Stavanger Bay We're all we need

"Pretty big," Floki replied, though he quickly added, "but not as big as bears." He wasn't sure if his comparison was totally accurate -- after all, he had never seen a sea lion next to a bear and was just making an assumption. But there was something nonthreatening about the sea lions; maybe it was the fact that they had flippers instead of legs, which greatly slowed their movement on the sand.

They soon reached the rocky cliffs that marked the edge of Stavanger Bay's territory. Floki continued to follow the beach, glancing up at the ledge above them before focusing his attention ahead. His gaze immediately fell on a sea lion, a couple hundred yards away, basking on the beach. He came to a halt.

"Look," he whispered, even though there was no chance the beast could hear them. He shifted his gaze to Wildfire's face, eagerly anticipating her reaction.

Well, that was a bit of a relief. Wildfire remained mum the rest of the way, holding her breath as she waited for her first view of these magnificent lions of the sea. She was so caught up in her mental images that she stumbled into a tangle of sea grass, which snagged her by the ankle. She was busy nipping through the slender tendrils when Floki whispered to her, causing her head to jerk upward.

Her amber eyes immediately went to his face, then focused on a shape beyond. Still awkwardly tethered, she turned a little for a better look, squinting slightly. "Oh, wow... interesting," she murmured to herself, absently tugging her leg to no avail. "It looks like a giant turd," she observed aloud without really thinking, then realized what she said and began giggling.

Even from a distance, he could see the sea lion's slick skin glistening in the sunlight as though wet. It paid the two wolves no mind, despite the small commotion caused by Wildfire trying to free her leg from the seaweed. Floki shifted his gaze methodically between Wildfire and the lumpy mammal, biting his lip to keep from laughing out loud when she proclaimed that it looked like a turd.

"It kind of does," he agreed, tilting his head as though trying to examine it from another angle. "So this is pretty much all they do -- at least from what I've seen. I think they mostly live in the ocean, but they come up here on shore quite a bit."

"Can they breathe underwater?" Wildfire wondered aloud, eyes still on the sea lion. It shifted slightly and she caught the wet luster of its brown pelt, which was sort of transfixing. She stopped tugging on her entrapped leg to admire it for a moment, deciding that gleam definitely cut down on the resemblance to a turd. She had never seen sparkly feces, in any case.

"Hey," she spoke up again after breaking the momentary spell, "mind giving me a hand, boo?" Wildfire was hopelessly tangled—the grass, though fine as angel hair, was very strong—and she looked at him, amber eyes imploring him.

Want to wrap this one up? :)

Floki tilted his head at Wildfire's question. Could the sea lions breathe underwater? He had no idea, and wasn't about to get close enough to one to find out. "You know, I'm not sure. Maybe," he said. It made sense to him, but he neglected to realize that animals needed a different set of equipment to extract oxygen from water.

Before he could think on it too much, though, she was making a different request. He hadn't noticed just how tangled she had gotten in the sea grass, and laughed kindly at her predicament. "I dunno. Maybe I'll just leave you here," he teased, then obliged her and leaned down to clip at the greenery with his teeth.

Sure! *sets them rambling off somewhere*

Floki teasingly threatened to leave her here and Wildfire threw him some playful shade. In the next moment, he was gently clipping the shoots with his teeth. Why hadn't she thought of that? Sometimes, her brain could be as clumsy as her feet. She felt the tendrils loosen, then fall away, and she stepped back. Free at last.

"Thanks," she said, standing on her tiptoes to plant a kiss beneath his eye. "Where to next?" she asked in the next breath, eager to see every part of Stavanger Bay Floki was willing to show her. They had all the time in the world, after all, and Wildfire was pretty sure she could happily ramble with Floki until the end of time.

Floki smiled as Wildfire thanked him with a kiss to his cheek. She then asked after their next destination, her eyes sparkling with the promise of adventure. His smile grew into a grin as he turned away from the sea lion, who hadn't even glanced in their direction.

"This way!" he said, and dug his paws into the sand. He loped back down the beach in the direction that they had come, his ears tilted back to make sure that he could hear Wildfire behind him. They still had a few more hours of daylight, and he wanted to squeeze every last drop out of their visit to Stavanger Bay; it was only once the sun started to sink and their feet were weary that they headed home to Moonspear.