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 Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 9:38 am
One of the things Firyal loved most about the Weyr was that it was very close to the sea, and she could swim daily if she could bestir herself early enough. In Nerat she had lived near the wharf, and that had meant that she had learned to swim at an early age, but there were lots of dangers inherent in swimming around a wharf. These ranged from boats to leftover fishhooks. There was also the possibility of being scolded for being in the water at all, since people tended to panic when they saw any body in the water, instantly assuming the person in question was drowning. It got old, being rescued unnecessarily. Fortunately, that sort of thing rarely happened at Ista Weyr, though after one such occasion Firyal had been forced to learn to swim in shorn trousers and an old top, whereas she had previously preferred to swim in the nude.
This was one of those mornings where Firyal had managed to be awake early enough that she could swim before beginning her duties about the Weyr, and when she had realized how early she'd woken, she had dressed in the cut-off trousers and old sleeveless top she reserved for swimming and stolen away from the Weyr to the sea. It was early enough that there shouldn't be any Dragonriders or Weyrlings about with their dragons, either. The sea wasn't much good for washing dragons in since the salt in the water was counterproductive, but the dragons seemed to enjoy the extra bouyancy it gave them. Even her firelizard, Numenor, enjoyed the water, floating on the surface of the water beyond the break as Firyal swam back and forth parallel to the shore.
The sea was far warmer than the waters at Nerat's wharf, too, and with the earlier sunrises due to Ista's position closer to the equator, Firyal might even have time to lie out on her towel to dry off, rather than hurriedly rubbing herself down and rushing back to the Weyr proper to brush out her hair and re-braid it. When she was swimming was among the few times she wore her hair loose, which pleased Numenor, who loved to play with her long hair.
Presently, she was not swimming laps, though. Instead she was playing a game of Splash with Numenor. The bronze firelizard used his wings to spray her with water and she used her hands to retaliate. To an outside observer it probably looked strange, but she had so far had no difficulties with people mistaking her game for drowning.
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 10:35 am
Berjint was adjusting well to weyrlife. He had fallen into the rounds of chores with relish. He hadn't known candidates did so much work, but contrary to assumption, he was rather glad of it. He had been afraid they would have more free time than not, and for a farmboy, that was pure torture. He'd have found something for himself to do, but that turned out unnecessary. They kept him plenty busy with tasks around the Weyr. Oh, he didn't like all of the chores, but he preferred them to having nothing at all to do.
One thing he had not adjusted to however was when most candidates woke. As a farmer, using all available hours of daylight tended to be critical. His entire family would be up and eating breakfast before the sun tipped above the horizon. Here they woke so much later... but Berjint could not seem to shake the habit of rising early.
He didn't exactly want to apply himself to yet another chore while the others slept. He also didn't want to prowl the halls and disturb someone. So he had begun exploring the land around the Weyr as the sky lightened and the sun rose gloriously into the sky.
Today he had chosen to explore the beaches. The sea was a foreign concept to him, and he wasn't entirely sure he trusted it yet. It moved restlessly, whispering, chortling, and growling to itself. For a time he'd simply stood, watching it heave back and forth, tumbling over a scattering of boulders out further, watching it shift the sand with a hiss of foam. So strange, as if it had a life of its own and ideas of its own. Shaking his head, he turned and walked along the sand, careful to stay well out of the reach of the surging water.
He'd heard that it was salty, and was drifting off into inner musings about how and why water could be naturally salty. Hands in his pockets, eyes watching the ground in front of him vaguely, he ambled along, unmindful of much of anything but his thoughts and the moving water to his right. Why would it be salty? Where did the salt come from? How could anything live in it? Why didn't the fish that came out of the sea taste salty too? His unanswerable questions tumbled over themselves in his mind, and he began to imagine possible answers to them.
