The taste of saltwater was bittersweet; this cove of sparkling sand and azure sea was not where Delta had first entered the island, but the way the brackish water burned his gills and itched at his eyes was achingly familiar. He hadn't left the ocean very long ago, a month or two perhaps, but his body already needed to readjust from freshwater to the salt he'd once spent his entire life breathing. Delta hovered just above the cove's sandy bottom, taking deep breaths to stretch his lungs as he lazily churned his fins to propel himself forward. Occasionally he found fish like himself with broad, flattened bodies and undulating fins; most were busy suctioning the sea floor for scraps, but a lucky few ground shellfish in their bony jaws and sent faint odors of shellfish meat wafting through the warm currents.
This section of ocean, balanced just enough to still be considered inland, was wonderful, much more so than the ocean Delta himself had come from. Where he rested in the shallows, the water was clear enough to keep sight for any sharks or larger aquatic carnivores, and the water was warm and rich with prey.
The only negative was how open the cove was. Delta was used to cracks and crevices in stony cliffsides to squeeze himself though for safety, and even in such a wonderful place, he felt terribly exposed without them. The solution he found was to stick low and keep his gaze affixed upwards, occasionally flattening himself into the sand and shuffling down to cover himself if he spotted anything particularly large in the distance. Most were false alarms such as dense schools of fish or chunks of driftwood, but the one moving closer now was certainly not.
Delta pressed down at sight of the seal, dark fins shimmying themselves beneath a later of sand as he forced his body flat and still. The predator seemed not to notice him and lazily turned, a momentary relief, but neither of them in turn noticed the even bigger predator which suddenly launched itself up into its belly. The water churned wildly as the two shapes thrashed around each other and barreled towards him and the shoreline, only decipherable to the feline as a mess of colors and fins to which he couldn't recognize from any creature he'd seen before.
Whatever it was, the seal seemed to outmaneuver it, and in a flash of bubbles Delta watched it peel from the shallower water and vanish into the cove's depths. Whatever had chased it was now considerably closer, but beneath its cloak of fins laid a familiar shape.
A wolf? Delta had never seen one as aquatic as himself. Trepidation and awe churned in his belly, thoughts bouncing between whether this creature would attack him, and that of the beauty of his fins. If it was a wolf, it should understand him. But if it wasn't and instead some devious lookalike, well then...
Hesitantly, he released a questioning trill through the water. Dangerous?
---- Roll for Stealth
If success: Delta is hidden under the sand.
If fail: Delta is visible to Loch, either seen as a cat or mistaken for a weird fish.
diceroll
This section of ocean, balanced just enough to still be considered inland, was wonderful, much more so than the ocean Delta himself had come from. Where he rested in the shallows, the water was clear enough to keep sight for any sharks or larger aquatic carnivores, and the water was warm and rich with prey.
The only negative was how open the cove was. Delta was used to cracks and crevices in stony cliffsides to squeeze himself though for safety, and even in such a wonderful place, he felt terribly exposed without them. The solution he found was to stick low and keep his gaze affixed upwards, occasionally flattening himself into the sand and shuffling down to cover himself if he spotted anything particularly large in the distance. Most were false alarms such as dense schools of fish or chunks of driftwood, but the one moving closer now was certainly not.
Delta pressed down at sight of the seal, dark fins shimmying themselves beneath a later of sand as he forced his body flat and still. The predator seemed not to notice him and lazily turned, a momentary relief, but neither of them in turn noticed the even bigger predator which suddenly launched itself up into its belly. The water churned wildly as the two shapes thrashed around each other and barreled towards him and the shoreline, only decipherable to the feline as a mess of colors and fins to which he couldn't recognize from any creature he'd seen before.
Whatever it was, the seal seemed to outmaneuver it, and in a flash of bubbles Delta watched it peel from the shallower water and vanish into the cove's depths. Whatever had chased it was now considerably closer, but beneath its cloak of fins laid a familiar shape.
A wolf? Delta had never seen one as aquatic as himself. Trepidation and awe churned in his belly, thoughts bouncing between whether this creature would attack him, and that of the beauty of his fins. If it was a wolf, it should understand him. But if it wasn't and instead some devious lookalike, well then...
Hesitantly, he released a questioning trill through the water. Dangerous?
---- Roll for Stealth
If success: Delta is hidden under the sand.
If fail: Delta is visible to Loch, either seen as a cat or mistaken for a weird fish.
diceroll