A Try at Fishing

[Tinnok]

A Try At Fishing
56th of Summer, 513 AV

She was tired of running, running from Myrians, running into Dhani. Her feet, which she had thought were hard as rocks had blistered from all the running she had been doing this season, causing her running to become quite a lot closer to limping, and making most of her days spent in trees to avoid anyone lurking below.

Her feet were well on the mend now, however, and she was running again, but this time for no reason other than the sound that reached her even though the thick foliage: a water fall.

The refreshing sound of water succumbing to gravity upon itself and creating a dull roar filled Tinnok's ears as she continued to dash under fallen trees and over large crawling tree roots, the balls of her feet the only thing to touch the ground as she went.

She nearly plunged head first into the cool blue pool when she discovered it, feet sliding over slick rocks coated with the wet spray of the falls, but her hands caught hold of an extended branch and she saved herself the embarrassment instead. Gazing out over the watery expanse, Tinnok felt her muscles relax. She never seemed to be safe, not anywhere, nor at any time, but the little cove she had found seemed like a tiny refuge made just for her, and she took it as such by offering thanks to Caiyha and Makutsi both for helping shape the land with the little falls. She knew their was a Goddess of the earth, not of plants, but rocks and stones. She picked up one of the smooth river stones, and touched it to her forehead before casting it into the rippling pool, thanking her as well, though she didn't know her name.

It was only when her eyes opened to glimpse the rock's passage down to the smooth be the waterfall had created at the base of the pool when she noticed the Myriad's of aquatic life that she had disturbed. A big black turtle lazily paddled its way up to the surface, dark head poking out of the water for a long gulp of air before diving back down. School's of silver fish darted like tiny stars back and forth in a pattern that seemed to match the ripples of the water, and she could see slower, larger fish as well.

Right on cue Tinnok's stomach grumbled. Well...she had been due for a hunt, but perhaps some fish would do instead?

[Tinnok]

Now the half breed didn't know much about fishing...at all. She knew of the rods, some simple, just a line attached to a well worn pole, others much more intricate with levers and pulleys and all of that. Then of course there were nets, and even arrows designed to slide through the water and puncture fish. She had none of these things. She rummaged through her pack, looking for something she could use as line, but all she had was her hemp rope for climbing and such, much too thick to try to get a fish upon. Her stomach grumbled again and Tinnok found herself imagining a nicely crisped trout or even a couple fat frogs on spits over her fire.

Salivating the half breed grabbed up her new spear and marched into the water with it. She had also heard of fishing clans that could stand in fast running rivers and pluck fish out with their bare hands. She had no illusions about trying to fish and being able to complete such a feat, but perhaps her spear would allow her to impale a couple tasty morsels for her meal.

The ripples she cast and the rocks she disturbed on the bottom of the pool sent most wildlife whipping away from her, but Tinnok had anticipated this, so she found a comfortable spot, the water reaching her belly button and enjoyed the cool flow of it around her body. She kept her spear above the water, lying horizontal to the liquid, and took a moment to watch the splashing cascading waterfall tumble down into the pool. Fishing is not an interesting sport, she told herself. She would have to wait, to be patient, and as if on cue her stomach gave another gurgle.

She was in for a long wait.

[Tinnok]

She had waited patiently, had focused upon slowing her breathing, closing her eyes and letting her mind drift away. She had need to work on meditation anyway, and what better place then in this serene glade? The half breed focused upon breathing, let her other thoughts flow out of her head, the rhythm of water flowing around her acting as an anchor for her body in the midst of all the life surrounding her. Of course keeping her mind so placid when her stomach was roiling was a task in itself, and her concentration was broken more than once, but no matter the distraction or for how long, she re-focused, drawing back in her thoughts and clearing them out again like a messy home, tearing away the clutter.

So she wasn't quite sure how much time had passed when she finally allowed her eyes to open and look around. For the most part the aquatic wildlife was still giving her a wide berth, but the tiny silver fish she found had begun darting back and forth through her spread legs. She watched as bigger fish, actually worth catching meandered fairly close to her as well. Her eyes darted one way then another, trying to figure out which was her best target. She had to move fast, for her chance to skewer the fish would be gone in an instant. Moving her legs to get closer to her prey wasn't an option either.