A laugh distracted him as the sound of slapping water had not. Snapped out of his thoughts, he stopped in his tracks to blink at the sight of a head bobbing about, waving a hand to smack the water... at a floating firelizard? Who slapped the water back! Now, for some reason in all his thoughts concerning the ocean, it had never occured to him that someone might like to swim in it. Oh, he knew the dragons did, and possibly their riders, but he'd always figured they did it together, without the humans floating free and vulnerable.
And yet here was a girl out in it, playing and laughing in it like it were the shallows of the lake. He blinked again, completely at a loss of what to think. A sudden whimsical and very random thought flashed through his mind... could she be a mermaid? He couldn't see her lower half, after all... perhaps she was staying comfortably afloat using a fish tail? He opened his mouth to call out to ask her, then stopped, looking confused. Should he interrupt? And was the firelizard wild?
He buried a square hand in his black curls and frowned faintly, still very much at a loss. For lack of knowing what else to do, he simply stood there, staring.
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Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2009 11:13 am
The smell of the sea was something that had always held pleasant associations for Firyal. It was calming for her, just as the deep rumble of waves breaking was. She imagined sometimes that she could hear and feel the rhythm of the sea as she was falling asleep at night, and that it helped her get to sleep, though she usually needed little help. Her life, with its endless rounds of chores kept her busy enough that she was usually weary when she finished, and didn't need help sleeping at all, provided she was warm. In spite of her fondness for the salty smell of seawater, Firyal liked it much better when it wasn't actually up her nose.
"Numenor!" she mock-scolded. "Not up my nose. I need air to breathe, silly."
Seeming to give lie to her statement, however, she took a swimmer's deep breath and ducked below the water, keeping her eyes open despite the saline sting so that she could see Numenor's bronze body above, his legs paddling furiously below the surface to help him stay afloat and his tail swishing like a sort of propelling rudder. As soon as her head went below the surface, Numenor thrust his head underwater, too, certain she was preparing to play some sort of trick on him. He was right, too. She dove deeper, daring him to follow, and then began to move horizontally. She was going to try something different, that he wouldn't be able to anticipate.
Numenor didn't like to be completely submerged, and when he saw that his human was going deeper he lifted his head and shook it briskly, and then flapped his wet wings vigorously to lift himself above the water. His dripping form hovered over where he had last seen Firyal, glistening from both his metallic hide and the droplets of water that clung to it. It was his design to fly high enough that he could see Firyal's shadow under the water, as he could not by putting his head beneath the surface, despite the aid offered by his second eyelids. When he still couldn't see her, he began to panic, and only then did he notice the figure on the beach.
His eyes whirling yellow with fear, he flew to the beach and projected rapidfire images to the man standing there. The images he projected were all laced empathically with his own alarm, and all carried the urging to do something now. There were things in the sea that might eat his human. Of course, the things he showed Berjint were actually shipfish, which were the largest things he had ever seen in the sea and which had terrified him at the time, though Firyal had been distressingly fascinated with the pod, which had contributed to his dislike of the creatures.
Meanwhile, under the water, Firyal realized she had dived too deep to be able to see where Numenor was, and so she rose closer to the surface and finally broke through just enough for her nose to be above the water. It puzzled her that she couldn't see Numenor at all.
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Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 8:59 am
He wastched the scene unfold with a sense of surreality, watched the mermaid dive beneath the surface and the wild flit zoom about looking for her. But his detatched imaginings swiftly wobbled out of his control when the 'wild' firelizard came winging a bee-line at him. His eyes got wider the closer the miniscule dragon came, and began stumbling backwards.
He was completely unprepared for the barrage of feelings and images that overwhelmed him from seemingly nowhere. Confused, fighting a rising panic, and driven blindly to do something, he stumbled frantically for the water, knowing he must help... someone do... something?? Disoriented, he plunged into the water like a terrified runnerbeast. He floundered through the shallows until suddenly the ground dropped out from beneath his sodden boots. Fully clothed and unable to swim, he immediately disappeared beneath the surface.
