|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 10:44 am
Uneasy, Sahirah swam a little closer to the greenish rock that jutted out from the sandy ocean floor. It had stormed over the past few days, though now the sky had brightened to an uneasy gray. The water was murky from the storm's wake and he could only barely make out dark shapes moving beyond his vision. There could be anything lurking out there in those waters. Fear of the unknown prickled at him, but he had a worry a little more urgent floating in front of him.
The kelpi's color was a lurid pink. She was easy to see even with the sediment clouding the water around them. She wasn't large for her breed but still was massive compared to his own diminutive form. She could have stunned him to paralysis with one blow of her tail if she wanted, and Sahirah was more than a little worried that she might try it. He liked to graze on seaweed. Some kelpis had this gentle lifestyle as well, but not this one. She had the sharp pointed teeth of a barracuda. He wouldn't make the mistake of letting his guard down around a predator.
"What did you say that you wanted with me?" he asked, quietly and warily.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 10:55 am
Water wafted through Isenath's short mane like a caress. Her legs moved almost idly beneath her, treading water slowly to keep herself in place as the waves swung her back and forth. Her long tail drifted behind her and her scales glinted in the weak light that filtered through the water. When she smiled her sharp teeth seemed to fill up her mouth. These weren't the ordered fangs of a wolf or a bear. She wore the jagged dagger-teeth of more ancient creatures, some of which still might even now live at the bottom of the ocean where no light could ever reach.
"What do I want with you?" she repeated the seathi's words with deceptive lightness. With an indolent beat of her tail she drifted to the other side of him, then in a loose circle around him. He was such a small little thing. His bare tail was more suited for grasping than swimming. She wondered how he managed to get around at all.
"Maybe I don't want anything with you. It's unusual to meet one of our kind in this area. It's interesting." In all her time patrolling through these waters, this was her first sign that any intelligent life lived out there but her.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 10:59 am
Nothing that she said made him trust her any more. If anything, he was growing more frightened of her. He noticed how she followed him by turning her head to watch him instead of moving her eyes. Her eyes themselves were a pale pink, like the slimy underside of a fish's belly. They were more like the eyes of a fish than a soquili, flat and almost unmoving. Sahirah repressed a shiver to have the attention of those eerie eyes upon him.
"I apologize if I am intruding," he said. "I am merely passing through the area. I meant..." He gulped and a small stream of bubbles ran out a corner of his mouth. "I meant no offense."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 11:03 am
"Really... do I seem offended to you?" Isenath stopped circling him and let herself sink slowly to the bottom. Her hooves touched sand and she leaned slightly against the rock that the seathi had been trying to hide behind. The water effortlessly supported her body from this position, reminding her of being held against her mother when she was just a foal.
"You might be small, but you are my brother of the ocean nonetheless." Her smile had no less jagged teeth this time, but the malice it held was not directed at her companion. "I don't hurt my brothers. The sea accepts you as much as me."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 12:39 pm
Sahirah didn't feel entirely comforted. It could just be a predator's tactic to speak sweetly before the kill. He wanted nothing more than to just speed away from the strange and frightening kelpi, but that was not an option. She was far faster and more powerful than he was. There were no hiding spaces for him that were close enough that he could make it before her jaws could find him.
"W-well..." He took a moment to calm his shaking voice. "Good morning to you, then. My name is Sahirah." Would she be less likely to kill him if she knew his name? Sahirah liked to think that it would be more difficult to eat someone that you knew. He still had no idea what the pink kelpi might want from him besides a snack. These sorts of encounters did not happen often in the open ocean.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 12:42 pm
"Sahirah, hm?" Isenath experimented with the way the name felt in her mouth. She liked it. It could be said with the same sort of hissing sound as her name, and that gave them a kinship of a sort. "I am Isenath." She had no reservations in giving her name out to strangers. It was hers and gave her power, but it could not be used to bind her. Her name was freedom, not chains.
"And is this where you live, Sahirah?" It was hard to see anything in the murky waters, but Isenath glanced around nonetheless. It was a dismal sort of area for any type of home. Maybe Sahirah was a dismal sort himself and the type to enjoy it. Isenath herself preferred somewhere with more interesting neighbors, though not of the land-dwelling types.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 12:46 pm
Sahirah didn't really want Isenath to know where he lived. What if she dropped by after he told her? "I don't live around here," he admitted. "I was just passing through, but the water isn't very clear right now." He spoke almost apologetically, as if the weather was his fault. He would have been long since out of that patch of water if visibility had been better. It was pure bad luck that he had ended up where he was when there was a creepy kelpi around.
"I assume that this is part of your territory?" he asked nervously. Again, he wondered if he was about to be attacked. Many things under the water were very fierce about protecting their territory.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 12:51 pm
"I suppose you might call this part of my... extended territory." Isenath chuckled, as if she had just said some sort of joke. As far as she was concerned, the entire ocean was her extended territory. She did pass through this far sometimes, but it was not one of her usual haunts.
