Into the Unknown

Gentle foamy waves lapped at the coarse and gritty sands that stretched across the expansive sandbar between the northern and southern continents. High in the salty air, white gulls called and cried while they floated lazily about in the breeze, searching out glimmering fish in the shallows around the land bridge. A warm coastal breeze wafted across the land, carrying with it the smell of brine and the sea. And on the far southern end stood Juniper Dawn. Named aptly after the sea, Juniper stared out across the surrounding land—or lack of land—on all sides. There was nothing but boundless shimmering ocean for as far as her mint green eyes could see. It was both beautiful and terrifying considering how much water there was and not knowing what was in it or beyond it, hidden over the horizon line she could not see past. Juniper had always loved the sea, the coast, the beaches and shallows and coves. Ever since she was a pup and had taken that first step out of her birthing den onto the golden sands of the beach by the Hallows, she had always wanted to be near the water. And now, as she stood on the cusp of her first birthday, Juniper wanted to know what was beyond that very same sea.

Lifting her minty gaze up, Juniper steeled her eyes on the hazy continent off in the distance. Boreas. Her parents had forbade her and her siblings from attempting to cross the Bifröst until they turned a year old, preferring to raise them and teach them in the southern lands where they could be close to family. That had all been well and good, and Juniper would always be fond of Auster as her first home, but the young pup had an insatiable wanderlust and a gnawing itch to get out and see what was beyond the only hard boundary she had ever known. Boreas was like some far-off treasure she couldn't quite reach. It tempted her, called to her, beckoning her from across the waves. She longer she stared at it, the more she felt that insatiable pull to go explore. She wanted to see the high peaks of the mountains capped in snow her mother had told her about. She wanted to visit the vast deserts and canyons that swallowed up the west. She wanted to see the falls where her family's pack had been born and see all the other lands in between.

Juniper pawed at the rough sand beneath her pads, wanting nothing more than to spring forward and just run across the strip of land connecting the continents. She had dreamed of this more times than she could count. Running across the land bridge and into the north. What would she find there? What would she discover? The Bifröst, while seemingly nothing special to many wolves, was incredibly meaningful to the young wolf. To her, it wasn't just a long road of sand and rock with saltwater on either side of it. To her, the Bifröst meant freedom. It meant the chance to go where she wanted to go, the promise of untold wonders and undiscovered lands. The promise of the adventure of a lifetime if she could just go into the unknown. Juniper glanced up at the gulls in the sky, watching while a couple dove down into the water to secure their meals. Many a time she had wished she could just fly away—not to get away from her family, as she loved her family dearly, but because then she could go anywhere her heart desired. She wouldn't be restricted by the boundaries of the world and the rules her parents had set in place. More than anything else, Juniper wanted to be free to discover herself. That's what the Bifröst—and by extension the lands of Boreas beyond—promised her.

She was so close. Juniper licked her lips, tasting the salt from the air on them while she lifted a diminutive paw and set it down on the land bridge itself. She felt the squish of the sand between her toes. Her heart thumped in her chest as she looked up across the way again. She was so close! So close... but not quite there yet. The little dark-furred girl swallowed, caught between her great desire to run free and her unwillingness to break her parents' rules and worry them over her safety. And so, with great reluctance, Juniper lifted her paw up again and withdrew it back to her side. She would not cross the Bifröst today. One day, but not today. Heaving a sigh, Juniper looked back up at the far distant lands lying in wait for her. A gentle breeze tousled her fur some, but no matter how much it beckoned her to go, Juniper instead stepped back onto Auster's shores, then turned away from the north with one last parting glance. Disheartened but not discouraged, the almost yearling started making her way back to where her parents had set up camp in the nearby groves. One day she would be in Boreas. One day... but not today.

"Juniper of the Sea"