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 Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:15 pm
Back again.
She wandered barefoot the warm sand, marveling at how different this beach looked in the warm light of the sun. Much less alien than the strange moonlit realm of the other night. Everything stemming from that experience was still so surreal to her. The glow of the fog, the strange glint of the water...
... the bubbly little green blob at home in her fishtank.
For this moment, everything was normal again. Anna was starting to feel like a human being again, instead of a character from some warped fairytale.
This walk had been a good idea.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:39 pm
Da dun, da dun, da dun. Da dun, da dun, da dun. If Bolide's lungs weren't full of water he would have hummed his favorite song aloud. Hard to hum underwater. The big Cambrian coasted happily along through the shallow water. Not many boats out today. Not many people, either. There was some kind of event going on further down the beach that had drawn the crowds. Humans and their aggravating beach parties. Oh well, Bolide had this whole stretch of the ocean to himself!
His hood kept him hanging just a few feet below the water's surface so that his dorsal fins wouldn't cut up into view. There were still a few people on the beach. Best not to cause a scene. The hood was light and reflective enough to break up the shadow of Bolide's body. Its pale color kept him from being an ominous long, dark shape in the water. Once spotted, he would be difficult to miss, but he wasn't immediately obvious.
On a whim, the Cambrian changed course and moved in closer to the beach. He let himself roll down with the waves, plunging into the coarse sand below. Nice! It scratched at his hide most pleasantly. Bolide wriggled happily, letting the sand scrub him clean. He was quite oblivious to the fact that his motion beneath the shallow water was causing a bit of a disturbance on the water's surface.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:54 pm
The waves were friendly and inviting, and ever-so-blue. Rolling up the legs of her khakis, Anna let the pull of the water draw just to the edge of the lapping waves.
Looking furtively around to make sure that no one was nearer than the massive keg party at the edge of her sight, she gave a little leap into the water, kicking up the white foam.
A giggle escaped from her lips. There was something in the sand and the sun and the water today that brought out the physicist's inner six-year-old.
Or maybe little green Nova's bubbliness was infectious.
Maybe it didn't matter.
Anna tripped daintily out to a patch of water that was churning like a jacuzzi. The little girl in her wanted to dance like that, so she twirled carelessly, and kicked at the swirling waves again...
...and hit something...
...that wasn't a rock...
"Oh s**t."
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 11:12 pm
Busily rolling around in the sand, Bolide didn't even notice the kick. It was the smell/taste that alerted him to Anna's presence. Human. Woman. Familiar. Compared with his sense of smell underwater, breathing in dry air was almost like going blind. Bolide was quite sure that he had never fully smell/tasted the woman like this, in the ocean, but she was familiar. He hurriedly reviewed his somewhat limited list of human friends. This was a Good person. Better not scare her. Never mind the Jaws game. With a bubbling sigh of regret, Bolide kicked up and popped his head above the waves a few feet away.
He blinked at the woman. She was familiar! Before attempting an introduction, Bolide quickly turned his head and coughed the water from his lungs. His first stinging breath of air burned through his gill slits before they clamped shut protectively. Yeech, that smarted! "Huk-- h-hello," Bolide wheezed, choking on another mouthful of water.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 11:28 pm
Anna fell back into the shallow water as a large familiar head rose out of the churning water. Sitting in the water, she was pretty much soaked from blonde head to bare toe, but she was more or less eye-level with the creature as he gave a rasping, wheezing cough, and said hello.
Anna's mind raced, the surreal experience re-intruding into her consciousness.
Lunch. We had lunch. It had been strange, and awkward...and exhilarating. Definitely outside of her comfort zone, but fascinating. This new world she was being drawn into was her father's territory -- the interaction of man with the other was nothing if not theological. Why hadn't she called her father after that experience? She wasn't crazy...was she?
"Hello, Bolide," she stammered cautiously before attempting uselessly to wipe the salt water from her face. "It's nice to see you again..."
It was almost a question.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 11:46 pm
Humans couldn't seem to stay afloat without a lot of unnecessary flopping and gasping, but Bolide didn't feel like heading in to shore just to have a chat. It was too nice being weightless. He swam a little ways out from Anna to avoid splashing her and rolled ponderously onto his back. A few deep breaths and a little bit of complicated sloshing inside his hood had it puffed up as nicely as a human pool raft. Bolide didn't need all the extra flotation, but he had an idea. The Cambrian kicked awkwardly through the water in Anna's direction. Swimming on one's back when essentially strapped into a giant floatie was tricky.
Remembering his nakedness, Bolide carefully crossed his legs. There, that probably looked classy. Maybe, anyways. Humans could be goofy about nudity, he knew that much. "Hallo," he repeated, voice clearer now. "Sit. You are heavier than a cow." A foreclaw gestured expansively at the pale, fleshy raft that currently supported him. That was a nice invitation. Now he could talk with whatever-her-name-was without her flailing sadly around and choking. The human's name escaped him at the moment, but maybe she would mention it.
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 11:55 pm
Anna laughed, in spite of herself. Somehow, she couldn't bring herself to be insulted. Not really, anyway.
"You know," she said, as she perched cautiously on the proferred fleshy floatie cushion, "I've been compared to a lot of things, mostly by my ex-husband...but a cow was never one of them."
She paused, wondering if he remembered her as vividly as she remembered him. Probably not. All humans probably looked more or less the same to someone like Bolide...
"I'm Anna, you remember me? You called me a sneak, you flirted with that nice girl...what was her name...Tsunake?...we all had lunch at the park..."
