Pine incense

It was not very often that Simon left the shores nowadays, as that’s where he felt the safest, but of course, today had to be one of those days. He was, as usual, wandering around with Sandro by his side. While strolling, they had also happened upon another pale sucho, by the name of Antoinette. Neither of them knew her, but Simon had invited her to tag along, which she was surely regretting at this point, as they found themselves almost surrounded by a fire.

“This way!” the scruffy, gray sucho shouted and waved with one of his hands towards the direction he had in mind.
Sandro and Antoinette swiftly followed his directions, trying their best not to breathe in too much smoke as they tried to navigate through the burning trees. The smoke was stinging as they took breaths, and their eyes were watery from it as well, making it even harder to see through the thick, blackened air.
Sandro coughed as he looked around and saw another, seemingly safe route they could take.
“Come on, follow me!” he yelled and looked back, to make sure Simon had been able to catch up with him and Antoinette after he had directed them away from the flames.
Simon sped up to reunite with them and followed Sandro between the yet to be charred tree trunks.Antoinette looked around, panicked, but she did her best to stay as calm as she could so the three of them could make it out safely. She knew they were close to the shore, but were they close enough to make it, she was starting to ask herself.
“We have to get to the water, that way we’ll be safe..” Antoinette whispered to herself, but trying to sniff out where the ocean was in this smoke was impossible, the stinging smoke was way too dominant.

Simon was currently very relieved they were in a predominantly pine forest, as there were not many leaves covering the forest floor. Had there been more, maybe the fire would have spread faster with them being dry right now as there had not been much rain recently.
As his thoughts were all over the place and he tried his best not to get charred by burning leaves and such flying through the air, he thought he finally spotted the ocean as the winds blew some smoke to the side for a second. But they were running out of time, as the fire was spreading faster, and was on its way to potentially block their escape route.

“Hurry, it is this way! The flames have almost caught up, we can’t afford to lose more time!” Simon yelled, his voice cracking as he spoke, and his throat was starting to get dry from all the smoke, speaking was proving more and more difficult.
Sandro quickly ran on, and Antoinette followed suit, her steps more clumsy as she lost her composure more and more. Her heart was racing and her lungs started to hurt more and more as she took faster, stressed breaths. Soon, panic would surely completely take over.
Sandro was noticing that Antoinette was slowly getting worse, he knew he had to do something or she would very likely injure herself by accident. He had to get her attention.
“Antoinette!” he yelled, but at first she did not respond or react at all, she was blindly running at this point, but he could not give up, he needed her to get to safety.
“Antoinette, do you hear me!?” he tried yelling again, this time, she thankfully reacted and looked at him briefly before realising the blind panic she was about to get in.
“I am so sorry!” she wailed, as she pressed on, same speed, but otherwise much calmer.
“Don’t apologise, we will be okay!” Simon yelled from the front. “I can finally see the ocean again!”

The relief that washed over the three suchos once they finally reached the shore was so overwhelming that Antoinette almost collapsed as they had moved far enough away from the forest to not be in danger of the flames anymore. But she wanted to get in the water, at least a little bit, before sitting down. She slowly wandered across the sand and stones and got into the ocean and stopped as the water reached to her knees. She sighed and sat down.
Sandro snuggled up next to Simon for a bit, before he also made his way to the water. Simon stayed on the beach for a moment, looking back at the burning forest, he then sighed heavily and coughed a bit, before waddling over to Sandro and Antoinette in the shallow water. He knew it would probably take a few days before the smell of burnt pine would leave his scruffy, feathered coat. And it would serve him as a harsh reminder that sometimes, exploring might be much more dangerous than expected. He was just glad they were all safe now.