Coconut Grove When I was older, I was a sailor

@Amatsu

Let's get this trainwreck started! ♥

It was the peak of summer, yet Dianne was already planning for the winter. She made this a habit of out of force, as winter was an especially cruel beast when one was a loner. For now, though, she found herself wandering by the coast, pads sinking into the sand. She hated the feeling and had to resist the urge to shake the granules from between her toes with every step. The scent of sea salt was so pungent in her nose that she was bordering on nauseous.

Why was she here again? Ah yes, learning the lay of the land. Well, her first impression of the coast wasn't great, but it was vacant, at least. That was something, especially in comparison to the neighborhood of packs nearby. If pressed, Dianne could adjust to life on the coast, but she really didn't want to. It was different, and different was almost invariably bad to Dianne. And yet, as fate would have it, the only consistent thing about her life was its inconsistencies. No wonder she was unhappy. What she desired, what she craved was control. With control came power, and with power came safety. Deep down, that's all she really wanted.

But back to surveying. There were trees here, which was a pleasantly familiar sight until she realized how strange these trees were. Dianne had never seen ones so odd before, with broad, feather-like leaves only at the very top. Where were their limbs? What were those stone-like growths that fell off of them? Why couldn't anything be normal on the coast? She hated it here.