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 Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:57 pm
"Okay! You catch me one first, and I'll sit out of the water!" she repeated dutifully, bounding out of the water with one final splash. Her tail still wagging eagerly, she sprayed water in every direction with impressive force to each drop. Running over to him, sitting close but staying where it was dry, she watched him intently as he worked.
She did not notice him call her flower. Usually when someone said something she did not understand she just assumed it meant something important to them, and that was enough. There was no reason to ask them about it, unless she was bored and wanted to. That was a different situation though, and clearly justified when it happened.
Leaping back a good two feet, she barked incessantly as the strange creature he had smacked out of the water flopped menacingly on the bank. She ran in a circle, growling and barking, bouncing backwards and forwards as she worked to gather the courage to go up to the little monster dancing in its small puddle.
Running forward suddenly, she crouched down and stretched her nose forward, sniffing it while whining and grumbling. She yapped and turned away, running another tight circle before barking at it again. Looking up at Mito, concern and excitement mixed in her bright eyes, she noticed he did not look at all concerned about the thing that was slowly running out of energy. Looking down at it again, she cautiously inched closer to it, one paw over the other, her body tight and coiled.
"That's a fish?!" she asked, sniffing it furiously now, "it smells weird! It tastes good, though? What do I eat? It keeps bouncing! Why doesn't it run away? Does it livei n the water? Is it dying? It looks so sad! Hey, I'll give it some water and then it'll be moving again and it will be more fun to play with! I didn't get to play with it because it startled me, but I'm okay now!"
She grabbed it by the tail carefully and trotted back to the water, as she had promised, bowing her head and letting it touch the water again. She hadn't meant to let it go, but it gave a powerful jerk and escaped her jaws. Letting out a sorrowful wail, she watched as it vanished in the water. Looking back at Mito, completely shattered to have lost it, she whimpered, "It went away!"
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Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 10:22 pm
Mito could hardly find a moment to answer her many questions as she fought between keeping away and getting near the dying animal on the bank. She was far too excited, and moving far too quickly for him to do anything but watch and laugh. Not in spite, of course, but genuine pleasure to see her so wound up about what she was now witnessing. He hadn’t thought a simple fish had the capacity to make anyone so… bouncy. He was quite certain his first encounter with a fish hadn’t brought about such emotions inside of him.
The male had been with his father, no older than Laika at the time, and his old male lion had done the exact same thing for him; he swiped a fish and let it flop about on the ground for him. Mito, having always been lazy, apparently, had taken the new experience in his stride. Nothing more than sniffing and giggling had occurred before he finally ate the fish.
He had been silly to think Laika would react in the same manner.
“Oh, Laika, wait!” the male gasped, so trapped in his own memories that he had missed what the little female wanted to do with the fish. By the time he saw her, she was already heading over to the water with the fish in mouth. He watched with a frown as the creature, rejuvenated, pulled away from the little pink wild dog. Sighing, he just shook his head, a smile creeping over his expression, pitiful, as the child turned to gloom. Moving away from his fishing spot, the fish too disturbed for him to snatch up another one anyway, he went over to her, sitting himself in front of her so she could come in for a cuddle if she needed it.
Mito was warm and fuzzy and completely cuddly.
“It’s okay,” he assured her, “I can get you another one, alright? But don’t let it go back in the water! It’s supposed to stop moving. Then you can eat. You’re not supposed to play with your food.”
Once he felt safe to, Mito moved back to the water, waiting for the fish to calm before once again snatching one out of the river. It hit the ground, bigger than the one before it, and started flopping about once more. Watching, the male hoped Laika wasn’t still too upset by the last fish to engage the new one.
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Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2008 12:12 am
Silent, Laika moved toward Mito as he sat down nearby. She did not slow to curl against him, or sit down next to him for comfort. Instead she walked right into him, her head lowered, her paws heavy in her sadness as she pushed against his cushy body with her head and, as she turned her neck, shoulder. She only sat down when she could not gain even the slightest lee way in her pushing, pressed against him with all her might.
"I didn't mean to let it go, I thought it would just wiggle a bit so it would be fun. I didn't know I'm not supposed to play with my food. Why am I not supposed to play with the fish? Because it goes away? I miss it. But there are others in there? I didn't ruin it, did I?" She spoke in a small voice, her sentences sometimes interrupted by a wail of a bark, a confused sound that pronounced her inner confusion over the matter.
