Calley all but tumbled head first down the rocky slope to the beach; her pet erinacci actually did, bouncing down ball-like through the boulders with an ecstatic grin on his small muzzle. They reached the bottom of the steep slope and worked their way through the smaller rocks at its base to reach the coarse sand of the ocean beach.
A wide swath of sand dunes buffered the hard cliffs from the sea�s pounding waves; Calley clambered up on all fours to the top of the nearest and stopped, watching out over the beach at the teal sea and azure sky. �Wow� I wish we lived near the beach.�
Nips squeaked a negative, sucking in his cheeks like a human would purse their lips.
Calley threw him a look, �Okay, okay, so too much water� but isn�t the sand nice?�
Nips smiled back smugly and, without warning, dove into the sand and disappeared. His coach laughed and took off running. �RACE YOU!�
A lump like a mole hill rose through the sand and gave chase, the sand flowing back in a furrow behind as Nips dug, rapidly falling behind his running coach. Calley clambered up one dune and then tumbled down through the sand, Nips tunneling straight under the dune to catch up, and eventually they reached the slope down to the beach.
The sun had rose high enough to begin its daily bake of the beach sands, and bathing in the light was a young woman, bleached hair pulled back tight and a pink fuzz ball of a maow playing happily in the sand nearby. Calley forgot her race with Nips to reach down and playfully pull her maow out of the sand; Nips was out of breath and raining sand from Calley�s arms as she bounced across the sand towards the woman.
�Ow, hot hot hot hot��
The woman looked up, shielding her eyes with a hand. �Hm? Who are you?�
Calley skipped across the hot sand and stopped next to the woman, digging with her feet to find cooler sand. The woman�s maow had looked up and was beginning a slow, uncoordinated waddle on webbed feet towards Calley and Nips, a small wave of mist rolling around its own feet to cool itself.
Calley hugged Nips to the front of her purple bathing suit. �Um, hi... I�m Calley... I�m from Laral, and this is Nips.�
The woman smiled warmly, holding out her hand. �Good morning, Calley. We don�t get many strangers down here. Well, aside from wild maow. My name is Melodi, by the way.�
Shyly, Calley reached out with her own sandy hand and shook Melodi�s in greeting, looking apologetically as Melodi then wiped her now-sandy hand on her towel. �Sorry��
�No problem at all� there�s sand everywhere on the beach. Are you one of Krysta�s visitors? I saw a dragon land� and I only know of a few dragons that large who wouldn�t cause a ruckus in landing here,� she laughed.
�Yeah, me and my brother and Zane came on Sadira. You get maow here? Sea maow?�
Melodi smiled, sitting up. Her maow, a young sea bird related to a penguin, pulled itself into her lap with its barely visible pink-fuzzed wings. �All kinds. Sea maow are big travelers. The bigger ones you can sometimes see from here, breaching out in the distance.�
Calley�s eyes lit up, immediately scanning the horizon. �Wow� are you a Ranger?�
Melodi smiled distantly, her own eyes watching the sea. �No, I'm more of a home-body, and my maow are more pets than anything else.� She pet her puffer lovingly. �I have a felis and Lani here. Kyna, the felis, hates the sand. Lani loves the beach, though��
Lani, the puffer, chirped happily, settling onto Melodi�s lap, though her small dark eyes watched Calley in curiosity from around a tiny pale beak.
Calley smiled at the little maow. �Nips is my only maow right now, but we�ll have a new friend tomorrow. I start my final test to become a Jr. Ranger tomorrow��
�Oh, congratulations�� Melodi responded, smiling up at Calley. �Will you be traveling here to finish your test with the Guide here?�
Calley nodded with a grin. �Yep, I�m coming here��
�Ah, I will warn the Guide then� he sometimes likes a heads up as to how many Jr. Rangers might be coming his way,� she replied with a distant smile.
Calley looked deflated; she had thought it was supposed to be one-on-one time with a Guide, not another class-sized experience. �Are there that many other Jr. Rangers coming?�
�A few� how many were in your class?�
�Six others��
�Well, we do get Jr. Rangers from other towns too, but overall, not everyone heads to the same city,� Melodi explained, leaning back onto her sprawled towel, propping herself up with her elbows. �The Guide here likes to find ways to spread everyone out so he can get to know and spend time with everyone, so he can really decide if each individual is ready�� Melodi said, petting Lani and half-inspecting her tan. �Every coach has her own pace, particularly when it comes to travel. You Jr. Rangers are generally better at traveling through the wilds than regular coaches, but each still has a different pace� while you will leave as a group from your hometown tomorrow, each of you should separate out and not wait up for each other, so you can really test your abilities. That way you�ll also arrive at different times, often days apart� there is no time limit for the test, so you can take your time.�
Calley smiled smugly. �I�ll beat EVERYONE here! Nips an� I�ll run here in a day!!�
Melodi laughed, �I�d like to see that��
Nips groaned with dread, not particularly keen on running the long distance that he�d watched whiz by beneath him during their flight this morning.
Melodi sighed with a smile, then gestured to the ocean. �It�s safe to play in the waves, just be careful not to get dragged out too far��
Calley nodded, smiling into the sea. �I know,� and she dropped Nips into the sand. �Well� um, I�m gonna go play now� see ya!�
Melodi smiled softly and waved as Calley turned and ran down towards the cold water. Nips waddled through the hot sand after her, stopping just beyond the waveline and cocking his head to watch Calley meet head-on with a small wave. Melodi listened for the inevitable:
�AHHHHH!!!�
Calley yipped and jumped back out of the freezing morning surf, shivering. �Ah cold cold cold cold cold!�
Nips smiled sheepishly at his coach, a bit embarrassed and remembering that the towel was still sitting up in Krysta�s cottage, forgotten in the race down.
* * * * *
