OOC: Post prompt for Swimming :) Anyone can join! -Jasper Rocks edits for spelling ;D And..I have to say.. the last paragraph..is hella inspired by the Spirit Stallion of the Cimmaron bit in the movie where he jumps the canyon.. Slow motion and everything...Except..not as epic of a jump..;D
It wasn't warm by any means.. but the past few days had been warm enough that the ice covering the pool around the falls had cracked, broken and floated away. The falls themselves hadn't ever frozen over of course - to her knowledge at least. Vlarindara trotted up to the falls after having reinforced the boundaries for the pack, then moved away from the wolves intent on exploring the world around her. She couldn't stay cooped up forever..besides, if the falls were a constant source of water even in winter.. the following winters would see it a place to catch prey. The white female had found the riverbank and began moving upstream, for now staying out of the water, and relatively dry. She enjoyed swimming..not nearly as much as she liked running, but she knew swimming was a second best. The rushing of the falls caught her attention and she stopped, tail wagging languidly over her back as the...size of the falls brought amber eyes up and up in reverence. The power of nature truly was something to be revered.
Near the base of the falls the water swirled and billowed before running its course down the very river she had been following to get here. A gentle smile touched the lips of the female as she began climbing up the rocky outcroppings and slippery slopes of the small 'mountain' that made up the waterfalls. Of course, she couldn't just.. demurely step in and go for a swim..oh no.. She had every intention of combining her two favorite activities into one - but the question was.. how could running and swimming become the same thing? It was hard to run through water.. wasn't it? Vlarindara had a rather.. insane image in her head, but she didn't mind it at all.. It was something she'd never done before.. And who said life wasn't about taking risks? Finally, she reached the top of the falls and trotted down the stream a bit until she had found a relatively flattish bit of rock and dirt. Now.. Now she could have the thrill she hoped this would give her.. though it went against every instinct the older female had.. she'd heard once that it was fun.. So why not? Lining up towards the falls, Vlarindara paced a few moments to garner her courage before her paws began pounding into the dirt beneath her, powering her towards the rocks she had chosen.
The dirt gave way to slippery rocks, but she was going too fast to worry about the slippery surface.. the moss and spray. Her path had been planned out, committed.. and now she moved through it. Front paws hit the far edge of the last rocky outcropping, hind paws placed and braced in the same instant.. before powerful haunches stretched, bringing two legs into the air over the falls, then all four. For a glorious few moments, she was flying.. free as the birds, high as the falls themselves. The plumed tail waved behind her, whirling like a pinwheel, jaws open and tongue lolling out for those few precious seconds of being airborne... falling where the earth wished to take her. Her body began to fold and she knew that if she hit the water face first, it would knock the wind out of her, so she threw her hind legs forward and ended up crashing into the water beneath the falls flat on her back... A few moments under the swirling waves and the female surfaced, legs powering her over to the bank of the water..where she pulled herself from the eddies and panted a few moments before shaking herself and running back up towards the top of the falls.. She wasn't going to do it again was she?! ...Crazy Wolf.