Closed To Catch a Fish [Kal'ai]

[Traverse]

To Catch a Fish

20th of Winter, 512 A.V.

The Bountiful Sea Market was bustling as always. Syna watched calmly overhead as vendors politely hawked their wares to any passerby. Though loud, any market where Konti were the major proprietors had a peaceful air to it. The daughters of Mura would much rather have conversation with their brethren and guests to their island than merely sell their product. Getting to know their client, after all, was the best and most enjoyable way to make their sale. So many conversations transpired that morning, creating a pleasant and welcoming din for any passerby to enter.

N'avari was seated in the water upon a smooth stone she used as a sort of bench where she could show her wares to passerby. Today she had some wonderful flying fish she had gone into the ocean to catch, as well as crabs, and rainbow trout from the Silver Lake. She had just finished bagging several crabs for one customer, and was relaxing in the cool waters, already itching to get back out and try some new trap designs, perhaps to catch smaller fish.

N'avari was just one of many fisher women in the Bountiful Sea, but no one could deny her knack and talent, as well as inherent respect for the element she worked in. One had to appreciate the waters and world that gave her trade meaning, not simply usurp the water. It was these thoughts that were circling through her head, causing her to drift into a separate consciousness and kept her from noticing at first when a sister swam up to her in the bazaar.

[Kal'ai]

Winter 20, 512 AV "And please, don't mess it again!" The day sure hadn't started with the best premises. Unless you think a broken vase was a good start, of course, but Kal'ai wasn't one of those people and neither was her mother. At first she had said "Don't worry, it's just a vase", sure. But "at first" meant "the first time she broke something", and that was long, long time ago. Now the reaction was more like silent, resigned desperation, if not simple esasperation. Well, that morning the reaction was the latter. She couldn't really blame her mother, though: it was a difficult time, especially since her mother couldn't do her old job no more, the cause being her poor health and the job being to harsh, and they desperately need another one. That's why she was in the market: fishers were always searching for apprentices or simply two more hands to do various little jobs. Maybe even her could have some possibilities to find something...and if she couldn't, well, she would have bought something for their lunch, possibly something she could afford. At least being in the water always gave her a temporary relief: she wasn't exactly good at swimming, but she know how to and, like almost every Konti, she enjoyed the embrace of the water. Good, because that day no one seemed to need to hire anyone, and her trip was probably going to end in an epic failure. She was almost going to sigh, except it would have made look her only more desperate, and she really didn't need that. She had almost covered all the market, now there were only a few stalls left...Well, let's start, shall we? She started swimming again, in the direction of a fisherwoman sat on a rock, with her "preys" in their traps under her. "Hello!" she said, when in front of the other Konti. It wasn't considered polite to ask immediately to see the goods or, in her case, to ask for a job, it was much better to talk a little with the seller first.

[Traverse]

N'avari glanced up from her quiet thoughtfulness with a start, but a pleasant smile spread across her features at the sight of the Konti. "Greetings sister. My apologies, I seemed to have drifted off into thought there."

The woman moved over upon her perch, beckoning Kal'ai to sit with her. "Come, perhaps you can keep me out of my reverie." She sighed, but it was an expression born from enjoying the warmth of Syna's rays while submerged in the water, the natural place of a Konti, and when Kal'ai had taken the empty spot beside her, the fisher woman beamed. "I do not recognize you from the bazaar, sister. My name is N'avari, what do you go by?"

As she spoke N'avari removed some thin rope from a basket that floated beside her and began weaving of a sort. She used no needle, but instead her nimble fingers made knots out of the line. The way she tied the silken strands made small loops just big enough to put one's smallest finger through, stacked one upon another. It looked like a row of circles that if put together might have made a very fine mesh net, though as it was N'avari was performing the task nearly unconsciously, for the rope was not the correct make for long term netting. She was an individual that had always been apt with her hands, however, and found it hard to keep them still, even at peace with one of her brethren.

Once Kal'ai had responded N'avari glanced down at her wares, then back at Kal'ai. Her gaze held the scrutiny and knowledge of an island filled with women who could see what others did not. "Forgive me, Kal'ai if I am prying, but you do not seem to be here to buy fish from me, am I correct?" A twinkle in her bright eyes said she knew the answer to her own question, but she still was curious as to the young woman's response regardless.