"You look frightened." If Sahirah was trying to hide his fear from her, he was doing a very poor job of it. "Don't be frightened." Her smile might have been almost soothing on a creature that didn't have a mouth like a shark. "I told you. You are my brother. I don't sink my teeth into my brothers... at least not the well-behaved ones." There had been a few ocean-dwelling soquili that Isenath had found herself fighting with, but it didn't happen often.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 7:27 pm
"Of course he's frightened," drawled a voice from afar, but steadily growing closer. Quinta paddled over, drifting along near the surface of the water. She looked down at Isenath, her mate, with unsurprised amusement. Her short hair fanned out in a fluff around her face. Her fins were much more intricate and exotic than Isenath's. She had come from far in the south, where it was never winter and the water was always warm. It had taken her a while to adapt to these new waters, but she managed well enough now.
"Are you really going to keep teasing that poor thing?" she asked as she drifted downwards to Isenath's side. "I thought we were going to look for clams." Isenath had the strangest habits to her. She's always put on a big creepy show for any other aquatic soquili they found in their wanderings.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 7:32 pm
And now there were two of them. Sahirah wished that he could dig himself into the sand like a crab, or change his color to fade away like a flounder. The new kelpi mare's colors reminded him of something poisonous and painful. He wouldn't have been able to defend himself against even one kelpi, let alone two. The second didn't seem like she wanted to harm him, but part of him doubted that she would really care if her friend tore him to bits either.
"I heard from a sea otter that there are good clams in a cove just a little east from here." He gulped, hoping he wasn't sending two dangerous predators in the direction of his sea otter friend. "If you wanted to look for clams, that would be your best bet." Even if it meant that Chella the otter might be in danger, Sahirah selfishly hoped that the two kelpis would leave.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 7:38 pm
"Clams can wait!" Isenath muttered at Quinta. Just like Quinta didn't understand why Isenath felt the need to talk to the soquili they ran across, Isenath didn't see why Quinta didn't feel like they ought to. They were all bound together by their brotherhood of the waves. Isenath definitely had the most fishy look between the duo of kelpis. She sometimes wondered if she was the one more connected to the ocean than her mate had ever been.
"Do you want to come with us, perhaps?" she asked the cowering seathi. She swept her tail towards him and began to nudge him more out into the open. She could feel him giving resistance against her but it was pathetically weak compared to her muscled lengths. "Don't tell me that you're one of the ones that just chews on seaweed. You could use some meat between your teeth!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 7:42 pm
"He'll slow us down," sighed Quinta, bored. "Look at him. He barely even has fins." She settled down even closer to Isenath, so close that their sides almost touched. "You could at least try to find a mer. Everyone knows that they're better company than the little ones." It was Quinta's personal opinion that seathis didn't have enough space in their skulls to hold many interesting thoughts. She got along with them just fine, but they just didn't amount to much in her eyes.
"Come on." She gave Isenath a soft bump with her nose. "Let's go find the clams and leave this little guy where we found him. He probably has... swimming practice to do or something." Her eyes glinted with amusement as she surveyed the seathi. What did they do with their free time if they could barely even move around?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 7:50 pm
Sahirah felt a surge of hope. They might leave soon! His tail coiled and uncoiled nervously. He still was being cupped in the pink kelpi's tail and it was her decision that would be the important one. He looked around in the murky water to make sure that there wasn't a third kelpi sneaking up on him but saw no one. If he made it out of this intact, he vowed to go back to his cave home and stay in it for a week. He had enough adventure for one month, he thought.
"I wouldn't want to waste your time," he ventured. "If you have clams to dig, I mean..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 7:57 pm
Isenath rolled her flat fishy eyes as best as she was able to. She wasn't going to be able to do anything now. "We might as well dig clams," she hissed. "You are just lucky we aren't after fish." She gave Quinta a n**, her form of aggressive affection. "You would have scared them off by now with all your chattering." She ignored the fact that she had been loudly talking too even before Quinta had showed up.
She gave the seathi a final look, staring hard at his small form. "We can talk later." She pulled her tail away from him and let him begin to drift away. "I can find you. Don't worry about that." She smirked possessively at him. They'd continue their chat some other time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 10:23 am
Quinta smiled as they drew away from the cowering seathi. Isenath acted much less strangely when it was just the two of them alone. Quinta thought it was because Isenath didn't feel the need to put on as much of a show for her. They were comfortable together and needed no theatrics or grand philosophies to be happy. Now they could think of more pleasant things... things like clams.
"I think we should try the eastern cove that he suggested," she said. "He is local so would know what he's talking about." She licked her lips hopefully. Clams were one of the tougher food sources to get at, but one of the most delicious. Taking the time to dig them out and crack them open only made the reward that much better.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
