A pebble skittered across the bare surface of rock, its journey sending a rhythm-less cacophony echoing against the cave walls. Azura’s ears flicked back as she watched the thing roll and bounce along, before disappearing over the lip of the cave and vanishing from sight. Though she could no longer see it, she knew full well where it had gone – the small bit of stone fell through the air, plummeting towards waters that frothed and beat themselves against the granite formations that clung to the coastline here. With a small splash, which was lost amongst the white, foaming movement of the tide, the stone was gone from sight forever, descending until it finally came to rest at the rock bottom of the cove.
Above, in the cave, Azura flicked her paw again, sending another pebble dashing along toward oblivion. The shadows of the cave were broken by light which danced off the small amount of water resting in a pool at its center. The small chamber had been hollowed out eons ago by the beating of the waves and erosion of the waters. It was accessible by a small path which ran along a ledge in the rock. Azura had always found it a bit of an escape, though currently it was unclear what the Zidon Alphess was actually attempting to escape from. She was simply… bored. She hated being bored.
With a slight huff, she rose from her haunches, padding back toward the mouth of the cave. The dancing amount of light illuminated her coat here and there – a stormy mix of blues, greens, whites and coals, quite akin to the tones of a tempest at sea.
Azura was in a rather sour mood – not a bad mood, necessarily, but not a particularly good one either. She felt restless … she needed something to do. Aimlessly wandering the packlands wasn’t helping much. She’d thought visiting the cave might help – she’d spent a lot of time there as a young wolf. It had been an escape, a place for thinking or for escaping the iron rule of her mother. As time had passed, it had become a place to momentarily escape the stress of leadership. The cave had seen her through juvenile crushes and had been a place when, as a pup, she had played games of imagination and pretend. The trip there had been rather nice – a bit of sentimental nostalgia, really,- but it had done little to occupy Azura’s mind.
Her paws carried her deftly out of the cave and along the ledge. It formed along a fault in the rock face, a border between geological layers. Coastal mists clung to the she-wolf’s coat. The sun shone over the tossing waves, and clouds clung to the coastline here and there, diffusing its light and providing a very welcome break in temperature. The light sparkled off the small silver earring Azura wore – it bore an aquamarine stone, giving the lean and strong she-wolf the ability to assume an aqua shape. The light sprung from her eyes as well – Azura’s orbs change colours often, and since her encounter with the God, Tharryn, they had been more and more prone to mismatching. At the moment, one of her eyes was a moon-like silver, nearly white, with only the pupil dark. The other was a rather startling pink hue. They seemed like the eyes of an albino wolf, although Azura was far from albino. She was also unaware of the rather unearthly quality this lent her gaze.
The silhouette of the she-wolf emerged over the edge of the cliff. The land rolled away, toward Zidon lands. She stood there, on the brink, looking out at the sea once more. Gulls wheeled in the air, their cries nearly lost amongst the crashing of the waves below. With a slight sigh, Azura sank back onto her haunches, tucking her tail neatly around her paws and gazing out, toward the far horizon. The scent of salt and freedom tickled her nares, and a grin haunted the corners of her maw. Life, it seemed, was not really all that bad. The oceanic breeze played through her coat, and for the first time that day, a thrill raced through Azura's veins.
