Don't have to buy a house in Beverly Hills

Set not too long after the other thread! Apparently fingers go zoom tonight so you have something after all. XD

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If you listened closely, you could almost hear the waves. You could definitely see the edge of the cliffs, though. It just wasn't easy to see the beach itself. There was still a bit more of a walk before Mal and @Blackfoot were able to get there. It'd let them chat a bit more, and then down to the beach! “There's a few paths down, the one we're going to is one of the easier ones. We might end up sort of digging it out a little bit more, but haven't decided which would be best to do that to yet,” he was saying as they headed towards the beach. “This is more on the like.. normal beach side in as sense. Farther to the north has more rocks and boulders and stuff.” And tidepools, but he really hadn't explored them much, he was still kind of leery about the water.

Though the cliffs weren't quite like showing up at Jurassic Park or something, it was still cool for Mal to be able to go up towards the edge at a good vantage point and show off their nice, secluded beach. It was all theirs, nicely tucked away. The main beach was about as postcard-perfect as it could be, and though it was certainly rougher than tropical island pale white sands, at least in Mal's eyes it was lovely... For a beach, at least. Hua liked it, thus it was awesome. Speaking of, at the edge, Mal howled for @Huā to let her know he was back -- he'd meet her at the bottom somewhere, unless she'd headed up to go hunt herself a meal or something. The beach wasn't that enormous, he'd find her if she was down there. Then he turned back to Blackfoot, “Want me to show you the way down or you good?” Kinda had to be one of the two, they certainly couldn't be side by side. It was too narrow.
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The blue wolf walked with her rather pleasant company. He talked a lot, rambling about this or that but she didn't particularly mind. Less for her to say, after all. She was listening as she trailed him, ears tilted towards him while her eyes scanned their surroundings. Never off guard lest something happened. Of course, it seemed as if they were perfectly safe.

Her head turned towards the north when he indicated the rocks further down and mentally she made a note to investigate that later. Now she came abreast of him and looked over the pristine beach. Waves lapped at the sand, hills flee overhead, and the scent of seawater tickled her nose. "Beautiful." Was the single word she breathed as she absorbed the sight from their vantage point.

Perhaps she had made the best choice to come here...

His howl snapped her out of her reverie as she looked over to the way down that he'd indicated. "Am good." The she-wolf said eyeing the narrow path. She didn't need help, she could do it. "Will go down after you." It would give her a little more time to mask in the view and the wind.
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He did kind of want to make an additional comment about her enjoying the view, but figured maybe it wasn't the best. Maybe once other things were more solidly understood between himself and Hua he could joke a bit more with others. “Should be easy enough, just shout if you feel stuck.” He moved towards the path after that.

By now the switchbacks down the curve of the cliff were familiar, so Mal moved fairly quickly down because of this, but did pause to make sure Blackfoot wasn't far behind once or twice. And when the pebbly sand hit his paws, he trotted a little towards the sea before looking back. That path did look a little intimidating from the beach, but there were only so many options to get down here.

You know, he could maybe eventually grow to like the beach for its own merits -- right now he just liked it purely for the fact it made Hua happy. That was enough. But, assuming Blackfoot did make it down fine and no complaints, “Welcome to the beach.” If he could have opened his arms and indicated it all, he probably could, but unfortunately, he had four feet and all that, which made it difficult. “As your tour guide, anything you'd like to see in particular?”
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 Shout if she got stuck? The blue woman had to fight to not roll her eyes at that and instead let out an affirmative grunt to show she'd heard. She was certain she'd be perfectly fine. Still, he was trying to be kind and helpful, which she appreciated. It was better than a lot of other wolves would be. The stoic woman let him have the head start and then she began to pick her way down the path after him, eyes on where he placed his paws so that she could mimic him. This was important information to know so that she could come back this way when she needed to later. 

 The surefooted sea-wolf would find her way down to the sand not long after her tour guide. Ah, it felt good to feel her paws sinking into it. For some... unknown reason. Her past life apparently had the bits of memory locked away behind some vault. Perhaps it would become opened in time... perhaps not. Though, she could not dwell on that at the moment. 

 At this moment, she needed to focus on what Mal. The blue came abreast of the muted tone male, ears and eyes turned towards him. He seemed particularly proud of this all and his enthusiasm was almost infectious. The corner of the left side of her mouth twitched for a moment, almost as if she were going to smile at him but then she turned towards the waves instead. She took a deep breath in of the salty air, savoring it. 

 "Anything you're proud of?" Perhaps that was all of it. "Landmarks?" And then she eyed the beach where a scuttling crab shuffled across the sands in a back-and-forth motion, deftly avoiding the waves that pressed in to the shore and sucked sand away back to the watery depths."Things I should be aware of?"

