23rd Day of Winter, 512 AV Mathews Bay Afternoon Leas stirred awake in her pocket of warm sand on the beach. She'd half dug a small trench to nap inside like a nest, partially buried so she'd be that much warmer. She stretched and arched her back with a groan, muscles shivering against the strain. With a jaw splitting yawn she rolled onto her stomach and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, blinking rapidly against the setting sun. It was a shame the days were so short in winter. Her stomach grumbled like it always did when she woke from a long nap. "Alright," she told it sleepily, giving one more yawn. "I'll feed you then you'll leave me alone." After another stretch she half-slithered, half-drug herself from the shallow ditch she'd dug and made her way to the water. The first wave that rolled over Leas took away all warmth her body had soaked up from the sun. The pull of the water helped to drag her into the bay where she could finally move easily. The first few feet her tail thumped against the sand until she was clear of the shore, swimming in deeper waters. It woke her immediately, washing away all fatigue. She rolled lazily onto her back, watching the surface of the bay from below; how the light reflected on and broke through the waves like moving pillars. After so long her stomach growled again, reminding her of the task at hand. Leas would have sighed if she weren't underwater, so instead she rolled her eyes and twisted around to swim toward the shallow's bottom. Silver dollar fish were teeming here, darting to and fro in erratic swirling schools. Too fast for her to bother with right now, being in a lazy mood. Instead she started sifting through the sands, feeling with ginger care for some possible clams. One wrong poke though and she could anger a stingray or some other venomous or poisonous fish. She didn't want to go belly up today. Her skin crawled when her fingers brushed something smooth and she froze, but it didn't move. Carefully, she pulled it out from underneath the sand, sending up a cloud of dirt. At first she thought it was a clam and she smiled at her luck, but upon closer examination it turned out to be a rock. Leas scowled and dropped it back where she'd found it, giving a powerful swirl of her fins to carry herself away from the settling cloud of dirt. Her mood only darkened as she failed again and again at finding something good to eat. Rocks, a few dead fish, and even a sand shark that was floating near a tumble of stones. The closest thing she'd come across that interested her was a small octopus, but it escaped easily into the rocks the shark was patrolling. Looks like I'll just have some roughage. Her stomach growled in protest but she ignored it, making her way back the way she's come. Leas picked a few strips of kelp dancing in the pull of the surf and knotted them around her waist so her hands would be free. It was never hard to find plants to eat; they grew everywhere along the shore and usually just as abundantly in deep waters. But she couldn't help and wish for a nice bass. Maybe there were some rock crabs closer to the docks. That idea cheered her considerably and she made a b-line in the other direction, back toward the pier. A nice big crab would compliment the kelp well. Or she could just steal something from someone's fishing net. |