She had to just use her arms, and strike like a snake, making the angle of her attack just right so as to best try to get her target.

A fish with deep blue scales, about the size of a medium salmon sluggishly moved close to her, and TInnok's muscles tensed, shifting the spear slowly, the head of her weapon already pointing in the right direction.

Closer, just a little closer.

She thought to herself. It's sleek body curved toward her, and with a start Tinnok hurled her weapon downward, the force of the attack sending the tip of her spear deep into the gravel of the pool below and disturbing the dust and gravel below. Fish sped off to the deeper side of the pool, and Tinnok's eyes narrowed, watching the dust clear and pulling back up her spear...to see that it was empty.

She cursed. This was harder than she had anticipated.

[Tinnok]

A challenge had been issued, one as old as time that every hunter had faced again and again in their lifetime: Failure. Tinnok looked at the swirling water below her, and cursed furiously. She waded out of the water, letting the placid state of it return to normal, trying to find a solution to her problem.

To give her some time to think the half breed collected wood out of the surrounding wilderness, as well as some dry brush, and made a small fire pit in the rocks that led to the water. She scooped out a sizable hole, collecting a few big round stones to create a small barrier around the pit, then began to lay her kindling within, setting her larger branches in a tilted formation, creating a cone of wood around the delicate leaf litter in the middle of the pit. Then taking her flint and steel the half breed striking one upon the other, vaguely regretting that she had not learned fire as her first element in Reimancy, for the ease at which she would have been able to start fires such as this one. Several chimes later a spark stuck, flying out over rock and metal and landing into the midst of the leaves. Tinnok hurriedly leaned forward and blew upon the concoction, spreading the spark further, burning more holes in multiple leaves, when suddenly a flicker of orange reached upward like a grasping hand, and her fire had been started. She spent another few chimes attending to it, ensuring it would stay in its state, even after she went fishing, and built up a small supply of wood to feed it if need be.

Then she assessed the spear in her grasp. She knew little of the true power of such a weapon. She had seen tiger riders use them, remembered her sparring bout from when she had been nor more than a child sparring the spunky, even younger, Kaie in the woods on one fateful day. She had even remembered points in her training in the Taloban army where unfamiliar weapons had been thrown into trainees hands only to mock and scoff them when they utterly failed at their use. But she had no memories of ever succeeding at something with a spear, and that was her main concern now. Perhaps it was not a good first weapon to try to use at fishing, another endeavor she was not very skilled at.

But she was going to catch something today, no matter what implement it was with, after all, she had the fire all ready to cook something.
She decided that first of all, that her empty stomach might be playing some factor in her ineptitude. She shouldn’t be trying for juicy, but also sleek and speedy fish her first go around. Something easier was in order. She contemplated going for one of the turtles she had seen lazing about, but cooking them could be a painfully slow process, which left: frogs.

Tinnok slowly paced around the small pond, listening for the tell tale noises of frogs croaking. Like crickets or cicadas, they would quiet when they knew something predatory was near them, but she remembered their sounds when she had been meditating in the water, there had to be at least a dozen that she had heard, and more probably underwater at the time. So she followed the sounds. She moved slowly, eyes peeled, ears opened, hunting around the reeds and grasping branches that led out over the water, providing shady spots that were perfect for a frog to hide with just its nose and eyes above water. The first one she spotted was upon a rock, nearly the same color grey of the stone it sat upon, but it was a bit too small, so she let it be. The second one was just under the surface of the water, and looked to be of a bigger size. Tinnok readied her spear, hefting it in both hands, and stepped as close as she dared to the amphibian without encouraging it to slip into the water. Hefting back both arms, she sent her attack diagonally at the creature, stepping forward as she did so that she could follow through and push the spear to the very bottom of the shallow water.

SHLUNK

She knew this time she had hit her mark without needing to have the spear out of the water, for she could feel the extra weight as she pulled the creature out. She imagined there must be smaller spear heads designed for this sort of thing, for hers was rather broad and split the frog open every which way. At least it had been a quick death, for Tinnok had surely pierced the heart of the creature as well. She whispered a quick prayer to Caiyha to guide the little fellow’s soul swiftly into the next life, then turned back to her fire.

