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#tidaltryout
Empirepaw shook her ginger pelt as she stepped out of towards the ocean waves, her blue eyes gleaming. She was here for the tryout for the position of tidal, being 8 moons old and eligible, but mostly for the excitement. If she won the position, that would be great! She'd go on and preform it as well as she knew how. But for the moment, she was more excited for the challenge at paw. Empirepaw loved doing something new, and she'd never swam this far before. To be honest, she didn't know how far ten yards was, seeing as she didn't have a yard stick handy. But she felt like it was something she ought it know, and she was to embarrassed to ask. To the ginger feline padded out towards the water, her paws sinking lightly into the sand. Before she entered the water, she paused and stared out of the ocean. Her paws felt a chill as the water rushed up to meet hr, but she simply smiled. Game on.
Without a backwards look, though she gave a wave of her tail, Empirepaw charged into the water, splashing as she ran so even before she jumped in she was pretty wet. And soon she was up to her belly, her chest, her neck, and then her paws didn't touch the floor any more, and she as padding along. Not at all smoothly, it must be said. It took her as few try's to get into rhythm with the waves, to they splashed over her instead of into her mouth. But she got to her mark okay, roughly judging the distance, taking her about 32 feet, give or take. Then she plunged. Closing her eyes, flattening her ears and taking a deep breath the sodden ginger apprentice dove beneath the waters, padding strongly down towards the bottom. The first thing she noticed was the silence. No crashing waves, no yelling cats, no wind. Just silence. It was pretty nice. The next thing she noticed was the chill, as she dove deeper, away from the sun. Something brushed her paw and the apprentice lashed out, her claws snagging something and pulling it to her mouth as she ignored the water flowing in. By the slimy scales and the way it wiggled, Empirepaw would have to guess it was a fish. She was quite to let go, heedlessly freeing it without thinking of any wounds she may have given it. Luckily the fish led a long, yet terrified, life. Empirepaw didn't want fish! Fish? No, she could catch fish anyway! She was out for something else, something, weird? Because that's what she found. First of all, she was quite surprised to have actually reached the bottom in such a short time, she would have expected to have run out of air long before. This beach, however, was quite shallow, the apprentice having only gone down maybe seven feet yet. And her paws brushed something soft and gooey. A sea anenomy, but she didn't know that. She abandon it and kept feeling along the bottom, in a hurry now because she could feel herself running out of breath. She grabbed the next thing her paws clutched, pulling the object into her mouth. It was hard, yet soft and the same time and it had a weird taste. Time for stage two, going back.
Empirepaw quickly broke the surface, breathing in lovely busts of air. She opened her eyes just enough to see the way back, and frequently to keep her path as she paddled back twoards the shore, often glancing at he reddish orange object in her jaws. She was pretty sure she knew what it was by now. At last, the tier apprentice pulled herself out onto the sand, standing proudly in the shallows as the waves lapped her paws, her long fur stuck to her, making her look like a drowned rat. Or rather, and drowned cat. Empirepaw dropped the starfish, as was her catch, at her pass, intending to let it go free again once her leaders had inspected it. She hoped her father had seen her. Though a little out of breath, she wanted to impress him with her swimming skills, as much as they could be improved. She couldn't find any words to say besides a breathless, "Ha ha!" So she stayed silent, a smile on her face. She'd won! Maybe she wasn't a tidal, but she had completed the task, and made a new friend in the process. Empirepaw was a very happy cat.