Submission (#3896) Approved

Prompt: Sandcastle (wc:734)
Calix shook himself out and flicked his ears. He had had such a good nap, no idea how long it had been but it didn't matter. There wasn't anything he needed to do, he had all the time in the world to enjoy the beach and that was what he would do. With a toothy grin he turned and moved over to the bag and began digging around the stuff he had overfilled it with. Humming to himself he pulled out a small plastic shovel, a few small buckets, and a rake. With his paws full of the items he moved a bit closer to the water. He had tried to build a sandcastle with entirely dry sand and when it wouldn't hold its shape and kept turning into just plain old mounds of sand he realized he was going to have to try something a little different. If dry sand wouldn't work then he would try the wet sand from the shore, so the young Kitsu walked over and filled his bucket with a *plop* full of wet sand. He flipped his bucket over with a grin that disappeared almost immediately when the mixture turned into a shapeless mound much like the dry sand had done. Calix's ears flicked in annoyance, too dry, too wet, so he needed to find the right middle ground then. And that is exactly what he did for the next thirty minutes or so, just test out different combinations of water and sand to get it to maintain it's shape and stay sturdy enough that he could build off of it. He started with equal parts sand and water, and worked his way down to less water until he was about to throw his paws up and walk away. In fact he did have to take a break for a minute so he didn't get too frustrated. He walked the beach a little bit, finding a couple shells that he thought were pretty and deciding to bring them back to his work area. If he could get this darn castle built the shells would make the perfect decorations for it. 'If.' he thought with a sigh. His ears were flat against his head now as he had cooled off and was back to focusing on the problem at hand. Each time he flipped a bucket of sand over he held his breath as he slowly pulled the plastic away from the sand and this time! This time he had successfully gotten it to stay up! He let out a loud victorious laugh, his eyes bright with excitement now that he had figured out the balance. It was still slow going, he had to be careful and pay attention to what he was doing or he might cause one of the sand pillars to collapse. He already did that once on accident and it was difficult to clear the space and rebuild so he didn't want to risk doing it agin. Instead he worked with the most focus he had given anything in a while. He had pillars built up, he had the "main hall" of the castle built. Then he took the shovel and began to dig a moat around the castle, adding a trail to where the waves were lapping at the shore. He grinned and watched it slowly fill up the small moat around his castle, perfect to protect against invaders he thought with a giggle. Then an idea struck him and he pulled out one of the bigger shells he had found earlier and as gingerly as he could began working to turn it into a drawbridge, laying it over the thin stream of water and onto the dry sand on the other side. His tail was wagging furiously as he added more finishing touches on the castle. A shell here and there for decor, admiring how it brightened up the monotony of the sand. Using his claw he oh so carefully dug out windows here and there. Eyes bright with excitement at his finished product he scampered over to grab his sister and show her what he had been working on for the last couple hours. He wanted to enjoy and show it off as long as he could before he knew he would have to at least fill in the moat for safety so no other Kitsu stepped in it and hurt themselves.

Reward	Amount
Silver	35