She had learned as a small child the trick to slipping a frog out of its skin, and let that membrane crackle on the fire as she skewer the mutilated body and set it on one of the round stones around the fire, as she wasn’t quite done with her preparations. Removing from her pack a handful of almonds she placed them upon the rock next to her kill and smashed them with another rock, grinding them slowly into a brown paste over the course of a chime, which she scraped off the rock with one of her daggers and spread the almond paste over the body of the frog. She dug out a few of the organs, so small and delicate, which she popped into her mouth raw, preferring to have the taste of the amphibian uninterrupted by the taste of its heart, liver, and kidneys.

She slowly roasted the frog over her fire, re-filling her water skin after taking a nice long draught, and once satisfied, removed the creature from the fire, letting it cool for a chime before digging in. The almond paste had hardened like a nutty coating over the frog, giving a nice texture to sink one’s teeth into once you reached the delicate and light tasting meat of the frog. Tinnok spit the bones out of mouth as she found them, though she ate what little meat there was around the ribs and arms. Once done the half breed let out a large burp, and turned back to the water.
Time for another try.

[Tinnok]

With a well cooked frog settling into her stomach, Tinnok felt much more confident about the road ahead, so confident in fact that she grabbed up her spear, and took a running dive into the water, scattering the underwater fauna around her tanned scaled form like fish from the maw of a shark. She surfaced with a giggle and paddled back into the shallows, trying to get serious. Submerging herself back up to her belly button she resumed the posture she had tried previously, closed her eyes, and waited again.

This time, without the distraction of her stomach, and a relative contentedness that even if she didn't catch anything, she was still learning, Tinnok found it much easier to clear her brain of thought. She let the pounding of the waterfall create a steady rhythm to her breathing, and emptied out her mind. Time was of no consequence, for she had plenty of bells of daylight left, so she did not open her eyes, merely stood like a strange sentinel in the water and waited, feeling the eddies curling around her feet, bubbles brushing against her skin from the force of the waterfall, a light spray constantly keeping a film of wetness upon her body.

The creatures moved around her un-alarmed. Two soft shell turtles lazily found their way upon the beach where Tinnok's fire slowly sputtered out due to lack of fuel, and sunned themselves on dry land. Two frogs mated furiously before parting coldly, each one swimming to separate parts of the the pond. A large River otter slid into the shallows and caught himself three shining fish which he brought beneath and behind the waterfall to savor and finish, curling up in the relative safety there and take a nap. An Emperor Butterfly was eaten by a larger dark fish with a gaping maw filled with sharp teeth, and a mother duck hid her ducklings among the reeds lining some parts of the shore as she went out on a foray for fish and insects to half digested and feed back to her hungry children.

When Tinnok opened her eyes a fish that looked alarming like the one she had tried catching earlier was hovering directly between her spread legs, cobalt body shimmer with filtered sunlight as it was pulled back by the current, then swam forward lazily to make up for the distance. Tinnok slowly maneuvered the spear into her grasp so that it was pointing vertically, straight toward the fish. She sucked in a slow deep breath, kind of akin to when she was about to shoot her bow, then launched the spear downward with all the force she could muster. It hit the earthen floor with a thud she could feel rather than hear, but when she pulled up the spear, she found the fat fish upon it, flopping and twitching upon her spearhead.

A little yell of triumph escaped Tinnok's throat before she was able to quench it and she waded swiftly to shore, dashing the fish's head upon the rocks so that it didn't have to suffer the agony of losing all of it's oxygen any longer.

The hunter then stamped out the remains of her fire, burying them beneath the rocks just in case someone happened upon the glade. She wrapped the fish in leaves and slid it into a pouch within her backpack, deciding it would make for a perfect supper. Settling her supplies in order, bow on her back, quiver behind her pack, weapons on her belt and spear in hand, the witch gave one last look at the serene glade, saying thanks to her nature Goddesses once more before disappearing into the foliage, onto her next destination, wherever that might be.

[Empyrean]

Tinnok

Running	+1
Meditation	+2
Observation	+1
Weapon: Spear	+3
Fishing	+3
Wilderness Survival	+1
Tactic	+1
Cooking	+1
Swimming	+1

Lores :

• First Rule of Spearfishing: Patience
• Frogs: An Easier Catch

Notes :

I liked this little fishing thread.