Timestamp: 45 of Winter, 516 AV
Nya needed a day off. She'd been working near nonstop since they'd arrived in Syka. For one thing, she was trying to establish herself as a business woman, someone who traded leatherwork for coin or barter items that her and Shai could not get on their own. Nya never thought she'd work in leather, but she'd always had a passion for touching things and a burning desire to create. It was what was needed for Syka, more so than even her kelvic form's inherent bodily strength. Skill.
It was something she'd given little thought too. Craftsmen were people that she went to in order to purchase things she could not make. She'd never considered herself one or even talked to anyone about being something like that. Nya had always identified with being someone's daughter, someone's bondmate, even someone's friend. But Nya realized, in the short time she'd been here, that such identities were not enough. Not even being Aressa in a past life meant anything.
And her time in Ravok as a slave to the Nitrozen's had taught her what being nothing was. Here, the page was wiped clean. She had control of what was written on it about herself. Here, she had choices she hadn't had elsewhere. It was a new kind of freedom and one she enjoyed. And so it was with laughter that she put aside her leatherworking and declared today a free day and set off to Treasure Beach to play in the sand and hunt for interesting finds.
Nya packed a backpack with some dried jerky and a waterskin with fresh water and set off to spend some time sunning in the sand. Treasure Point was a good walk from her home and gave her a chance to stretch her legs. The winter sun in Syka wasn't as blistering hot as it was in the summer, so Nya didn't need sunscreen and the wind and sand would keep mosquitos from biting her.
Best of all she could play in the surf.
Nya was there early in the morning and spread the blanket she'd brought with her onto the sand and added her backpack to it. Then she'd shed her light shift and shoes before transforming into her big cat form and wading into the surf. There she snapped at the waves with her jaws, pounced on them, and was rolled around violently as she laughed in the surf. Nya's Kelvic form was large, the size of a riding horse, and heavily furred. She had her winter coat, even here in Syka, so her fur was a paler shade of black, green, and brown from what it usually was in the summer. Drenched in sea water she looked silly though she was having fun.
And even though her wits were sharp and she was alert to what was around her, it took a moment for her to realize the surf was full of debris. It took her even longer to see the ship half washed up on the rocks well out into the bay, where it was pounded by the tide coming in.
Nya noted barrels floating and long strips of milled wood. Both struck her as valuable so in the form of her dire forest cat, she started making a game of catching the wood in her jaws and dragging it out of the surf, up high to where her blanket was spread and making a pile of it. Fully intact and floating barrels made harder targets to catch, but they were incredibly fun to pursue through the waves. Nya chased the smaller ones, dragging a pair of them up on the sand before going back for larger ones that she couldn't get her jaws around. Those she pounced on in the water, rising up like a great fish and jumping down on it half letting them keep her afloat. Nya kept to the shallows, where her paws could touch the sand beneath the waves, her play turning productive.
She kept an eye out for people, both those from the settlement and in case anyone was left alive from the ship. She didnt' know what kind of ship it was or who was on it... but she did know it had probably been wrecked on the rocks since the storm because the more she looked around, the more attention she paid to the beach, the more she saw debris is in the sand, tangled with seaweed and driftwood, up along the tideline. Ropes, more barrels, and a great deal of wood had been thrown ashore. There were even a few sacks, chests, and the sorts of things you'd find on a ship... pulleys, wenches, and block and tackle still attached to their chains. The more she played the more Nya realized how valuable the stuff was laying on the beach.