[Kal'ai]

Well, it was a start. The first step, the 'don't get kicked out just for opening your mouth' part, was done. Well, let's be honest, that was the simpliest part. But she liked the tone of the other Konti, and maybe that little remark about her getting lost in her thoughts, a sensation that Kal knew fairly well. Everyone else just assumed that she was always lost in her world or something, when the contrary was true: she was so concentrated in keeping her mind 'awake' that she failed at everything else. Well, that's what she thought, she wasn't really sure. But that was not the point. She sat down on the bench next to N'avari, nodding sligthly with her head. "Thank you! And not, I don't come here very often. My name is Kal'ai!" She was not sure if she should have said immediately what she wanted, but something in her head was screaming 'not now'. She looked at the other Konti, searching for a sign...and she saw what she was doing with the rope. It was...marvellous! She was mesmerized by the movement of the fisher's fingers, and how the whole deal seemed almost effortless. She would have stared all the day, if the other Konti hadn't talked again. "Forgive me, Kal'ai if I am prying, but you do not seem to be here to buy fish from me, am I correct?" She shook her head, panic rapidly rising in her throat. No! She had to stay calm and think carefully. Air in...air out...and suddenly she had the "perfect" answer, just in front of her. Well, sort of. "Well...you're right. I'm...not here to buy. I was here because I was searching for a job." A pause. Now, she thought, tell her what popped in your mind earlier. Do it. "Well, I'll be honest: I'm not capable of doing that knot, so maybe I'm trying to get the wrong job. But...I really hope someday I'll find something to do here. I used to come here often when I was little, with my granmother. It's a good place to be, and you get to work in the water, our element." She realized a second later that what she had just said wasn't all that brilliant like she thought earlier. She wasn't even trying to put herself in a good light. She was just saying the bare truth and a lot of 'fluff'. And her truth, the fact that she was terribly clumsy and all the rest, would have only get her out of that market faster than you can say 'gingerly gingerbread'. She shutted up, before saying things like 'Oh, and I'm extremely good at destroying things' or 'Hey! I think I could mess that rope so hard that no one could make it look like a rope again!'.

[Traverse]

"Kal'ai, a beautiful name." N'avari sat back, waiting for the inevitable torrent of words she could see building from her new Konti companion. The fisher woman remained silent as Kal'ai spoke, nodding her head slightly here and there, making sure the female was done before she opened her mouth.

"There is much more to my job than making nets." With one swift gesture the fine rope was undone, all of the knots which so happened to be of the slipknot variety, sliding elegantly out and leaving N'avari with just a long string. She smiled and rested her hands upon her lap. "I can understand the desire to work in our natural element, Kal'ai, but you seem quite nervous about seeking a job. What is it that you fear will happen?"

As she spoke the older Konti reached into one of several floating baskets around her and pulled out a short rod that looked to be made from a type of bamboo. She tugged on one end and in an instant the pole which had only been about a foot and a half long to begin with, stretched out to nearly five feet in length. N'avari set the fishing rod upon her lap, which then put it into Kal'ai's lap as well, and passed the Konti a length of fine slender thread."This is a most basic rod to catch fish with. See that little metal ring at your end? Just fit the string through it and tie a couple knots so it will hold."

N'avari then pulled out a fly, a brilliantly colored thing made from feathers and fur with silken threads wrapped around the body to hold everything together. "When you are done tying, just attach the opposite end of your string to this fellow here." She passed the small fly to Kal'ai, waiting until she was done with the first part of the instructions, and observing how the young Konti did.

[Kal'ai]

