the smell of sleep and disinfectant

Grey skies and a weak drizzle offered Muses some reprieve from summer's scorching heat. The temperatures were unbearable most of the time, but she could not simply resign herself to staying in one place all day. She wanted to be able to investigate as much of her new home as possible, but that could not be done by the light of the moon alone. The milder weather allowed her to step beyond the comfort of her den, though at great cost. The rain, though it did not seep into her dense undercoat, weighed her down. It made her uncomfortable, giving her a sense of drowning, or waking up on shore. These were not things she wanted to think about, in addition to having the need to shake out her ivory fur every few meters it seemed.

By some miracle she had reached the Sea's Plain well before sun down, which would allow her some time to test her paw at fishing. Trotting over grass covered sand, she scanned the area for some kind of rock or log to have a better vantage, but found that the shore was nearly perfectly flat straight out to the sea. The tide had pulled out, though Muses did not know that. When she expected to see shallow little pools of lazily swimming fish, she was disappointed when the crystal waters yielded nothing, even though she had waded nearly to her elbows deep. Hesitant to try and go any further, lest she be swept out to sea, she turned, and began to trudge back, lazily dipping her head to lap at the water before recoiling in horror.

The immense concentration of salt was like a punch to the face, and completely unexpected. Spluttering, she struggled to get back to the shore, horrified that anything could live in water so poisonous.