with everything, i won't let this go

[Valkyrie de le Poer]

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Along the beach scuttled a young hermit crab, utterly undisturbed. Morning had peaked into afternoon and still it was not bothered, and went about its life in quite a normal fashion, scooping who-knew-what into its small and busily working mouth as it moved slowly and ponderously across the sun-warmed sand, caring naught for anything but itself. One large claw dragged along, identifying he was male, and he was a king in his world. His shell was the most beautiful of them all. His was big and impressive and unmatched by any other hermit crab on the beach.
Sharing it with him was a cub, though she was spectacularly growing and quite older than it seemed. She was slender and built finely, with thin and delicate bones and a fair figure, despite being not even half a year old. She could only walk on all fours yet, not having yet had her first transition, which she had been prepared for by her mother but still wasn't certain what to expect. She was always there, if not needed anywhere else. The hermit crab was a familiar resident who she recognised, if not only for that spot of coconut brown on his pearly white shell.
Hello, she greeted him softly, with a touch of ebullient youthfulness, not at all expecting an answer from the creature that more or less ignored her and continued on with his boring, insignificant existence.
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