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Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 10:24 am
Numenor chirped approvingly as Berjint took immediate action, but his chirps quickly turned to squawks of alarm as it became obvious that the human he'd sent to rescue his Firyal was competely inept when it came to the water. Since he didn't remember humans well, he assumed they were all like his own, though they looked different for identification purposes, and was continually surprised when they failed to behave as he expected them to. Berjint's floundering, however, was something he recognized as bad, in addition to perplexing.
Firyal, watching with her nose just clearing the water, was about as bemused by the situation as her firelizard. She could understand Numenor's concern, naturally, since she'd gone to some effort to ensure it, but she'd been utterly unaware of Berjint's presence until he came charging heedlessly into the water. She frowned as she watched, thinking at first that it was extremely odd behavior indeed until she put together the pieces and realized that she'd played her joke on Numenor too convincingly and the firelizard had probably bombarded this poor young man with panic until he felt compelled to save her.
How embarrassing.
"Numenor," she called, summoning her firelizard to her. He hovered around her head, chittering as he scolded her for worrying him. She sent reassuring feelings at him, and then returned her attention to the young man crashing through the shallows just in time to see him step off the sandy shelf that was where the waves tended to break and watch his head disappear below the water.
"Get..." she hesitated, unsure what she would need, or who she should call for help. Obviously she would have to be the one who did the immediate rescuing, but after that she'd like to give the responsibility for the young man's life and recovery to someone more capable and competent. Someone else.
"Behave," she commanded instead. At least that way he wouldn't be distracting her as she made her attempt to pull the young man from the water without drowning either of them. Numenor was clearly confused by the context of her command, but he obeyed, flying further overhead to watch the goings-on.
Firyal, meanwhile, began pulling herself toward the last place she'd seen the young man before he went under, kicking hard to give herself speed. She'd never had to pull a person out of the water before. Not water with waves, anyway. The lake was different - boring, in fact - and she probably would have had no difficulty with that still water, but the churning sea was something else. Before she reached the point where the waves began to break, she dove under the water, eyes open, to see if she could see her would-be rescuer.
At last she saw him and propelled herself in his direction, arms outstretched to grasp any part of him she could.
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Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 11:36 am
Not only was he wearing full clothing, but being so muscular and stocky, he had little fat to float. The moment he plunged beneath the water seemed to be the moment when the flit's urgent command faded from him. His mind cleared and he focused again on reality.
It took about half a dozen fast heartbeats for his surroundings to register. Instinctively he held his breath during those moments, but lost that control when it dawned on him that he was underwater! He managed somehow to keep his lips tightly shut, but flurries of bubbles immediately began issuing from his nose. His arms began pinwheeling and he jerked his head around, trying to determine where he should be going, and how.
Then, from out of the deeper blue before him, a face sped towards him. It was surrounded by a halo of rippling hair. If she wore anything, it was rendered practically invisible by being plastered to her body, leaving no question as to her gender as she swam towards him.
It was the mermaid!!
So startled and astonished was he that she was swimming towards him, he let out a shout.. which of course let in all that nasty salty water. His eyes bulged as he swallowed and belatedly realized his dangeorus mistake.
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Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:47 pm
By the time Firyal caught sight of Berjint, she was almost out of air herself, and so she surfaced quickly, inhaling deeply before diving again. She couldn't see clearly under the water, but even so she was able to tell that he had for whatever reason opened his mouth and it clearly wasn't to exhale. With a few more powerful kicks she was able to grasp the young man's shirt as it floated around him in the water's current, which was much stronger than it should have been, unless they'd moved into the breakwaters. Which would be very bad.
Firyal was a strong swimmer, but she wasn't a rescue swimmer, and she was less than confident in her ability to bring this person to shore alive. Not once they'd been caught in the tide. Unlike Berjint, she had the presence of mind not to open her mouth to swear, but she was swearing colorfully in her head, to the extent that Numenor noticed her mood and tried to send soothing emotions her way. She didn't exactly need soothing, however. At present, she needed to be very alert, and much stronger than she actually was. Thank the Egg, water made people lighter.
