Coconut Grove Strange fruit

The stony ledge she perched on led down to a mess of crushed shells, bits of sundried weeds, and refuse pulled to the shore by the ocean. All of this was familiar. From the scent of the air to the feeling of the coarse materials beneath her hardened paws, to the image of the inconsistent ridge she had rediscovered. Rather than follow her whims and head to where the ocean frothed at the edge of the world she had deviated in reverse, finding a route that felt easier as the soil became more solid, soon enough becoming a series of slate-colored plateaus. The wind was more aggressive here; there weren't many obstacles to contend with except for some smooth-barked trees standing tall, and around these Nukilik paced.

She was a little bit older, a little bit wiser, but otherwise unchanged. There was no ponch to her belly as might be present for a new mother, and such an absence was telling. She had ventured far on her hunt for a husband and returned with nothing but an empty belly. The absence did not bother her too deeply now, but she was lonely, and her eager sniffing of the soil as she prowled was evidence of that. She found a foreign scent upon the base of one of the strange trees and paused, finally lifting her head out of her usual slouch to look around...

It was then that something moved, but distantly. It was not on her patch of plateau. A buff-colored shape was a safe distance away, further along, where the exposed stone vanished beneath wet sand. She ducked her head a few times in order to judge the distance (as well as try to discern what exactly she was looking at) and then, curiouser by the moment, moved closer.

There was an odd dragging sound beyond the pulse of the tide; she heard the ocean roll in, out, and then in again, while this otherness persisted. As she descended along a narrow gap among the stonescape and emerged a few feet lower, with her paws crunching against a dry recess of sand, she paused as if startled by her own sounds, and then looked around, noticing... Something. Not a wolf, she assessed. It was largeer than her and coiled up against the ground with an orb-shaped object clutched close.