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“Oh we'll definitely be heading to a couple of good landmarks, but I don't totally want to spoil the surprise,” he said cheekily. “I do think this beach is probably not the best one for trying to catch fish or the like, but then again, I'm not the best fisher-wolf so maybe I'm just doing it wrong. Always an option! It's definitely a beach that's nicer to relax on, though.” Yeah, sure, it wasn't super soft sand, but still pretty pebbly, but at least it was pebbly and not rocky. There were tiers of comfort, y'see. 

But here it was nice and open, ad he lead his tour towards where he was next indicating, “There's another path up to the top of the bluff to the north, where that rock reaches into the ocean. I think that's probably the easier path of the two, so if you gotta head up in an emergency, probably go that route, but that's not what I was mentioning before.” One of the secrets, in a sense, would become obvious soon enough -- probably a bit after he described it. “This isn't the end of the beach but we aren't going to have to get there by swimming either. Take a closer look at those cliffs.” There was a subtle parallax of the rocks, where as they moved and got close enough, shadows would go from just looking like a crease in the cliff to being the entry to the small system of sea caves, though from where they were they'd have to be much closer to see the rocky beach on the other side.
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 Didn't want to spoil the surprise, eh? "Will expect to be impressed." It was a joke, although her way of delivery was rather flat and the sarcasm might not be totally apparent. "Can teach you." The blue woman offered him. She knew that she was a good fisher, something-something living near an ocean before. The memories weren't there but she knew she could fish. Just looking at the water, it was all flooding back to her on how to do it. Muscle memory or something like that. 

 She followed him along the open beaches towards their next stop. As they walked and he talked, she would study the structures that he mentioned. There was the rock that lead into the ocean. It didn't look impressive to her but maybe the thing he was so proud of was around it. Her gaze traced from the water-rock back towards the beach where it looked like they would have to find a different way to continue their path or turn around. Except... something seemed off. 

 Her eyes narrowed in on the cliffs after he mentioned it and slowly, subtly, as they grew closer, she could see things starting to change. What she thought was just an imperfection in the cliff was actually an entrance to a chamber. The woman blinked and then quickened her pace so that she could get closer and study them up close. 

 She stepped into the entrance looking around at the caves carved out by years of water erosion. Would this be a good spot to build a den? Or would high-tide come in and wash her away? She would study the stone around them, noting the spots with smooth stones and the areas with more jagged ones. "Am impressed." She said to Mal as she looked around, climbing into and out of dens. It was clear that she was quite interested in these. "Denning areas..?" She asked quizzically, wondering if he'd thought the same as she about such a thing.

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He probably did need to learn to fish at some point, that bit was true. Would Hua be the one wanting to teach him or would it be better for him to show off having 'magically' learned it at some point? He wasn't sure, but he did give it a thoughtful expression. They could come back to that subject later! That was a good guess on her part about dens, he had to admit, but that wasn't the cool bit -- at least to him. “Probably just in good weather. You'll see it's a bit more... Open than you'd think.” Again that grin! “C'mon!” He trotted forward at a faster clip, hopping up on a rock that was directly across from the opening of the cave, pausing there to look back over his shoulder, then pointing forward.

Because from where Mal stood, it was easy to look through and see that though one beach ended roughly here at this outcropping, the water had carved a hole through to the next one. And just from what little could be seen, it was a far different beast than the one here. Where the south beach was more akin to a postcard, the one to the north was rocky and rough. The tidepools were out of sight, but the rough and bouldery coast might suggest that one was out there. Though the south was pebbles pea size to sand, the north was much more easily classified as rocks. It also seemed to be smaller, given the fact that the cliffs were visible there in the distance.
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 Just in good weather. So probably the high tide would sweep anyone away that was careless enough to den here at the wrong times. Perhaps when the pack grew larger, they'd have to warn pups away from here unless they were supervised. There was something about his enthusiasm, a certain weightlessness that reminded her of someone. She didn't know who... couldn't possibly know who because her memory was a blank. Still, that reminder, it warmed her a bit. She wasn't impatient with his enthusiasm, quite the contrary, it was almost contagious. The impassive woman still didn't smile but she did give a light huff, her only break in her normal flat mannerisms. That huff was her version of a "laugh", if one could call it that. 

 She bounded after him in a light jog, finding that it made her feel weightless as well. What was that feeling? It was almost foreign to her as she scrambled up onto one rock and then hopped to another quite near to the effortless man. She narrowed her eyes to peer through where he was pointing to. What she saw was a rocky beach with real rocks and not just sand like the previous place they'd come from. "Will have to keep pups away from there." She said, speaking her previous thoughts out loud. Where here they might get hurt if it was the wrong time of year, over there they would get hurt without supervision. Her seafoam gaze shifted to the silvered man on his perch and she nodded her head, "This is a good place." He and Hua had good taste here. She itched to get to know her new home more and more.

