Shimmering Sands Could be happy

Frolic tittered and began to cavort and stomp, his way of goading her along on the dare. Quell gave him a mischievous grin, interpreting his body language fluently after all their time together, and then glanced sharply at the stranger in the distance. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw he was looking back at them. Damn, she thought at having lost the opportunity for an ambush. But her lips remained curved into a smirk.

Boldly, she strode forward, the lissome Frolic bounding along at her heels. She passed the jellyfish, leaving it to rot with all the other detritus stranded on the shore. The flock of gulls cast shadows over the two of them and the stretch of beach between Q and the stranger as it narrowed. She slowed a little as she approached, pale eyes roving over his features. He was rather average in appearance, his fur a truer shade of black than her own, his melancholy eyes a striking orange against his swarthy face. Quell intrepidly held his gaze.

"You look like someone pissed in your cornflakes," the adolescent observed, giving their surroundings a cursory sweep before her eyes returned to his face. "What happened to this place? Was it the quakes?" Something similar had happened at Seabolt, temporarily flooding the island. And she wouldn't soon forget the nightmare she'd suffered in the aftershocks. She wondered if he lived here and was mourning the destruction of his homeland.