|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 4:13 pm
Tom didn't comment on the mumbles, instead he followed her gaze into the water. "Huh, he doesn't usually go down all that deep," he commented. "Of course, Lori is an oarfish...so, it makes sense." He sat down on one of the cushioned seats in the boat's cockpit.
"Well, this may not be a company research vessel...but thanks to my, ah, position, I've got a passive sonar sensor attached to the aft-end of the keel," he reached down the open door of the cabin and flipped a switch, causing an odd sort of noise. "So, we can listen under the water. Down that deep, hearing them won't be too clear, but I'm sure if anything's wrong, we'll know."
Way down below that, true to form, Alex had completely forgotten why he had just gone down where it was dark all the time. He had taken to cautiously following some calmly-swimming fish that he thought 'smelled' interesting, and he wanted to get close enough to see. "I didn't know it was always nighttime down here," he said quietly, obviously unperturbed by it.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:22 am
Japi was excited by the idea. She followed Tom and stood next to him as he turned on his sensor. She listened closely to hear her daughter's voice.
Lori smiled, contended by the thought. Indeed it was always dark down below. "I like the night," she told Alex, feeling slightly more comfortable now that they were in her usual atmosphere. She followed Alex and the fish, glad that he had apparently forgotten the game of tag. "There's lots of fun things down here."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 12:21 pm
Through the sonar, they could hear the muffled sounds of distant waves, the occasional water swish, and the muffled voices of the children below. It was incredibly faint, too soft to allow for clear words, but it was definitely them.
"Like that fish there?" Alex asked, pointing in the direction he fish he'd been following. "I can't see it, but it smells neat." He smiled. He couldn't really see Lori very well, either, but he knew she was there. There was a silhouette, in addition to the 'smell.'
The fish he was tailing suddenly got spooked...probably by an approaching giant fish (named Lori), and bolted off into the darkness.
"Aww," Alex let out, sounding disappointed. "Oh well..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 4:59 pm
"Well," Japi mused. "At least we know they're fine. No need to worry unless we hear screaming." Japi shrugged. "Even then you never know, when it comes to Lori."
Lori was sorry she'd scared away the fish. She seemed to always have that effect on other things down here, but then she remembered a thing that wasn't scared of her. "There's an octopus in a little hole nearby, wanna go see it?" She figured at least it would keep the attention off her. After all, she didn't really want to play with Alex in the first place. He was nice and all, but Lori didn't like anybody but her mother.
She realized he probably couldn't see where she was pointing and figured if she started in that direction, he'd probably follow, so she did. It was just over this little bed of corals perched on a large rock. At the other side of that rock there was a long crack. She followed it to the place where it widened and sloped up.
"Shh," Lori warned quietly, checking to make sure the other mer was still following her. Though she reminded herself it should be better if he wasn't.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 3:59 pm
With a quizzical expression, Tom asked, "Does she scare easily? Alex is usually okay...although if a kid as...big as she freaks out, he probably would too." He shrugged. "Then he'd hide under a rock, or head back to the boat."
Down below, Alex nodded silently, drifting in the same direction that Lori was moving, 'smelling' the water. When she looked back to check on him, he was right by the end of her tail...not actually touching it this time, he was preoccupied with spotting the octopus as it came into his view.
He grinned widely when he spotted it finally, and did his best to not get to close and try to feel it or taste it. "I've never seen one down here before," he whispered.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 8:41 am
Japi let out a heavy sigh. "Too easily." Her sigh moved into a near laugh as she thought of the most likely thing to scare Lori down there. "Do you think Alex would have a problem if it was him she was scared by?"
Lori was glad Alex was keeping a reasonable distance from her, but not straying far enough that she'd lose sight of him. She didn't want him popping up out of anywhere.
"He's sleeping right now," Lori kept her hushed tone. "He must have just eaten." Sleep wasn't exactly the right word for it, as she'd never really seen an octopus sleep before. He was just not going to come out and grab at them. Still, Lori had no intention of getting any closer. Instead, she searched around the area for evidence of the creature's recent meal.
It didn't take long for her to find it. A rather small crab, by Lori's standards, though all that was left was it's left claw. It must have fallen off while the octopus was eating it. She was glad she'd never found bits of an oarfish around the thing's cave and she was pretty sure Alex would be too small a meal anyways.
But that was enough of that and Lori's curiosity was as short lived as ever. She backed up a good distance and waited, watching Alex.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 1:07 pm
Tom looked thoughtful for a moment before replying, "I dunno. I think he might find it funny..." He grimaced slightly. "And I somehow doubt that would be a good thing...but it sounds like things are going all right down there."
Alex stopped drifting toward the octopus...he'd gotten too close to fish and other things under the sea enough times already to know that it's not a good idea if he wants to look at them. He continued staring for a minute or two, before spinning around and going back toward Lori.
