Chapter Two

No more than a moon later, Shallow was out and about with her father. They had left her grandmother alone in the den, and in a sudden wave of anxiousness as they left, Shallow had told Swifty to stay with her- he didn't listen and she knew it, but after thinking about it she let him follow her silently, invisible to the eye.

Her father told her many things as they made their way away from the den slowly. He mostly warned her of the dangers that came with leaving the den. He stressed that she stay away from the Sand Foxes that lived in the high grass, the Rip Current that could pull her away when swimming, and the plethora of sand pits that are made by certain types of crabs unique to the Crescent Beach- the beach they lived closest too.

He then explained when and where she was going to train each day, and it was clear that he had been planning this for quite some time. Today she was going with him to the Crescent Beach to walk along the edge of the water. He would then hunt some of the crabs as she watched carefully, and question her about it later. If her answers where to his liking, he would begin to train her to hunt crabs the very next day.

"You got all of that?" he asked after explaining her training for the next five days, which she quickly ran through in her head before nodding. "Yes." she answered quickly, sniffing the air curiously.

The scent of salt was strong, she noticed, and she had heard enough stories to know that if the air smelled like salt then the ocean must've was close. She bounced on her paws, pearly blue eyes glimmering with the same excitement that had left her almost sleepless the night before.

She sped up, barely hearing her fathers breathy chuckle and the words 'Kit's are still kit's.' before she stopped atop a sand dune. The ocean- or the part that was currently stuck inside the Crescent beach until high tide- was wide and bright blue.

"It's the brightest blue I've ever seen!" she commented in awe, tail swishing back-and-forth with a smile that made the sun look gloomy.

"You haven't seen your own eyes, then." her father came up from behind her with a proud smirk, and as she looked up at him his face softened. "They're the brightest blue on this island. Just like Coral's."

Shallow nodded numbly, the name of her mother ringing in her ears. She had only heard it a few times, from her father only. Her grandmother seemed to stray away from saying the name, and her father didn't normally say it when she was awake. It seemed to bring her too much grief.

"Come on, let's go." he meowed, sliding down the sand dune like a pro- never once tumbling once. Shallow regained her voice, and let out a cheerful yip, taking a step forward, expecting the trip down to be as easy as her father made it look to be.

She tumbled down with a surprised yelp, rolling a few times before coming to a halt, something holding her still. She sneezed and the sand that had gotten stuck on her nose flew off in a small, dusty cloud. A golden paw was the 'thing' that held her steady, and she purred softly at it.

"Hurry now, I still have mouths to feed." the golden tabby above warned gently, and she nodded, jumping up and shaking out her tawny pelt.

Once she stopped, he nudged her forward, towards a small indent in the ground that was close to the stilled ocean water- the shoal that had blocked the waves made it so that only the slight breeze caused ripples in the water, hardly any waves came during low tide.

"Remember those crabs I was talking about?" her father questioned, walking forward with her following closely behind. She hummed while nodding, and she knew he would understand.

"Well, that's a trap they set. When high tide comes, the minnows go down and say near the bottom of the ditch." he informed, flicking his tail to a small hole at the very bottom of the trap. "And then the crab comes out and snatches them up."

"What do the crabs do during low tide, then?" Shallow asked, raising a brow in curiosity. "They wander around, creating other traps that connect to their own through underground tunnels. Though, they have to come out of their hole for this. So-"

He looked at her, and she knew he expected her to finish. She concentrated, thinking for a moment, before making a small 'ah' sound, having figured it out. "So, we hunt them while they're out."

"Correct." he nodded and crouched down, obviously seeing something she wasn't. As to get a better view, she crouched down besides him, narrowing her eyes. If anything, she thought, he would think that she knew what he was looking at.

He pounced before she could question further what it was they were looking at. The sand seemed to have swallowed him whole, though she knew he just landed in one of the indents. She tilted her head in confusion, still not understanding why he pounced, but followed his lead anyway.

She jumped, stumbling in the sand, causing her to nearly tumble down into the minnow-trap. If it weren't for her fathers paw- for a moment she wondered how many times that paw would save her from the doom of falling into the sand face-first- she would have not stopped until she hit the bottom.

"You're not a minnow." her father meowed jokingly, causing a giggle to escape her lips. "Come on, don't fall for the traps, Shallow!" he purred and nudged her up until she was once again on flat ground.

Spotting an orange something next to her fathers back paw, she tried to nudge him away so she could see clearly. He huffed, kicking it away from her view with an almost scolding glint in his eye. She then sat, looking downwards, waiting patiently for the orange thing to come into view.

It was a crab. Her father was stalking a crab, not nothing. "How could I not see something that brightly-colored!?" she complained.

"It was hidden in the sand. I was watching the sand move." her father commented, setting the crab next to her, pushing some sand over it with a paw. "Now, the training begins, Shallow. Watch and learn."

The rest of the day was filled with her father catching crabs, and her taking mental notes on it. She was allowed to try, once, but she got nipped in the nose and as she padded home, she commented on how her nose stung.

She smiled softly, padding into the den with a small crab in her mouth. She set it down and padded next to her sleeping grandmother, nudging her gently. "Supper." she called, just as she always did.

Old, blue eyes opened slowly and her grandmother chuckled, sitting up. "Back already?" she asked, and her father raised a brow, because this was about the time that she normally complained about being hungry.

Shallow just figured that her grandmother was simply hungry when she was around because she told stories throughout half of the day- nothing seems wrong. She nodded, nudging a crab towards her.

"Let's eat, grandmother!"

Her father set down the two crabs he had with him, one for himself and one for her, and started eating one. Shallow took a bite out of the crab, and as the taste filled her mouth she wished she was the one to catch it. Someday, she knew, she would be the one feeding her family.