Closed A Zith Goes Fishing

[Scorn]

60th Spring, 513, dusk Location: a short distance away from The Patchwork Port It was a long flight, but after crossing the great stretch of sparkling blue, Scorn and her companion had spied land on the other side. After collapsing on the shore, they had slept most of the day, but now it was night and time to hunt, to replenish their bodies. They often hunted separately, partly in competition, but partly because they distracted each other. Just after sunset, Scorn glided along the coast, debating where to look for something good to eat. When she saw a flicker of movement in the water to her right, that decided her. She had never had fish before, but it was time to try it out. She adjusted her heading until she was flying just above the shadow moving underwater. It looked a good size, big enough to be filling, but probably not dangerous. She watched it for a few ticks to make sure it didn't have any unpredictable movement patterns. When she was sure of her target, she angled her body, folded her wings, and dove at her target. She held out her claws to catch the fish, but she had never hunted in the ocean before, and she underestimated the water resistance. The water pushed her claws away from her aquatic target, and by the time she pushed harder to compensate, she had lost her chance to grab the fish. What was worse, she's taken so long to fight the water that she had lost her lift, and despite her spread wings, her body began sinking slowly toward the water. Fortunately, she was still within sight of the shore, and if she tried, she was sure she could pull herself out of the water and flap her way to shore. But then she would still be without a meal. Angry and determined, she opted to abandon her aerial advantage, and go after the fishy thing in its own element.

[Luradin]

Luradin was swimming calmly along in the water that night, the water was cool on his skin but it was still comfortable to him. Webbed feet moving almost sub-consciously and at such low speeds were enough to propel him through the water at a steady walking-equivalent pace, Luradin felt peaceful. Peaking out at the land he was coming near to, he began to slow down to take a short look at the city and then start looking-for or making his shelter, but as his eyes were looking up at the ground in-front of him a shadow appeared above. Though Luradin was not quick to come to conclusions he thought that the Zith had had malicious intent as it pounded into the water. Though Luradin was wary of the Zith, he both found it amusing and commendable that it chose to try and stay in the water and chase it's prey out of conviction, he swam a few metres away from the creature and poked his head from the water with a kind and open expression, he spoke in a calm voice "Need some help?"

[Scorn]

Something was terribly wrong. The fish was not showing nearly the level of fear Scorn had come to expect from her prey. True she might be out of her element in the water, but that was no reason to suspect that she would not rip its guts out should she catch it. She began trying to move towards the fish, though traversing the water was like trying to move through very thick air. She kept her wings aloft, afraid that if she fell entirely below the surface, she would not be able to get back up. The fish made it easier by staying near the surface, but that only angered Scorn further. It was taunting her, clearly not treated her as the threat she was. She flapped awkwardly toward the fish ad she tried unsuccessfully to "walk" through the water. Water was such a bizarre element, not solid enough to be land, but not thin enough to fly through. Why did it exist at all? With bloodthirst in her eyes, she had nearly got within pouncing reach of the fish when the strangest thing happened. It spoke. Scorn froze, and then blinked. Her rage was forgotten in a splash of curiosity. She had never met a talking fish before. Not that it could really talk; it was only using the slave-language. Even so, it was unprecedented. She was startled into comment, though she spoke initially in the Zith language, so it was unlikely the fish could even hear her, much less understand. Struggling to recall her knowledge of the slave-tongue, she purred, "You, fish. Fish can talk. Tasty fish? Good to eat?" She might as well find out before she expended the effort of figuring out how fish tasted the hard way. It would be silly to discover that fish tasted terrible if she could simply ask and spare herself the agony.

[Luradin]

Luradin was not particularly observant but he could see that the Zith was angered at his apparent lack of wariness. This is, of course, what Luradin had meant to do as he swam up with a kind smile after just being attacked and he was still rather pleased at how this situation had turned out for him - after all, the zith seemed as confused by the water as he had been when he first stepped onto land and he knew that meant she had no chance of touching him. The zith tried to wade through the deep water, thrashing at the water and coming at him like a bull - if the bull had no legs - although Luradin was easily more able in this environment, he let his body lie backwards onto the water some more so that he could effectively spring backwards in the water, she would never reach him. In the split second when the zith apparently forgot all about her rage and began staring at him, Luradin was almost expecting there to be something behind him - surely the attention span of a zith was not this laps? He had heard of their curiosity and the fact they could switch from one thing to another but the woman had been enraged! When the zith spoke he thought that maybe he could start up a conversation - but this was quickly realized a dream when the zith was even worse at common than him and the fact she asked what he tasted like. Thought he would have liked to have put it in a more detailed way, his grasp of the common tongue merely allowed him to say "You think with your mouth?" Seeing as the zith was easily likely to suddenly flare up and chase after him another time, Luradin swayed his feet through the cool water almost slow enough to not make a disturbance to the surface, he moved backwards in small calculated distances - like someone would step backwards in a fight. His body was still tilted backwards, ready for quick travel through the glassy water.