She watched him intently as he moved away from her, sniffling a tremendous amount of times in an effort to settle herself. Whining louder the further he got, she watched as he swatted another fish from the water, leaping back with a mighty bark as it landed on the ground. Her barks did not stop, the sounds running over each other as she yapped vigorously at the fish. It was as if she thought her voice would make it stop moving faster. She remembered Mito's directions, after all.
It had to stop moving first.
"You caught another one!" She barked, in between the inarticulate sounds from her throat, "you did! It's right there! I see it, right there! Do you see it?! It's right there! It's still moving! It needs to stop, before I can eat it! Hey! Hey you! Stop moving, fish! I want to eat you!"
She ran up to it and swatted it with her paw carefully, leaping back as it flopped angrily in response. She had no intention of letting this one go back in the water. She was hungry, after all, and she did not want to make Mito sad by wasting another one of his catches.
"Pillow! Are you going to catch one for you?!"
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Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 3:03 pm
Feeling the litter puppy press against him warmed his heart. Poor little thing seems so upset by the loss that she couldn’t even seek comfort in what was considered to be a correct way. He could feel her pushing against his fur, though was in no danger of moving an inch in any direction. While she was doing this, he raised a paw near her, just letting it hover beside her like a shield. His head lowered slowly as she continued to press against his body, the large male giving her a few licks to comfort her a bit more.
“It’s alright,” he assured her softly, “this is a way to learn. When bad things happen, I mean. Now you know not to do it again, right? So you don’t need to be sad.” He was surprised at first that she had never been told not to play with her food. It seemed like such a common lesson. Then, quite suddenly, he understood why she was only learning it for the first time. She had never known parents. Without them, she was unaware of how to act.
It struck him quite potently that he was becoming quite like a father to her.
Smiling still, he raised his head again, watching the pouty pup. “You didn’t ruin it,” he told her fondly, “there are plenty of fish in the river. We might even catch that one you let get away again. Though they all look so much alike we might not be able to tell.”
Hearing her whining didn’t stop him from fishing, though at first he had wanted to go back over to her and give her more cuddles. It was better for her to get the fish and try again than for him to keep on comforting her. Once the fish had landed, Mito again watched the animal yap at the meal. Wild dogs were very loud creatures indeed.
Laughing at her swift speech, he returned to her, heading towards the fish and placing a paw against its head. “I’m cheating,” he hummed innocently, “to speed things up a little for you. He crushed the fishes head against the floor, trying not to make it too obvious. No eyes shooting from its head or really loud cracks of skull. Eventually the fish did stop, letting Mito sit back and watch more of the show.
“Maybe you could try to catch a fish for me,” the male replied with a grin, “it’s easy to do. Once you’ve eaten I’ll try to teach you how to fish.” Did wild dogs fished? Being raised by a lion, he assumed, would make this poor thing completely incapable of interacting in proper dog society. But then again he couldn’t be sure.
He didn’t know how wild dogs operated, after all.
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Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2008 4:04 pm
Laika watched as Mito walked up to the fish, crouching low just in case he needed some back up. Her bright eyes looked up at him when he said he was cheating, not a trace of the previous sorrow left in their clear gaze. Confused as to how he might be cheating, she simply watched as the fish stopped moving suddenly. Mito was the one who knew all the rules to this game, so she could not complain if he wanted to cheat.
Laika barked at the dead fish as she drew near to it, backing up a step every three steps forward. Cautiously, with too much energy and excitement to keep her too far back, she finally leapt on it and began to chew on its scaled hide. Not getting anywhere, she tried digging at it with her flat clawed feet, tearing off a fin and finally breaking through to the flesh inside.
She was awkwardly chomping on a hunk of unfamiliar meat, voraciously enjoying the new taste as she tried to eat as much of it as possible. She was losing chunks of it as she chewed, her mouth never closing as her tongue worked to keep most of it inside her jaws. It was certainly worth all the trauma, as far as the happy pink puppy was concerned, though she had all but forgotten the previous hardships.
Looking up at her giant Pillow friend as she chewed, she stopped the effort abruptly when he mentioned the idea of her fishing for him.
"OKAY!" She yelled, all of the masticated remains falling from her maw, "I'll catch you a great big one, since a little one wouldn't be any good for you! I will, just watch. I'm pretty good at things when I try them. Like this one time I tried to stand on my front paws, instead of my back paws like I did on your tail, and I did it. I fell over and hurt my back, but I still did it, so I think if I try then I can!"
