but she hadn't truly gotten a good look until she had passed through the large boulders that littered the coastline. Astounded, she had plopped down in the sand immediately. She didn't feel as if she could move, let alone think until she had processed what was before her.

Water stretched out endlessly to the horizon. It was an impossible to describe color that somehow contained shades of blue, grey, and green simultaneously. It did not flow like a river. It did not burble like a stream. It crashed against the stony shore with a force that seemed almost deliberate. The waves were white-capped and curling, pushed before the ocean winds like leaves struggling to free themselves from a branch. Except the ocean was in no need of being freed. Sundew knew, suddenly, that nothing that large could be truly inanimate. The ocean was not just a thing or a place, as she had always thought, but a being. It danced, it raged, it birthed, it killed. It teemed with innumerable lives, of species she could never even dream about, and yet it killed with the implacable aloofness of a hungry wolf. Take and give. Sundew loved it already.

Freed from her stupor by her understanding, she leaped from her sitting position, long legs bounding across the beach quickly. Soon she was leaping about in the laves, laughing wildly at the feel of water swishing around her legs. Sunny was tall and promised to be a well-built wolf, but she was still young and slender. A large wave caught her off guard and swept her off her feet, sending her tumbling head over heels toward the shore. She thrashed as the current pulled her against sand and pebbles, pushing determinedly to her paws. She stood for a moment, panting, legs spread wide, before the taste on her tongue registered. Yuck! Had she known the water would be salty? The briny, sour water seemed to coat her tongue with minerals. She shook her head futilely, tongue extended and flapping in the open air. Alas, the salt water could not be shaken off.

With a resigned shrug and a grimace, she accepted the new, vile taste of her existence. She wasn't sure when the taste would wear off, but why worry about that when there was fun to be had? The young she-wolf play bowed, careful to keep her face out of the waves as she stretched her forepaws out before her. Although somewhat bedraggled by the salt water, her tail wagged lazily above her haunches. As Sundew challenged the ocean to play, she felt as if all her happiness and joy and energy was resounding inside her body, crashing about with a resonation that seemed to make her bones tremble. She tensed, then sprang forward with another wild laugh. The tension inside of her broke, sending happiness and joy echoing out of her. She felt free, happy, and bright. Like a sunbeam dancing on the waves, she leaped and gamboled about in the water, heedless of any observers.

by sixsmith.