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 Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:14 pm
The best selection of food was to be had in Southern California's costal waters. Well, "best", relative to what they had on-shore; Snowline had gotten much better food when she'd taken off and spent a weekend down in the Sea of Cortez, where everything was the right colors--but makuahine didn't like for her to wander that far from home anymore, so she contented herself with the kelp beds.
The official line was that the kelp forests were a protected area and not even trained human divers were allowed in without a permit, but Southern California's fish-and-game officials had despaired of keeping the Cambrians out of them when they realized most of the aquatic ones were every bit as agile as dolphins and usually gilled to boot. So they'd sighed, given up, and decided the law only really applied to human divers, which meant Snowy could spend just as much time as she liked hunting for snacks (though she'd been politely asked to keep away from the garibaldi and the endangered abalone, which she could live with). The only competition she ever saw for her favorite treats of crustaceans and whole shellfish were the sea otters, and they didn't know what to make of her. She liked them, if somewhat cautiously owing to their teeth and claws, and eventually they learned she wasn't interested in eating them or stealing their babies, and so didn't mind her so much.
Besides, they were usually a good warning system if poachers or even just licensed divers were inbound--both were people Snowy generally didn't like to tangle with. But today was a lazy early-autumn day and even the poachers had better places to be, so no one had disturbed the opabin or her raft of sea otter companions as they had a leisurely, late lunch, anchored among the kelp fronds. Albeit, Snowy was a good ten feet under the surface, keeping her crown eyes on the sea otters as she picked small snails off the bryozoans they were grazing on, but it was generally the same idea. Companionable silence, mostly, though Snowy had to tune out the constant background thrum of the LORAN stations. Ugh! How could humans live with their seas being that noisy all the time?
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Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 8:47 am
Laws, especially patently silly laws, did not apply to Bolide. He didn't think so, anyways, and people generally agreed that arguing with him wasn't worth it. On the few occasions that Bolide had run afoul of fish and game officials, they tended to back off pretty quickly. There's something about resembling a monstrous shark that makes meeting humans out on the water difficult. Bolide didn't know why this should be, but if it meant he wasn't bothered, then it was all for the best. In a way, it was too bad. He kind of liked fish and game people. True, they had to use pitiful boats, but they were out on the sea, defending their territory. An admirable occupation.
The best food was out in deeper water, but Bolide was feeling lazy today and not particularly hungry. He had cruised through the kelp beds once or twice, not impressed with the lack of big fish and lack of open space, but now they seemed attractive. A nap sounded very good, and the kelp beds would be just about perfect. It was hard to take a satisfactory nap out on the open sea. Here he could tangle up his tail in the plants and bask on the surface. In addition to making him look extremely sexy (or so Bolide thought, anyways), his hood could function as a personal inflatable pool raft. Ohhh yeah. He wasn't sure if he could actually get a tan, or why that would be desirable, but he would totally work on it.
His arrival heralded by a chorus of pissed-off sea otter barks, Bolide coasted smoothly into the kelp forest.
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Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:59 pm
Alerted by the barking sea otters, Snowline looked up from her lunch, trying to focus on the vague menacing shadow she'd seen out of the corner of her crown eyes. A moment later she stuffed the snails still in her hands into her mouth, cheeks pouching out like a chipmunk's, and headed for the surface. Despite the kelp--which may have been an encumbrance to a human diver--she was an agile swimmer and didn't have a long way to go, anyhow. Not more than a few seconds after Bolide had made his arrival, Snowy poked the top of her head above the surface, peering around with all five eyes.
With the sea otters making so much noise and rapidly heading away from the disturbance, it wasn't hard to figure out exactly where the intruder was. Hmm. Did she see a familiar expanse of greenish shell, or was she imagining things? Snowy ducked her head under the water again, "chewing" (well--more radulating) the mouthful of snails thoughtfully as she did. Hmmmm. The shadowy thing did look right, down to its unassorted UV markings, and she supposed the taste in the water could belong to him.
She swallowed most of her lunch, poking her head above water again and perking up both sets of ears. "'Ey! Polike! That you?"
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Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 6:03 am
Smelltaste: Sea otters (a good snack, but too small and hairy to make a real meal). Crustaceans (crunchy). Snails (dull, dull, dull slimewads). Cambrian (???).
