Shimmering Sands pop a gucci wallet turntables is talking to me

it'd been fun traveling, but it was time to turn home.

valravn had a generalized idea of where home was. it was uh, somewhere up there - there was only one side the coast could be on, so if he kept going north he'd eventually find it, right?

even if he was lost, he wasn't in bad spirits. coasting down the beach (keeping his paws dry, thankyouverymuch) with a bit of kelp in between his teeth, val carried north.. or the general direction of it, anyway.

the thing about being alone — really, truly alone — is that, after awhile, it starts to feel more like a cage than freedom. it starts to feel impenetrable, like being locked in a room with no windows and no hope of escape; particularly when you're like garland, and you have no friends to speak of, no family to run home to. the feeling is, in a word, suffocating.

so of course he latches on to the first opportunity for interaction he finds.

hey, he calls out to the swarthy young wolf, hardly registering the age difference between them as he approaches. what're you doing with that kelp? it's a lame conversation starter, but it's all he has. maybe solo traveling makes some people more interesting, but not garland. he feels as boring as ever right now — maybe even a little more so, out of practice as he is when it comes to social interaction.

the thing about being alone for val was that you never needed to be alone for long. invent a new friend, talk to the crabs, swing kelp in your mouth -- no windowless feelings here in val's mind, which made extraordinarily imaginative gymnastic leaps at every turn: including when he saw garland.

a stranger, ahoy! his demeanor instantly perked, his eyes lit up and he flared not unlike an excited cockatoo. BEHOLD! his majestic kelp! he swung it about, eyeing his long-limbed new best friend with a cheery glint in his eye. "i like the way you talk." val offered first, swinging the kelp this way and that before he stood attention with the silvery-green plant draping lifelessly from his mouth. "issa special kind of kelp. magic kelp, even!" this, of course, was another of val's extraordinary exaggerations -- but he waited for garland's reaction first before he made any further move.