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I'll find out what Summer wants to do re: joining this thread later this week maybe? I know she's been busy. May end up just saying meeting happens BTS maybe??

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It was nice to be able to show off things again like this. Maybe he missed it. Hard to remember everything you currently still forgot. But no matter what, it was good to have a home. Even better because it was one that he felt they could all be proud of. The pack was going to be great, he was sure. This was just the start! And yeah, maybe some day there'd be pups here too. Which was just kind of weird to think about -- mostly because what the heck was their relationships doing right now? Still figuring that out. “Yeah the good thing about having all the land above is it's much more safe for those who are like.. less sure footed I suppose. More permanent dens would be up there instead of down here, I'd think. Unless people want to risk getting flooded every once and a while.”

“I think this is a more interesting beach though. Can probably fish more there and all that. More to explore. C'mon!” He hopped down, wandering towards the cave entry, stopping right on the far side so she could get through and explore without him guiding too far. She was capable, of course. And honestly he thought this side was way more cool, so it'd be way more fun for her to see it herself. From the far side of the cave passage, the tidepools were obvious, distant stripes in the water at the base of the far cliff. It wasn't quite low enough tide for the best exploring out in that part, but for the rest of the beach it was fine. Plenty of rocks to perch upon and some pools that weren't quite sheltered enough to be proper tidepools.
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 "[...]Unless people want to risk getting flooded every once and a while.” Her ear twitched and then without a beat she said, "Masochists, then." Deadpan. As if it was a serious, non-sarcastic comment, but she drew no more attention to it. Didn't laugh, didn't smile and moved on like the flow of water.

 She grunted in assent to his comment, might be a bit easier for them to grab fish there. Maybe not. She'd have to get a good look herself.

 With that, the woman would follow him out of the cave and then pass him up on the rocky side of the beach. There were large rocks and small rocks, rough ones and smooth ones. The blue woman would keep an eye on the ground so that she wouldn't trip herself up as she went forward. Hop, hop, walk, and hop. In this way she would make her way down to the edge of the water so that she could see the situation herself. There she stood on top of two rocks, forepaws on one and rear paws on the other as she stared at the ocean water pushing in and then back out into that great expanse. Her head would lower and it appeared as if she were going to drink until one looked more closely and saw that she was studying what was beneath the waves.

 The sandy beach was a gentle slope downwards... what was this one? Too steep and it might be more difficult to hunt fish, a gentle slope where one could stand on the rocks might offer better footing than the loose sands on the other shore. It looked, more or less, like a shelf. She reached a forepaw out carefully to touch down onto the rocks below. Shelf. One could stand there and let the waves wash around them while they worked on capturing a fish or perhaps shellfish. Her ears perked with some interest at that. Crabs would be on the sandy portion but one might find other types of edibles over here.

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Tag to keep Summer in the loop, in case she has time!

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He stifled a short laugh. Yeah ok, that was true. Look, even if Hua wanted to sleep on the beach sometimes, he was definitely gonna make sure that they had a real den somewhere up on the bluffs where there was no danger of flooding. Getting wet messed up his fur, y'see. He wasn't a fan.

He watched her stare down into the water. He at least guessed that it would be easier to hunt fish here, but again, that was just his amateur opinion, it just seemed like it'd be easier to sneak up on something bigger than a minnow due to the terrain. Big stuff didn't come in as close on the south beach. “If the water was a little lower, if you look more north there's even more to explore, with little pools and stuff. But looks kinda like you'll get wet if you go there now.” He pointed his nose to the tidepools. 

“But yeah, lots of places to hang out and think and all that too, if you can find a rock that won't poke you.” He looked around then, trotting over to another boulder and hopping up on it. A short howl to @Huā again to let her know that they'd moved to this beach in case she had been making her way over from elsewhere on the bluffs, then she'd be able to take the faster route down. Not to mention the fact that she wouldn't have to track them, it wasn't like they'd be in sight from the other beach.
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 "Don't mind getting wet." Although she was perfectly happy here, for now. Perhaps she could get all of them dinner and practice her fishing skills. Those skills that she knew she had but had no memory of how she'd obtained them. It was something just out of her reach. The same thing that told her that she enjoyed swimming and being by the water. 

 He went on to howl for their company while she would move to a spot to hopefully be able to catch them a fish. All three of them could perhaps enjoy a relaxing day here now. 

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end?

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He did feel like things were in a way coming together already. it was a nice feeling. Mal wasn't sure what lay ahead, but at least the fact he'd forgotten much of his past seemed to matter just a little less. Sure, that void of memory might be irksome at times, but not now. Hopefully Hua would be proud of theses first few steps they'd taken -- he'd find out soon enough.

In the end it was a nice day at the beach.
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