"There is much more to my job than making nets." Kal wasn't sure whether she should have taken that phrase as a simple 'you don't really know nothing about this, do you?' or a much more harsh 'jeez, you really have no skills or knowlege for this'. N'avari, with a quick movement, untied the knots she had made to the rope (apparently that wasn't a type of knot made to last, thought the young Konti). "I can understand the desire to work in our natural element, Kal'ai, but you seem quite nervous about seeking a job. What is it that you fear will happen?" Well, honestly it wasn't just seeking a job that made her nervous, and her worst fears about what could have happened included a giant squid, a destroyed quarter and a bunch of angry people. Buuuut let's not get into the details, really. "I'm...always quite nervous." she added, in the end. She could have added more, but frankly that wasn't a really smart idea, and suddently she found a fishing rod in her lap. The other Konti passed her a rop... "A thread, not a rope!" she corrected herself almost immediately, taking the thin string with her hands. "This is a most basic rod to catch fish with. See that little metal ring at your end? Just fit the string through it and tie a couple knots so it will hold." She looked at the thread, and the thread looked at her. What. No, wait, what? What!? She was still trying to get her mind work again after that when the other Konti took out something colorful, probably a bait. "When you are done tying, just attach the opposite end of your string to this fellow here." Okay, she thought, calm down. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Good. Now, think. She had said fishing rods before, of course, but she never had used one. Well, N'avari said it was simple, no? She just had to leave enough thread after attaching it to the rope, and do some knots strong enough. She could have used the special 'Try to do a bow and end with a knot so sturdy you'll have to cut it to untie it' technique, but probably N'avari wanted her thread (and her rod) back, so it wasn't a great idea. Well, time to face the fishing rod. She took the thread with her left forefinger and her left middle finger, and made it pass into the metal ring, taking it with the other hand when it passed through the little metal arc. She made it slide until she though she had enough on the other side to attach the little bait and throw it. Or, at least, that was what she wanted to achieve. "Do some knots. Two should be enough..." she thought, trying to sound sure. Yeah, like she could fool someone, especially since there was no one that could be fooled with so little in her head. The thread passed again from finger to finger and into the ring again, leaving a little gap for the thread to pass into and close the first knot, fixing it on the top half of the ring. She realized just in that moment that she should have left a little more on the opposite side, to close the second knot...oh, phew, apparently she was lucky. Okay, let's pretend she had made that on purpose and go on. She made the second, simple, knot, trying to get it as tight as possible. Good. "Thanks" she murmured, taking the little bait with a little bit of hesitation in her movements. Okay, now she had to do the same with this bait, right? No, wait a minute. Where do she had to attach it to the thread? She panicked for a second, before the painfully obvious way to do it popped out in her mind. She repeated the movement she had made before and finished it with two knots. She started breathing again, realizing she had finished. She really couldn't have said how much time had passed...probably two or three minutes, or even more, but to her it had been an eternity. OOCI literally know nothing about fishing, but I assumed the bait has a little ring on the top of it to make possible attach it to the thread. If I'm mistaken please tell me, I'll correct what I've said

[Traverse]

oocSince this is Mura, they probably have their own fishing techniques, and I'm not going to say that is or isn't wrong, so no worries!

N'avari smiled at the nervousness of the girl, but clapped her hands once in approval when she finished. "Well done, just a couple knots to keep the fly on one end and the line to the pole, good enough, I say!" Even the very prospect of fishing began to get N'avari excited, and she rose, lifting Kal'ai with her. "Now on more complex rods there is a reel so that you can pull the line in and avoid it from tangling, unfortunately this simple rod does not have such a capability, but I can show you a trick for keeping it untangled." She reached out and lifted Kal'ai's right arm. She made sure the fly was placed between the young Konti's thumb and forefinger, then took the line and dragged it to Kal'ai's elbow wrapping it around and bringing it back to her thumb and forefinger. "See? Just wrap it around your arm like this and you won't have to worry about your line dragging and getting caught or tangled up."

Once this was completed N'avari stepped back and smirked. "You know what, Kal'ai? Let us go fishing." She collected her baskets, leaving the fish that would surely be there when she returned. And so they two Konti waded through the partially submerged bazaar, following the main road that would inevitably bring them to the Silver Lake.

When they arrived N'avari took out a simple line and attached her own fly to it, wading out into the water. "The most important part of fishing is not how much you know and what bait to use...though that is important, its patience. Fishing is almost entirely waiting in hopes that you catch a fish, and many people find it a pointless task. I find it extremely meditative, however." She glanced at Kal'ai and demonstrated how to throw out the line. She did not have the advantage of the rod to flick the sting across the water, but her hand was an expert one when tossing out lines. "Simply flick the rod and send out the line. You want to have a loose couple feet of line, but it is alright if it is not so far out in the water." She glanced towards her unspoken apprentice and smiled, examining her attempt.

[Kal'ai]