[Scorn]

OOCI think Scorn may have to attempt to take a bite out of you. Sorry ^^;

Scorn frowned when he failed to answer her question, and instead only asked his own question. She would have minded less if the question made sense. She understood each of the words individually, but when put together, she could not fathom their meaning. Thinking was just something you did, it didn't require any particular tools. If he had said 'kill', then his question would have made sense, since she could kill with her mouth, but often preferred to use her claws, since they were at least as sharp as her mouth, but had longer reach. On the other hand, killing with her mouth got the food closer to where it would eventually go, so in some cases it was more efficient. She had never thought about killing in quite this way before, and it was fascinating. Mostly, she had just hunted on instinct, using techniques that had worked for her in the past. But now she wondered, was there a better way? A way of hunting she hadn't thought of, that used different methods? The desire to learn consumed her, and she could not rest until she had figured out something interesting. Since the fishman was still the closest source of meat, she attempted to try some of him. Despite her resolution to try new hunting methods, she still instinctively used old talents. She lunged for him, claws outstretched. Unfortunately, the water was not like land. Pushing against it did not propel her forward, or at least, not nearly as much as she needed. Worse, her wings were starting to feel the strain of trying to keep her semi-aloft instead of sinking into the ocean. One thing was clear at least: if she wanted to hunt in water, she would have to get some new skills whether she wanted to or not. She eyed the fishman, noticing that he was somehow controlling how far into the water he was. So it must be possible to navigate the water without sinking to the bottom. She eyed the shore; it was just close enough that she could probably get to it if she started drowning. She took a deep breath, and relaxed her wings. She plunged downward, flailing in a panic as the icy water covered her head. Bubbles escaped from her mouth as she tried to claw her way out of the engulfing monster of ocean. She wasn't sure which way was up. She felt the chill dry wind on her face-fur a couple times, but never for more than a tick. when she had been holding her breath long enough to start to feel uncomfortable, she flapped her wings, as if she planned to fly out of this mess. That plan worked better than expected. Taking off into the air with wet wings was a bit beyond her, but the flapping brought her to the surface, and the breadth of her wings floated on the water and kept her from sinking again. When she was sure she was not going to plunge unexpectedly underwater again, she took several deep breaths, reeling a bit from the experience. Needless to say, these antics had NOT earned her fish for dinner. No, if she was going to learn to hunt fish, she would first have to understand this ability the fish had to navigate the water. It was exceedingly uncomfortable, and sleeping with damp fur would be no fun at all, but none of that meant anything at this moment. At this moment, all she cared about was getting a bite out of that fish man. But the fish man outmatched her in the water. Was there some way to chase it onto land? Not without a whole colony of Zith, or some sort of trickery. Trickery... hmm. The fish man spoke the slave language. Perhaps she could command it like a slave. "You. Come here," she said, though with her looking not unlike a drowned rat, she may have sounded a bit less commanding than she had intended. She awkwardly adjusted her wings, rotating herself until she was facing the shore. She attempted to glide through the water, but she had no momentum, and the water did not move like air currents did, taking her out away from the shore, instead of up. She did not want to flap her wings to move, lest that damage the careful balance that prevented her from going under again.

[Scorn]

OOCOther player not responding, so I'm finishing the thread.

Unfortunately for Scorn, the fish man was not interested in helping her achieve her goal of dinner tonight. Rather than stick around to get eaten, it swam away, and before long Scorn had no idea where it went. She tried to follow it at first, but it was as fast in water as she was in the air, and right now she was barely mobile. It was painfully clear that she would never catch the fish man while she was in the water, so she turned herself toward land and tried to maneuver herself to shore. It was much slower work than she was expecting, and she quickly became frustrated. It was much more limiting than she had expected, being unable to use her wings to move. She didn't really have a lot of experience with any other type of motion. Every so often, she flapped them just by instinct, and when she did, she plunged into the salty water. She rose, spluttering and gasping for air, not noticeably closer to shore than she had been a moment before. She almost started to panic; her wings were getting sore from holding their position for so long and she had no idea how she was going to escape the water. She flailed her arms and legs around nervously, and that was when it occurred to her that when she pushed through the water, the water pushed back. It was oddly similar to the sense she got when she was flying that she was pushing against the air. With her wings busy keeping her afloat, she used her arms in an attempt to flap herself in the direction of the shore. She hadn't noticed, but the current of the ocean had been bringing her north along the coastline, so that by the time her efforts at paddling herself had been rewarded with the solid beach, she was quite a ways from where she had started. She couldn't smell her own trail, much less the Zith she had been travelling with. She flopped onto the sand in distress and exhaustion. Normally she preferred the nighttime, but in this case, it meant that it would take forever for her wings to dry. She couldn't take wing, but she couldn't stay here. It was too open and exposed, and who knew what kind of predators were in this region looking to snack on tasty defenseless Zith flesh? She crawled along the beach, not even sure whether she was going the right way to get back to her companion. It was slower going than she could bear, but still not as slow as she had been in the water. She lost track of time as she walked, but it was still dark enough to see when she spied some unusual structures in the distance. Not sure they would turn out to be anything more than unusual trees or rock formations, she hurried toward them anyway. Soon, she picked up several heartbeats of similar rhythm, usually a telltale sign of a slave race. Most wild animals spread themselves out or were in small, tight clusters. Only the slave races lived in groups this big, and in one place for so long. This was either good news or bad. Sometimes the slave settlements attacked Zith on sight, but sometimes, a lone Zith could communicate with them, and negotiate for shelter and aid. She had no other options but to hope that this was an example of the latter. Little did she know, she was walking into the docks of a place she had been before. Alvadas.

[Harrier]

Skills	Amount
Swimming	5
Observation	3
Hunting	1

Lore

Zith can't walk on water

This fish can talk!

To hunt in water, you need to try something different.

Using your wings to swim

Returning to Alvadas

Bonus:

Additional Comments: Sorry your thread partner bailed; I tried to award as much as I could for your effort to conclude the thread. Nice observations Scorn made, by the way, of the charoda's ability to swim.

(c) abstract