you put the lime in the coconut

At only a year old, Calliope still isn't sure where her passions or interests truly lie. As much as she knows or could tell someone, she likes to fight. Anything that hurts others is fun as wicked as it is to say. Of course, she has some other traits from her parents. Pettiness, quick to sour attitude, fiery temper, all the good ones. Okay, maybe not good, but she does have patience and curiosity on her side which albeit may not be the best traits either, but it's something. Something that comes into use today.

Her patience is tried as she wanders around an island that is abundant with fallen fruit. A warm autumn sun dries her recently wetted fur and sand sticks between her toes until she travels farther into the island. What tries her patience though isn't the sand stuck between her toes or the sun that continues to blind her every time she looks up. No, it's the damn fruit that she attempts to pick up and place in a barrel that she's stored in the shade nearby. Every time her paw goes to scoop up a fruit, it turns to mush. When she tries to grab it gently between her jaws, juice explodes from over ripened skin and flows down her chin and her chest. The whole front of Calliope is a massive stain of sticky and overly sweet fruit juices.

Letting out a growl, she kicks at fruit which just ends with her paw being covered as well and allows the sand beneath her to cover her entire paw. "Fuck!" She screams, forcing birds to scatter into the air. Whirling around toward the barrel that she found half-submerged in the sand on the beach, she lets out a sharp bark at the animals that attempt to take what little fruit she's managed to gather. "Shoo you little shits!" Calliope snarls, ears flattened and frustration clearly written on her features. Why wasn't this working?!

Stopping for a moment, Calliope glances around the little grove. Off to the side, she notices a decent sized stick with one end broken off that made it sharpened. What if she used that to gather her fruit? At least then she wouldn't be getting fruit juice all over her. Resolving to gather with the stick, Calliope grasps it in her mouth and awkwardly begins stabbing at the fruit that lay haphazardly in the dirt and sand. Thankfully, the stick method appeared to work. Only if she moved quickly though. If she was slow about it, the fruit would slide off and plop back onto the ground.

Once her barrel was nearly full, the scent of sweet and sticky fruit causing her nose to wrinkle, she steps back to think what she wants to do with it. Fruity wine? Juice? How patient was she feeling? Booze felt like it would take far too long and had too many steps, plus she really had no idea how that worked aside from just allowing it to ferment naturally under the warm southern sun in the barrel. But Calliope wanted a prize for her efforts now. Why wait for booze when she could lounge on the beach with a fruit juice to slurp on?

Finally settled on her decision, Calliope pushes herself up to the top of the barrel and places her front paws in it. Stamping and stomping and mashing the fruit down, skin and stones and all, she goes until her mouth opens, tongue hanging out, panting loudly. The sun is beginning to set behind her, casting a wide shadow over the small fruit tree grove she works in. Her legs, up to her elbows, are covered in a bright tye dye mixture of tropical colors, and the barrel is nearly half full of fruit juices and slurries of all the extras. Eager to get her sip on down at the beach, Calliope hops down from the barrel to fetch some fresh water.

With a plastic jug carefully grasped between her teeth, that she had found stuck in a bush nearby, she gathers water from a small pool that managed to stay decently full after a recent rainfall. Once back at her barrel, Calliope dumps the jug of water in and gives the mixture a good stir with her fruit poking stick. Though the mixture is slightly thicker than expected, it does smell good enough to try. Now it was time to find something to drink it out of! Stepping back and looking around, she smiles big at the sight of a coconut. Perfect! The water within would surely help the juicy liquid taste better too!

Picking up the coconut and smashing it on the corner of a sharp stone, the hard skinned fruit cracks open and water spills from the inside. Glad that it isn't rotten, Calliope takes it over to her barrel and scoops out some of her self-made juice. With her juice filled coconut in jaw, she makes her way to the beach where the sun hasn't quite fully set yet. The night sky begins to light with stars and an interesting green tinge she hadn't noticed before. Plopping herself down on the sand, she places her coconut nearby and lets out a happy sigh. Yes, this was the life!

Lapping up the juicy concoction a few times, Calliope's face twists up into something that doesn't say delicious. The seeds and skins of the fruit hadn't been sifted out, leaving behind an odd sour note to her juice that made it hard to swallow. "Ah, fuck it," she whines, knocking over the coconut so the contents spill out into the sand. Staring out at the horizon, she decides that juice making definitely is not in her wheelhouse. Nope, never again. Fuck that nonsense. Who enjoyed making shit like that anyway? Water was perfectly fine as it is! She can't help but glance over at the coconut anyway and frown, really wishing her juice had actually tasted nice enough to drink...

"Speech"