She ran to the water, abandoning her fish as her short attention span shifted gears from food to fun. Remembering his form, she slowed before reaching the water's edge and moved carefully, not wanting to startle the fish that were swimming near the bank. She focused on one of the shadows as it slipped back and forth under the surface. In an echo of what she had seen him do, she swatted her paw at the water.
Unfortunately, her reach was much more shallow than his, and she did not even touch the fish she had imagined she would send flying from the water. Undeterred, she swatted the water again and again, trying to catch the fish long after it had swam away in fright. She put too much power into her swing and threw herself off kilter, splashing into the water with a yelp and, unsurprisingly, a big laugh.
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:51 am
Mito was impressed she had managed to get to the meat all on her own, as he knew remembered having trouble with it when he was younger. He doubted wild dog claws were sharper than lion ones, though, and decided she just had a stronger resolve to get to the damn flesh. It made him smile, something like pride swelling in the pit of his stomach and spreading through his blood stream, warming his whole body. It made him feel just fantastic.
Wincing in disgust, the male managed to keep his eyes on her as she replied, the bits of fish falling from her mouth only more reason to find her innocence adorable. Even if it was really gross. Like not playing with her food, she had probably never been told not to speak with her mouth full either.
“Alright,” he told her, “but finish you meal first! I need to show you how to..” he was talking to a dead fish, the little pink fireball already heading over to the water. With an amused grunt he got to his feet, following after her slowly. He didn’t want to see her trying it all on her own, but now he was starting to realize he probably should have told her she needed to wait for him to show her before diving into it.
Now she was ready to go regardless of his directions, willing to make a try at it without them.
Still, it was damn cute to see her mimicking what he had done to the best of her ability. He felt, though, that she was too small to manage getting anything from that spot. And, as it turned out, he was right to think so. Watching her land in the water made his heart skip a best, the large animal leaping forward to help, only relaxing when her laugh broke the air. Of course, it was no real indication that she was fine as he was sure she would probably keep laughing even after losing a limb. Silly creature. Getting over her, he picked her up gently by the back of her neck, taking her out of the water and moving her to the bank. Placing her against the ground, he stared at her, looking her tiny frame over for injury as any worried parent might.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, “you should have waited! You’re too small to get the fish that way. I’ll show you how to do it, alright? We need to go into the water, in a shallow part we can stand in, for you. Then we’ll wait for things to calm and the fish will come back. But be careful, okay? I don’t want you falling in the deeper water.”
Getting up, he moved back into the water, smiling once more. "We can try again -together- when you're ready."
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 2:50 pm
Laika continued to swim, though she had hardly been making much headway in the water, after Mito plucked her from the shallow water. Her paws worked furiously, kicking as she found herself moving, the water that dripped from her body telling her she was still in the pool. Why else would she still be wet and floating. It wasn't until she opened her eyes and saw the ground moving toward her that she realized she was being carried, her movements slowing until she was feebly kicking her paws as she dangled.
Looking up at Mito with a huge grin on her face, she let her tongue lull out the side of her mouth as she panted for breath. She was tired from the surprise swim and her efforts to smack a fish out of the water, but she was excited and eager to try again. Standing up before too long, she shook herself off, spraying water over her pillowy friend, and then looked back up at him as if she hadn't just gotten him wet.
"I'm not hurt!" she said, shaking her head furiously and wagging her tail with just as much force. It made her body begin to rock back and forth, her tail swinging in opposite time to her head so that her whole frame was in on the action, "I can swim! Sort of. I think I'm better at it when you're carrying me, though. One time I was playing tag and I went in the water to get away from him and it worked! But then I tripped because it was slippery and he caught me anyway."
She followed him as soon as he moved, prancing out in front of him as he moved to the bank. Following his example, she sat in the water patiently, looking up at him with fascinated dedication. She was going to learn from him, and not mess anything up this time. Though, in her mind, she hadn't done anything very wrong just yet: she was just doing it her way. It just so happened that her way didn't work very well.
She was perfectly still save her tail, which swished around happily under the water without her knowledge.
"I'm ready!" she barked, "let's try! I'm going to catch you a big fish and not fall in the deep water, you'll see! But I think they all swam away. How do you make them come back? Do they know you? Because they aren't around here any more, and I don't think they'd want to come back if they knew we were going to eat them. Oh. Water went in my nose."