She swam straight up, keeping a tight grip on Berjint's shirt, and broke into the air just as the water began to draw back around her in preparation to become the curl of a wave. So not good. She'd have maybe a few seconds before the tide pulled both her and her would-be rescuer down and out to sea. They wouldn't go too far out to sea, because the waves weren't enormous on the beach, but they'd still need air to make it.
In the few seconds they had, Firyal said, "Spit out whatever you swallowed, and take the deepest breath of your life. This is going to be unpleasant."
She decided to leave out the part about both of them possibly drowning if he panicked (which he would probably do) and did something stupid (which she sincerely hoped he wouldn't do). She'd been caught by the tide a few times since coming to the Weyr and survived it all right, and she knew where the current would take them, and how to get in to shore from there, but she was still worried.
And there was the crest of the wave. Her eyes widened and she took a deep breath and a firmer hold on Berjint.
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 9:05 am
Berjint might be new to this much water, much less current and swimming, but he was no dummy. He became distinctly more interested in surviving than he was about his rescuer being a mermaid or not. As she tugged on his shirt, he struggled against the need to cough out the water he'd inhaled. Feebly he kicked his feet, but that was about all he had the presence of mind to do to help.
When they broke the surface he spewed out everything in his lungs, water and air both, hacking and coughing uncontrollably, very nearly missing what she'd said to him. A deep breath? Unpleasant? His eyes bulged as he wheezed an attempt at a deep breath. His lungs did not want to oblige him, but he managed at least a clean gasp of air before water curled over them.
He made a mental note to himself to keep his mouth firmly shut!
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Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 9:36 am
As the wave pulled them down and out Firyal shut her eyes against the pain of the rough buffeting that came from being scraped along the sandy, rocky bottom. She wouldn't have anything worse than a few scrapes, providing she didn't drown, but that didn't make the new cuts sting any less. She was pretty good at figuring out which direction was Up, even though she was tumbling over and over, but she couldn't tell from the current when she should start swimming in a generally upward direction. At last when her hand was cramping from its tight grip on Berjint she decided that was a good enough time. If she didn't surface soon, anyway, she'd run out of air.
So she kicked as hard as she could in the direction she sensed to be Up. It helped to have Numenor somewhere up there, giving her a focus. The bond between firelizard and human was nowhere near as strong as the one between dragon and human, but it was strong enough to suffice in a time of urgency, such as this was. Numenor was already trying to find his human, so his desire for her to come to him and her identical desire made it much easier for her to get a sense of where he was. Which is to say, which direction would eventually result in air.
Her heart was pounding loudly in her ears so that she couldn't even hear the water by the time she saw the light that confirmed her guess. Thank Faranth! She swam harder until she broke the surface, gasping. The tide had done a number on her hair, swirling it all around so that much of it was in her face and she was forced to try to breathe around it, which was always a special challenge. With her free hand she shoved the wet brown mass out of her eyes and away from her nose and mouth, and then went back to treading water one-handed. Once she had made sure she was all right, she turned her attention to Berjint, despite Numenor's instantaneous appearance and fierce scolding.
"Are you all right?"
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 6:08 pm
As the wave closed over them, his first instinct was to grab hold of his rescuer like she had hold of him. He groped for her shirt blindly as they scraped along something sharp, but when his reaching hand almost gripped onto something very clearly not safe territory, he nearly yelped and let water in again. Poor Berjint, though he was so boyish and masculine, had yet to really get close with a girl, and having touched unintentionally what had not been offered willingly just threw him into a tizzy. So instead of trying to keep hold of her, he limply bumped along the ocean floor.