If she didn't move away, he would (as was his tendency) get incredibly close to her face... "That's neat," he told her happily while still drifting toward her. "Thanks for showing me! Got any other cool stuff you've seen down here?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:34 pm
Lori thought about it for a moment, and shook her head. "Not... really," she mumbled. The only other things of interest for her were all the nooks and cranny's she could hide in. She might have suggested hide and seek, were she playing with her mother, but she wasn't about to let this mer-boy out of her sight, even for a moment.
She wasn't good at small talk either, so Lori just swam in a circle, just for the sake of swimming, and waited. Maybe Alex would get bored.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:47 am
Alex spent a few minutes poking at different things, scaring a couple of fish in the process, before getting bored of it and wordlessly going back over to Lori and her circle-swimming. He started following behind, right at the tip of her tail, grinning. This was a game, he reasoned.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 5:24 am
It was not the reaction she'd expected, and it made her nervous. She started swimming a little faster, widening the circle to test what he would do, the whole time her eyes locked on his tiny body, unwilling to let him disappear from sight, just in case.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 10:10 am
Alex kept on on following as best he could, a big silly grin on his face the whole time. He wasn't really capable of moving very quickly...his body wasn't built for that, so if she sped up, he wouldn't be able to keep up without actually grabbing her tail (which he was refraining from doing).
Up above, Tom looked down in the water. "It...is somewhat disconcerting having them down there without being able to see 'em, isn't it?" He rubbed his cheek a moment. "He doesn't normally stray out of sight for more than a couple of minutes, so this is something new for me." He laughed slightly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 8:12 pm
Japi picked up on the nervous laughter and nodded. "I usually stay down there with her," she admitted. "But Lori is a good girl and she avoids trouble, so I'm sure they're fine." She wanted to assure Tom as much as she could but with such a little mer-child, she could blame him for worrying. Maybe she'd taken Lori's size for granted too. Maybe the large child was just as vulnerable as the small. "I could call them up?" she offered.
The little mer was keeping up but keeping distance, so Lori relaxed a bit, still wanting to keep an eye on him, but not stressing over the fact.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 8:58 pm
Tom glanced at a clock attached to his boat's helm. "Hmm, it is about time for them to come up, I think," he told her. "I wanted to make it over to a nice marina and restaurant down the coast a ways." Left unsaid (although unquestionable) was his unease at leaving the little ones alone for too long.
"But I've got my own way to call 'em up...assuming Lori doesn't get scared by it," he grimaced slightly. "I let Alex swim around in the bay without me, and I ping my fancy equipment here," he leaned forward and tapped a little idle display on the cabin. "It's not too loud of a noise, but he can hear it."
Tom flipped a switch to power up the system, but didn't actually hit anything. "You think she'd be okay with a sudden 'ding!' noise? If not...do your thing."
Swishing along as best he could, Alex came close a couple of times to grabbing on to Lori's tail so he didn't have to work so much to keep up...but he picked up on the fact that she didn't like him being near (which, if one were to be reflecting on such things, was an amazing thing for Alex to notice).
"What're you scared of?" the squishy one asked suddenly. "You're so much bigger than everything around..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 7:14 am
"I think she'd be alright with that kind of thing," Japi said, nodding her approval. Aside from that, she wanted to see the thing in action anyway. "So it's kinda like sonar, then." She asked in a way that was more a statement that a question.
"Little things," Lori whispered, turning around to face him. He didn't seem to be a danger to her, so maybe she could confide in him. "They can sneak up on you," she looked around. "And who knows what they could do?" She threw her arms up at the word 'knows' and tucked them quickly back to herself.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 4:19 pm
"Okay," Tom said, and tapped the little LCD display that mostly had a bunch of numbers and things scrolling across it. After a few seconds, it went blank and a very faint 'poong' noise could be more felt than heard come from the hull.
"Normally," he explained absently as the display showed a rather detailed depiction of the sea floor beneath them...and the silhouettes of a couple of mers, "it doesn't make any real noise when I turn on the sonar, but...it's a useful signal. Still not as powerful as a military grade one, of course."
Down below, Alex looked thoughtful. "Well, little things are usually scared of you," he said carefully, while drifting toward Lori's face. "But I guess...tiny stuff can get on you and stuff." He made a brushing motion on his side, as if there were something there, although there wasn't.
He started to say something else, but then stopped when the sound of the sonar burst reached them. It was...everywhere, although not all around loud or painful. Somewhat unnerving, certainly, but he recognized it. "Oh, time to go back up," he said with a matter-of-fact tone. Alex held out a small hand, to see if she would take it...maybe she'd drag him up, he thought.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
