In the Middle of Summer

"Yeep!" the Klee Kai squeaked out as a finger touched her side. "Don't do that!" she insisted, continuing her attempt to get around Wolf. "I'mma get on your back and then you won't be able to shake me off!"

"Well... that's only if I let you move there." Wolf replies, "I can just hold you in front of me and poke you until you let go."

He pokes her side lightly again.

"Eek!" Reena squeaked again. "Then I'll just have to jump you later when you least expect it!" she replied. Her legs loosened from around Wolf and her feet dropped back into the sand, her arms releasing their hold as well. She squirmed to get loose of Wolf's arm and then back up a few steps from him.

Once Reena makes to climb off of him, Wolf helps her down to the ground and then lets her go.

"So, I guess I'll just have to stay on my guard." he replies, "Then you'll never get an opportunity."

"No, no, I'll get my chance," Reena assured him with a shake of her index finger. "Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but one day!"

Wolf smiles back slightly at Reena.

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see." he says.

"Yep! In the meantime, I never did really get to stop and actually enjoy stickin' my feet in the water," Reena pointed out, starting to move past Wolf and head back towards the water.

Wolf turns and watches Reena head off towards the water, also wanting to keep an eye on her in case she did want to try and surprise him with his back turned.

Reena swung her arms back and forth and kicked the sand a bit as she walked back to the water. She paused once standing where the waves could wash up around her feet and just stood there, looking around at everything else going on around them.

Wolf turns away and heads over to the table Reena had left her belongings on. He considers the basket of cookies for a little while before reaching over to take another one.

Reena reached up to where her camera had been hanging from around her neck. She glanced down and paused for a moment before recalling having left it on the table up the beach. The dog huffed a little, then turned and started off back towards Wolf.

Wolf is breaking one of the cookies into smaller pieces, leaving most of them in the basket so he won't have to hang onto them or leave them directly on the table. He's chewing away on one piece and glancing around idly.

As she approached and saw that Wolf was eating another cookie, she smiled. "Yyyyeah, they grow on you a little, don't they?" she asked as she picked up her camera from the table and turned back towards the water.

"I just thought I should at least give them a try." he replies, glancing towards her, "You did buy them for us so I should try to have my share so that nothing is wasted."

"Yeah yeah, that too. Wasted food is blasphemy!" Reena nodded before starting off back towards the sea. She held her camera up to her face as she went, looking over the shot she intended to take and trying to frame it to her liking.

Wolf continues to eat the pieces of the cookie he'd broken up. He turns to watch Reena as she moves off towards the water with her camera up to get a picture. He smiles slightly as he watches her.

One would think that pointing a camera at the ocean and snapping a photo would be a quick and simple process, but Reena seemed to be nitpicking over her shot. She would tap one of the tiny setting buttons on the device, adjust focus (or at least try to, considering the camera didn't have a longer lens like her main one did), or step a few paces to one side or forward or back.

Granted, she was a little too focused on that and not so much on some children nearby playing with an oversized, rainbow-colored beach ball. They'd been a ways off and weren't terribly close at the moment. Buuuut, it wasn't long before one of the older children gave the ball a hard kick, sending it whizzing through the air in a plume of sand.

The sound that came from the Klee Kai as the brightly-colored projectile hit her squarely in the side of the head could only be described as some cross between a yelp, a squeak, and some strange choking noise. Her camera dropped from her paws and, without the strap around her neck, right into the sand. Reena nearly followed it as she stumbled off to the left, flailing her arms to regain her balance. Even once she did, she seemed to sort of freeze in place, her fur puffed out a little as she tried to figure out what had just happened.

The children who had been playing went wide-eyed, the one who'd kicked it falling silent upon realization of what she'd just done and the younger two bursting into amused giggles.

Wolf had heard the children approaching an gave them a cursory glance, but not much else as he saw them playing with a ball. He returned his focus to Reena a little while later and popped another cookie piece into his mouth.

Just a little while later, as Reena was still lining up her picture, Wolf glances away to get another cookie piece. As he turns back, he sees the ball sailing in towards Reena, and smack into her, sending her flailing off to one side. He's worried that she might have been hurt, but he also snorts in amusement as he sees it happen.

He hears the children start laughing and he glances in their direction. He looks back at Reena, who seems a bit dumbfounded.

"You okay there?" he calls to her.

Reena perked one ear up, followed by the other as Wolf called out a question. Her head shook a bit and she leaned down to grab her camera from the sand. As she turned, she replied, "What's that? I can't hear you..." She turned off the camera and nudged it into her back pocket. Her gaze wandered over to the children, whose giggles quieted a bit as they were spotted. A wide grin crossed her face. "...Over all the murder I'm gonna rain down on some kids!!"

The dog was suddenly running over to where the ball had landed in the sand not too far off. She snatched it up and held it over her head, clearly threatening to hurl the ball back at one of the kids as she charged towards them.

This, of course, resulted in additional laughter from the younger children and now also from the elder one as well as they turned to flee from the Klee Kai now pursuing them.

Wolf watches this unfold and he laughs briefly as he sees Reena run towards the group of kids, holding the ball over her head. He shakes his head slightly as he puts the cookie piece he was holding into his mouth, and watches the encounter unfold.

With the children running away, Reena continued to chase them about, targeting one for a short time, then another when they would pause to see if the dog was behind them. She didn't yet throw the ball at anyone, but her tail was wagging away behind her as she made playful threats at the kids.

It went on for a good while, plenty of kicking sand up and playing around before one of the smaller children actually turned to face Reena, though he was in the middle of a giggle fit. Reena hopped to a halt, crouching down and lowering the ball in front of her as she considered her target.

"Ooooh, gonna try and face me now, are ya?" she asked, "Then brace yourself! For my sweet revenge!" With that, Reena lowered the ball... then gave it a gentle toss to the child, who just managed to catch it with both paws, then promptly turn and continue running about. Reena stood up straight, no longer running, but watching in case someone tried to throw the ball at her again.

Wolf continues to watch Reena as she runs about with the three kids then finally tosses their ball back to them. He smiles slightly as the game there appears to be at an end.

The trio of children returned to playing amongst themselves for now and Reena shook her head a bit, then turned to head back towards Wolf. She was laughing a bit again as she approached him, rubbing the side of her head where the ball had hit earlier.

"Well, that was distracting!" she commented.

"It sure seemed like it." Wolf says, "You okay though?"

He regards her quietly while he waits for her reply.

"Yyyyeah, it takes more than a beach ball to knock me down," Reena replied, grinning a little.

Her ears perked up and she turned slightly, pulling her camera out of her pocket. She looked over the sand all on it now and added, "Although I guess I should get the sand off this baby before I try and take anymore photos."