Gilded Bay sat on the roof and kicked off the moss

Thank you for starting! Ahhhh it's awesome to thread with you again! <333

Since her ascension to alphaship, Raven's mind had been running in overdrive. She'd been so stressed out by the pressure she felt the title placed on her. Perhaps her expectations of what was required of her as a leader were a little unrealistic, but the position had always been held by individuals she'd felt were so much stronger and bolder than she. Her parents, her aunt and uncle, her younger sister...all of them seemed to be cut from a different cloth than she was. But she couldn't let her packmates sense any instability on her part. After everything they'd been through in recent weeks, they needed to feel like there was a firm hand on the steering wheel. So she put on a brave face and threw herself into it 110%, just like she did anything else, and kept the quiet little meltdowns tucked away for the times when she was alone, in private.

This morning, she had decided to do a little scouting for medicinal plants. Returning to her routine proved to be very relaxing and therapeutic for her, and soon she found herself on the far northern side of the Redhawks' territory. She could smell the ocean air from here, despite the fact that it lay many miles in the distance, and it piqued her curiosity. She had never seen the ocean before, and now that they were this much closer...

Before she knew it, her feet were flying beneath her, carrying her at a speedy clip in a northerly direction, away from her packlands and toward the restless coast. As she ran, the salty tang in the air grew stronger, luring her onward toward the unknown.

- - - - - - - - -

Some hours later -- she knew not how many, but the sun had tracked quite a distance across the sky by then -- she picked her way through the reedy beach grass that swayed in the breeze. The soft roar of the waves pounding the shoreline filled her ears and piqued her curiosity. The soft sand gave way weirdly beneath her paws, and she stumbled every now and then as her feet shifted unexpectedly beneath her. Emerging onto a small dune, she finally beheld -- for the first time in her life -- the ocean.

Her lips parted in awe as she gazed out over the endless blue expanse. She'd never imagined that a body of water could be so huge. Images of Lake Rodney from her homeland flitted across her mind as she thought back to the times she'd looked out over that and thought it to be so vast. It was nothing compared to this. The water's rippling, shifting surface stretched forever into the horizon, and she felt for a moment as if she were looking at the very edge of the world. Mind thoroughly boggled, she gingerly made her way down onto the harder-packed wet sand and edged closer to where the foamy surf lapped and receded. The first time the frigid water kissed her toes, she squeaked and hopped backward, both confounded by the energy with which the water moved and simultaneously thrilled by the wonder of it all.