That is, until she surged intentionally in a direction he only vaguely percieved as intentional. He was beginning to see spots behind his closed lids, having not held his breath this long before. He was aware of her kicking near him, though, and so began to do the same. Again, it didn't dawn on him that mermaids didn't kick at all. His mind was too whirling from the vast amount of water around him, and the embarassing nearness of a girl he'd accidentally fondled.
Life was very complicated!
When they broke surface though his lungs were aching so bad, he exhaled in a burst that sent him coughing all over again, for a moment overcoming his mortification. He hacked and spat and nearly went under again, thrashing about in an ignorant attempt to not]/i] go under. To her question, all he could do was gasp wordlessly and nod, his sodden curls plastered in weird whorls all over hie head.
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Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 6:40 pm
Firyal had managed to be fairly oblivious to the fact that Berjint had grabbed her chest. There was something rather distracting about being swirled around the bottom of the sea and then responsible for bringing not only herself but someone else who was thrashing and flailing to the surface that made the location of Berjint's hands somewhat unimportant to her. By the time they reached the surface she had completely forgotten about it, being generally more concerned with Berjint's overall health. His well-being was of greater immediate relevance.
Numenor, meanwhile, was completely upset. He knew his human had been in danger, and it had upset him badly. He flew as close to the human pair as he could without being endangered by the male's thrashing. He was not sure how he felt about this male, who he had enlisted to save his human and had instead ended up putting her in harm's way. He felt that he had been tricked, wilfully, and hissed at Berjint, bombarding him with all the stresses he had built up from Firyal's trick to the riptide. It was much easier to transfer his agression onto Berjint than his beloved human.
"Stop that, Numenor," Firyal said to the chittering bronze. She was also privy to his distress, and though she had no idea he was simultaneously attacking Berjint with it, it was a little off-balancing to have the firelizard overwhelming her with his very passionate concerns for her safety. She tried to project soothing thoughts to the distraught creature. "Behave. I'm fine."
The fact that Berjint was able to understand her and make some sort of response was enough encouragement that he wasn't in any immediate danger of dropping dead for Firyal's peace of mind. She propelled herself a short distance from him so that she wouldn't fall prey to his inept attempts to remain afloat. She was certain that having him clinging to her would be an effective way to bring them both under. Still, she stayed close enough that she could probably retrieve him if he stayed under too long.
There were a number of questions she would have liked to ask, but they could wait until they were on dry land. Her appetite for swimming had been more than sated this morning. It would probably be several days before she gave in to the urge to swim again after this experience. She swam to relax, and this had not been a particularly relaxing excursion. Not in the least. Though, to be fair, it was mostly her fault for playing tricks on Numenor.
"Let's see about getting ashore, shall we? Where the waves wash up against the rocks over here is pretty safe, though the rocks can be a bit sharp in places." Though not too many. The water had done a good job of eroding the worst of the sharp edges.
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Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 9:32 pm
Berjint was just managing to start breathing normally when the emotionall barrage began. As his rescuer instructed him to aim at the rocks, the look on his face grew starkly stricken, as if she'd just verbally lashed him to the bone. He struggled to keep afloat, but seemed to hardly be thinking about it. He made no move to follow her, just paddled in place and looked utterly despairing.
Unfortunately, it seemed like the little flit was also transferring some of his great affection for Firyal too. Back came the aura of beauty and mystique that had made her appear as a mermaid. How his heart yearned for her to gaze at him again! She was the center of his world, and now she was leaving him behind! All was lost!
Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small sensible and unaffected part of his mind was completely baffled. What was he doing, and why was he mooning over a girl while flailing for his life in the middle of a body of water bigger than anyone really knew??
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Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 9:12 am
Reluctantly, Numenor left off his emotional bombardment. After all, his human was safe now and all was well. Really, not much reason to be angry, except that the other male human was entirely too close to his Firyal. He hissed softly in Berjint's direction before following his human toward the rocks. It was good that she was leaving the male behind. He, Numenor, was the only male in Firyal's life. She didn't need others. They weren't wanted.