"Well done, just a couple knots to keep the fly on one end and the line to the pole, good enough, I say!" Uh? Really? Oh, good. That was a good sign, she was still capable of doing a knot even under pressure. It sounded like nothing (and it probably was), but to her it was a great achievement. She was still celebrating her little victory when N'avari got up, taking Kal'ai with her. Wha... "Now on more complex rods there is a reel so that you can pull the line in and avoid it from tangling, unfortunately this simple rod does not have such a capability, but I can show you a trick for keeping it untangled." Oh. Okay. She stored the information in some (metaphorical) drawer in her head, hoping to find them again in case she needed them again, while the other Konti began to wrap her arm with the thread. There was literaly no way she could do that again, she noted, at least not without getting entangled in it at least three times. "See? Just wrap it around your arm like this and you won't have to worry about your line dragging and getting caught or tangled up." Kal looked at it again, trying to remember at least how it was done. Well, if she didn't remember how to do it there was no point in trying, or not? "You know what, Kal'ai? Let us go fishing." Wait. Fishing? She was joking, right...? No, she wasn't, Kal'ai realized with a little shiver of horror. She was deadly serious and she was taking with her all the necessary, with the exception of the fishes, of course (well, not so "of course", actually. She knew that doing something like that somewhere else than Mura was like asking to be robbed). The Silver Lake was beautiful as always, thought Kal, forgetting for a second the pole she was still carrying. Luckily enough she caught the bamboo stick before it fell into the water, but that wasn't exactly a good start. In the meantime, N'avari had already tied a thread to another bait...woah, she had done that in less than half of the time Kal had needed. "The most important part of fishing is not how much you know and what bait to use...though that is important, its patience. Fishing is almost entirely waiting in hopes that you catch a fish, and many people find it a pointless task. I find it extremely meditative, however." Well, at least patience was a virtue she had in aboundance...She wasn't the type of person that lost her temper because things didn't happen. It was much more the contrary, she tended to lose her cool when things did happen, but that was another story. "Simply flick the rod and send out the line. You want to have a loose couple feet of line, but it is alright if it is not so far out in the water." Okay...so she had to throw it? Well, better untie it first from her arm...done. Now, the hardest part. It was indeed the hardest part: apparently the bait had the tendence of going backwards when she "charged" the blow with the rod. The first try aborted quite fast when the little bastard hit her in the head: of course it didn't hurt, but her pride...it was a death blow for him, one of a long series of death blows that somehow managed to leave him alive enough to feel pain for the next one. The second try went slightly better, but still nothing. Thankfully enough, the third try was a successful one: the bait made a soft "plop" when it hitted the water, and Kal couldn't contain a little cry of joy. Now she had to wait, right?

[Traverse]

If N'avari was amused by Kal'ai's failed attempts with the rod, she did not show it. The only expression that hung upon her mouth was an encouraging smile which broadened slightly as the fly flew out into the water. "Nicely done."

The Konti looked to her own line for a moment, dragging it back and explaining as she did so. "It is really a pain doing it this way, without a rod, easier equipment wise, but generally harder as well, for you do not have the leverage of a pole to flick the string or to pull it back if you catch something." She swung the fishing line around her head like a lasso and threw it out again. "So now we wait." She glanced at the Konti and cocked her head to the side thoughtfully as if trying to discern something. "I am trying to think of good places for people just learning how to fish...The harbor is a good one. There are a lot of debris left over from vessels that fish like to grab or eat, so just putting a worm on a string and dangling it is never a bad plan. The lake is a bit more temperamental, but there are plenty of places around the coast that are quiet and calm that are perfect for fishing." She rolled her arms, a bit, shifting slightly in the water before continuing. "I prefer catching my fish with nets, or setting up traps like some of the Konti do with our lobsters. You don't only have to catch fish you know, crustaceans and mollusks sell just as well in the market...."

N'avari trailed off and laughed a bit at herself then turned her gaze towards Kal'ai. "Forgive me, I am just blathering on. While we wait for our catch, tell me what makes you want to fish? How do you want to make a living out of it?"

[Kal'ai]

"Nicely done." Apparently N'avari was nice enough to not comment on her fight with the bait and the rod. After all it was the first time she had used a fishing pole... Meanwhile, the older Konti had taken back her thread, preparing to throw it again. "It is really a pain doing it this way, without a rod, easier equipment wise, but generally harder as well, for you do not have the leverage of a pole to flick the string or to pull it back if you catch something." Kal pondered a bit, not sure if she should have given back the pole, but decided against it. After all she was given that thing in the first place, and N'avari sure knew what she was doing. If she really wanted to go fishing, and do that with a pole, she would have done that. She listened the other Konti, wishing that fishes would ignore her bait (because throwing had been a problem, but actually catch something would have been much worse), until N'avari changed quite suddently the subject. "Forgive me, I am just blathering on. While we wait for our catch, tell me what makes you want to fish? How do you want to make a living out of it?" Oh. Oh...She...really didn't have the slightest idea. Why? Nice question, except there wasn't a clear "because" to answer that. She had come to the market because she was sure someone had something to offer, or maybe there was another motive? Her grip on the pole tightened instinctively, while she was thinking. "I...I'm not sure, actually. I came here mainly because I knew I could find something to do...but...I could have gone to the paddies outside the city, I guess I could have found something too." She shrugged, while her gaze got lost on the surface of the lake. "Maybe it's just the place...it reminds me of Konna, I suppose. My grandmother, I mean. She loved the market and the Silver Lake. I really should come here more..."