The sea.

Blue and broad, it reached out before him for miles and miles, carrying with it a uniquely scented wind that was sunlight, salt, evaporation and the green smell of seaweed all tangled together and buffeting his dark hair about his face as he drags another bent and worn branch out of the sand to inspect it.

Like some of the others he’s pulled up, this one suits his purposes, with a hardy main branch and several smaller ones breaking away from the core, still flexible as he presses down on them with his muzzle. Humming as he works, some unknown song with no name he cannot remember ever hearing, he lilts the pitch of his voice to match the tempo of the sea and wind, together the three of them singing quite the song into the afternoon sunlight.

It is the first moment of true serenity he’s found since Kahlua dropped his heart into the sea. Maybe that’s why he’s come here, to look for it beating on the shore, and perhaps he has found it while searching for objects to use in his projects and practice. He wears across his shoulder a poorly constructed rope of vine converted into twine, his first attempt to create such a thing; it does have more tension strength than the initial materials, he has taken note of, but it is frayed and not as tightly wound as it might have been. At least he’d figured out a way to solve the ends coming loose when he’d tried a bit of sap along the ends and allowed it to harden.

It wasn’t doing the best job, however, and he couldn’t help but notice that the three twines of material were separating and stretching the sap as he tucks this branch in the loop that least upsets the balance of the strap laying across his shoulders.

He also needs something to hold the rope in place better… he marks this in his list of things to do.

For now, the stallion has gathered a good ten pieces of driftwood that he thinks are pliable enough to be of use to top glass bottles, the next project he has in mind. He’ll take the wood home, bury it in soft earth, and wait for it to moisten enough that he can push the sodden bit into the hole of the glass and create a snug fit once the wood dried and expanded; glancing at his packs and deciding their relatively even, he continues walking the beach looking for the last few things on his list.

A conch shell or two, large enough to be used to hold sap and warm it over low flame (of course, he would need the fire first) to make the rope dipping more simple, maybe some smaller ones for pretty things for his friends (as, when he stops to think about it, they’re mostly girls or women).

[ Open for anyone. :) Shell hunt! Haha. ]