And she sneezed, her face hitting the water and causing her to recoil. Shaking her head, she sneezed again and sat down with a heavy splash.
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Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 10:10 pm
“My my,” hummed the large lion, “you’re certainly full of stories! You’ve done more in your short life than I have in mine! I’m glad you’re not hurt. I would hate to have let something bad happen to you.” He was growing too fond of her to think of something causing her harm. Should that happen, should someone cause her pain, he would probably become a very angry, still very fat lion with a strong desire to rip said creature’s throat out.
He was indeed becoming a protective parent, and he wasn’t even really aware of it.
Watching her fail at keep still long enough to draw the fish over, Mito could only sigh. Why hadn’t he been expecting something like this to happen?
“Silly Laika,” laughed Mito lightly, shaking his head as he watched the creature sneeze into the water. If the fish had thought to come back, that was more than enough to send them swimming away again. At this rate, he was going to starve to death before she managed to catch a fish for him. Or die of old age. Considering his weight, it could be either one.
Sitting down with a splash of his own, Mito heaved a defeated sigh. “Maybe we should wait a little while before fishing again,” he hummed, his spirits as bright and well-humored as ever. This whole thing wasn’t enough to upset him. Just because she wasn’t doing things right didn’t mean he had to be cross with her- this was what it was to learn about something new. Sometimes it meant messing up more than actually getting something done. That was nothing to blame Laika for.
Even if he was starting to get really hungry and she was scaring all the fish away.
“When you fish,” he explained thoughtfully, “you have to keep very still in the water. Fish scare easily, and if you move about too much they’ll stay away from you and you won’t be able to catch one. But if you stay in one spot and are very patient, then a fish will eventually come close enough for you to swat at. And that’s really all it takes! Though maybe fishing isn’t the right sort of thing for you,” he laughed lightly, watching the pink fireball, “you like running around more, right? You look like you’ll be a better hunter than a fisherman. I like it because I’m fat and lazy. If you want, of course, we can keep trying, but I’m happy too, if you would like to go find something else to do now.”
He didn’t think she would want to leave. The male was starting to see what a determined thing she was and how happy she seemed to be in just trying things. That was a quality he admired in her- if he got something wrong than he would more than likely just give up on the task. There were easier ways to do things.
And he liked to find those.
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Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 12:55 pm
Laika tilted her head at him, suddenly very still. She didn't want to scare more of the fish away, after all. Barely breathing, she didn't even blink until she absolutely had to. No fish swam their way, however, Mito's heavy body plonking down scaring the fish even further into the deeper water. Puffing out a big breath of air, Laika panted happily and bounded from the water, splashing Mito as she passed.
"Something else!" She barked, running back to the half eviscerated fish she had left from before. Eating it again, disregarding the flies that had begun to gather. Chewing on it, she looked back at Mito, completely forgetting that she had promised to get him a fish, too, "What else can we do? You're too big for climbing trees. I can't do that anyway, because I don't have claws. But I saw a big cat do that, and it was cool!"
Picking up the remains of the fish, she trotted back to him and, careful not to get too close to the water just in case the fish escaped again, offered him what was left. She spoke with the tail in her teeth, her words slightly slurred.
"Don't you haf ovver fings to do?" she asked, tail wagging, "befides playing wif me? I like playing wif you, dough, tho I don't want you to go. You can be in my phamily, if you want to."
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Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:17 pm
“Something else then!” he laughed, shaking himself off the moment he stepped out of the water, “I’m sure we’ll think of something. There’s still a lot of time left today. Plenty of time to think things over. You’re right, though, I think I’m a bit too big to climb trees. I’d probably make them fall over.”
Mito blinked, a little surprised not at the offer of the fish, but what she had uttered through the meat. Did she mean that he could be in her family because she already had one? Or that they could start a family by staying with one another? He couldn’t be sure. Emotions leaping into his throat, Mito smiled at the little puppy. “I would love to be in your family,” he told her, taking the fish from her so she didn’t have to speak through it any more. Putting it down, he ate a little of the flesh out of courtesy and left the rest to the scavengers, nudging the puppy with his nose.
This was all so cool, in a potentially life-altering kind of way. Still, it wasn’t like he could just part ways from Laika now. He had spent too much time with her and was completely addicted.
“Come on,” he chuckled lightly, “let’s see if you hunt any better than you fish.” He led the way, wondering if he was more-or-less her official father now. Would she call him daddy?
He could only leave it for time to decide.
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