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Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 12:09 am
"Cows are okay. But so thick and having heavy land bones, you know? Sink you down." Anna probably hadn't eaten quite as much cow at one sitting as Bolide had, but surely she did know what he meant. He had never managed to figure out why fiddly little humans liked eating such big dense animals. They must weigh on humans' stomachs like lead. One of life's mysteries.
If she had been a sneak once, she didn't seem like one now. Bolide grinned. He must have scared her straight, there! Surely, he was a good influence. There. It was proven. "Yah, I am remembering you. Not so sneaky now, hey." Bolide floated serenely on the mild waves, almost dozing in the warm sunlight. Nice to relax with friends. What else had they done the last time? Lunch. Park. The other woman, yes, Bolide remembered her. Flirting. Couldn't quite remember doing that, but Bolide was up for anything. "What is flirting? A fun thing, we do it again?"
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Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 1:01 am
Anna successfully stifled the giggle as she shook her pale head, and stirred the water with her hand. "Flirting. A human mating ritual, you could say. Male attempts to impress female, female signals her availability and/or interest in various ways, etc, etc..."
Now she laughed, but more at herself, than at the question. "Not that it's a GOOD mating ritual. My last mate...was a great flirt, but a very bad choice for a mate." She closed her eyes and let the warm solar rays bounce off her warmed face.
"I suppose it's very different for someone like you...?"
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Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 11:51 am
Bolide attempted a thoughtful 'Hmmmm,' but it came out as more of a rumbling growl that he expected. His throat was still sore from hacking up all that water. "Oh. We are doing that too." Maybe things were more similar between Bolides and humans than he had guessed. Anna picking the wrong mate through such 'flirting' was a bit of a puzzle. Surely the whole point of 'flirting' was to determine who would make a good mate. "That is stupid. Huh! The reason of a mating ritual, is to decide the best mates? Yes? Maybe your ritual is broken." He lifted his tail and slapped it against the warm water for emphasis.
The waves steadily drew them in to shore. Bolide kicked out a few times, bringing them back to their original place. He didn't want to get out of the water, no, no. Hopefully Anna wasn't one of those people who gave up after only a brief swim and headed in. He didn't want her to stay out and be uncomfortable though. "You have put that sun slime on your skin? And feeling okay?"
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Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 3:24 pm
"Broken?" Anna paused, and then laughed. "I guess you could say that, given that more than half of all 'permanent' --" she quoted ironically with her fingers -- "human relationships don't last. Maybe we do need a better ritual."
The shore was closing in on their little raft, but Bolide kicked them back out into the water, inquiring about the state of her skin. Not a bad question, really, considering Anna's pale complexion. But for that very reason, she was religious about her sunscreen application.
"Mmmmm," she murmured. "I'm fine. And it's fantastic out here. You must like it much better out on the water...?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 1:42 pm
"Huh. Silly." Bolide had, of course, never been to his true place of origin, but his species didn't make or break their relationships so easily. He was quite positive of that! Mostly positive, anyways. At least Bolide himself wouldn't go to all the trouble of picking the right female only to give up on her. It all sounded very foolish.
Anna's skin was fine. That was good, good. The sun was so very hot and fierce. Even Bolide's thick hide tended to crack and blister after too long spent out of water. Out of water ... he considered Anna's question. "Yes, I like to be on the water. But what I like more, is to being in the water. See? Ha, ha." He trailed his claws idly over the small wavelets. The Cambrian had understood Anna's real question, but it took him a moment to decide how best to answer it. "You are small but got big strong legs. I am too big, and having smaller legs. Not good for dryland. Too heavy."
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Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 2:18 pm
Anna looked Bolide up and down, thoughtfully. She was no biologist, and she avoided Fluid Dynamics like it was a suicidal cult in the great Religion of Physics. But she could catch a glimmer of where he was coming from, if she thought about it
"Hmmm, with your kind of surface area, I can see how the bouyant force of the water would work against gra...." she trailed off, embarrassment bringing a little red to her cheekbones. Good God, Anna, don't you ever stop being a geek?
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to babble freshman physics at you..."
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Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 6:42 pm
Ordinarily stupid babbling annoyed Bolide, but he already knew that Anna was a bit dumb. He could ignore her silliness. When people talked about things he didn't understand, he couldn't get over the sneaking suspicion that they were talking about him. With Anna, well, it was safe to assume that she was just blathering on about nothing. The Cambrian nodded gravely, accepting Anna's apology.
Floating was nice, but Bolide was growing bored. Bored! He didn't want his lovely little friend to become bored as well. She might head in to shore and leave him all alone. But what could he do to entertain her? He racked his brain. Sometimes Martina had gone along on his silly swims. Sometimes ... ah. Bolide twisted his head slightly to study the little human. "Hey, you like to play a game with me? The best game!" He chuckled and hummed a few bars of his favorite song. Da dun. Da dun. Da dun. "You ride on my back, we are having some fun!" Bolide's skin was rough, but not quite as rugged as a real shark's. Anna would probably be fine provided they didn't spend hours and hours chasing people.
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Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 12:03 pm
A...game? Anna wrinkled her brow in confusion. What kind of a...
Bolide started humming.
Oh.
Anna laughed. It was silly...more than that, it was nuts. Not to mention totally out of character.
It was perfect.
The slightest glimmer of a rebellious streak had been sneaking up on Anna lately. Something (someone?) had been diffusing that tightly focused beam that was her usual stubborn, intense self. Had it started the last time she came to the beach...?
"That sounds like great fun! Where should we go first?"
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