Oblivious to Numenor's behavior, Firyal swam on, using a side stroke that allowed her to keep her head above the water. She'd had enough of being submerged for one day. Also, it made it significantly easier for her to glance back and check on Berjint's progress. Not that he seemed to be making any. His expression was mystifying to her, when she actually stopped to look, treading water. Why should he look so stricken? They were both alive and uninjured. Maybe he was in shock? Except people in shock tended to be much paler in her experience.
"Are you all right? It's not that far to swim."
No! Disaster! Firyal was talking to the male again. No, no, no. That was not what Numenor wanted. How could he make her ignore the other human? He screeched fiercely and dove at Berjint from behind, his talons barely touching Berjint's sodden curls. He'd been careful not to draw blood, or even come close to Berjint's scalp, but he was trying to encourage the male human to swim some other way. Away from his Firyal. He hissed for good measure.
"Numenor!" Firyal's sharp reprimand made him return to hover sulkily over her head, his eyes whirling yellow at Berjint.
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Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2009 11:09 pm
Berjint coughed again, having inhaled a mouthful of water trying to duck away from the frenzied firelizard. He spat out the saltwater and thought to himself that he was heartily sick of the stuff. He floundered towards her, managing to draw a bit closer this time, despite his lack of knowledge how to swim. "I don't think your flit likes me much." It was a rueful statement, and the first thing he'd managed to say to the girl who had saved his life. It seemed rather a bad note to start on, he realized belatedly, and mumbled a somewhat confused apology as well, still trying to make his clumsy way through the water, keeping one eye on the distressed flit.
It was right about then that he finally realized that his 'mermaid' had legs and not a tail. He nearly stopped swimming altogether, managing to move again just as his head dipped under the surface. He came up again, having remembered this time to hold his breath. Even so, with his curls plastered against his forehead, he stared at her in clear surprise. "You aren't... I thought...," he trailed off, then shook his head. What was wrong with him? Mermaids indeed. He was losing his mind. "I... uh...," he paused, floundering more than just in the water. "Thank you?" It was a last, tentative offering of what he hoped was finally the right thing to say. What a royal mess this had turned out to be!
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Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 4:29 am
Treading water with practiced ease, Firyal glanced overhead at Numenor who did not, in fact, seem to like Berjint too much. Had her arms not been occupied, she might have shrugged, but that wasn't really a viable option, for while she was able to keep herself afloat using just her legs, it was easier if she didn't have to.
"I wouldn't worry about it. Numenor's a darling, but he's not usually fond of strange humans." In actuality, Numenor was pretty much a one-person firelizard. He was only too happy to accept food and treats from other humans, but woe betide those who thought his acceptance of food from them meant they had earned his approval or permission to handle him. That privilege was reserved solely for Firyal and whatever people she forced him to Behave for.
"There's nothing to apologize for, at any rate. That's my firelizard exhibiting the bad manners. It's nothing to do with you."
She was moving backward through the water, kicking her legs and using her arms to keep herself upright so that she could talk to him more easily. It was a much slower way to swim, but it meant she could keep an eye on the floundering young man. She hoped he wouldn't go under again, but she'd seen no indication that he was any sort of safe in the water, which mystified her until she reminded herself that simply living at Ista did not automatically make a person able to swim, no matter how sensible it would be to learn as soon as possible, considering Ista was surrounded by water.
When he slowed dramatically and sank again Firyal had to bite back an impatient remark, reminding herself that he had come into the water meaning to do a good thing, and that it wasn't his fault it was unnecessary. She guessed that Numenor had something to do with Berjint's ungainly presence in the water, which made it her fault indirectly since, as she'd said, Numenor was her firelizard. There was no real reason for her to be rude, and a great many reasons to be polite.
"You're welcome," she said automatically, wondering what it was he had meant to say upon resurfacing. "Shall we swim on?"
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