Bolide surfaced, scraping the kelp off his face with a foreclaw. Hard to see in the damn kelp forest. Too many smells, not enough light, not enough space. Even his rudimentary electrical sense was distorted by the kelp beds. There was a big purple thing here, evidently having a snack. Ahh. Bolide remembered her. She was inoffensive, but boring, boring, boring. At least that had been Bolide's impression the last time he saw her. Bolide had never encountered the other Cambrian out in the water, though, and his interest was piqued. Perhaps Snowline was less dull than he had originally thought.
Swiping a stray bit of weed off his nose with a flourish, Bolide coughed the water from his lungs and grinned at Snowline. "Heil, du süβe Biene," he said grandly, dipping his nose into the water in a makeshift bow. Unfortunately, this dredged up more seaweed, which ruined the courtly effect Bolide was going for. He snorted irritably, clawing the vegetable matter from his nostril. Damn, damn kelp beds. "What do you do today, Snowline?"
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Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 10:13 pm
Oh, he recognized her! That certainly meant he had no intention of eating her. At least, Snowline thought so. (Not that her sense of self-preservation was terribly well-developed except when it came to people with point things...then again, Bolide was one big mass of points. Hm.) Pleased at being greeted, the opabin swallowed the rest of her snails and grinned back at Bolide.
The bow and the resultant festooning with seaweed won a chuckle from her. She wasn't quite sure what he'd called her, but it sounded complimentary, and she nodded back affably. "Lunch," she replied. "And hiding from the pupule Keiki makuahine has over. Pu." She made a face and shook her head.
"The little white thing with the fur and the claws--bad news, Polike, I telling you." She stuck her tongue out, then sighed. "Can't do anyt'ing about it, I guess."
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Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 10:00 am
Lunch! Bolide wasn't especially hungry now, but he was always up for lunch. He squinted at Snowline, trying to make out whatever she was eating. Hmm. She had already swallowed it. No bother, he could always scrape around in the sand for some crunchy-chewy crab snacks if he felt like it. Crabs could do a number on his tongue if he tried to eat them straight out of the sand, but their puny appendages were no match for his claws. Heh, heh, heh.
Hawaiian was a mystery to Bolide, but he understood the tone of Snowline's voice. And he thought he might understand this mysterious 'pu' word as well. Good, good. Bolide had a low opinion of most humans as well. Assuming this pupulie person was a human, Bolide thought Snowline was very sensible to dodge out.
"White thing is bad," Bolide growled vehemently. "It is clawing my nose, for no reasons. Terrible thing, making a mess every where. I try to stop it, but you know." His last disastrous encounter with the nasty beast had involved ripping the ceiling out of one of the Institute's rooms, and although his dislike was reaching the boiling point, he wasn't eager to rumble again within the confinement of the human building. "Humans are bescheuert! Bad to be keeping that thing around, everyone who knows is knowing that." He drifted closer to Snowline, fanning his hood out on the surface of the water. The sun felt nice, nice. Snowline was indeed very sensible to come out here. And to hate the awful feathery beast, that was very intelligent. Snowline was much better than he had thought. Definitely an ally. Good. "We are friends, okay?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 4:16 am
Mmm-mm crabsnacks. Those were another thing Snowy could certainly agree with Bolide on, did she know what he was thinking. She looped her tail absently around a frond of kelp, anchoring herself in place against the inexorable offshore current. Her short ears pricked forward at the foreign word; she tried and failed to shape it with her own mouth and gave up, dissolving into the little burbling, chuffing noises that passed for her polite laughter. The spasm of humor passed quickly, though, and the opabin's face became dour as it ever got at the thought of the little white thing in the Institute.
"Friends, yeah. I like how dat sound." The dour look faded, replaced by her usual affable smile. "Hey, maybe if we don' come dead from all kine of crazies hangin around the place, you and I go swimming sometime, out as far--" She raised a hand above the surface of the water, gesturing out toward the open sea. "--as we can go, yeah?"
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Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2006 8:33 pm
Swimming was good. Bolide liked his new friend. He thought that the deep sea monsters would chomp her down like a little jelly bean, but maybe she had other ways of defending herself. She was obviously smart. Smart people could get up to all kinds of trouble.
"Sometimes, I want to go to the islands -- very long time away, down the other half of the world. You know?" Bolide had never had a companion on one of his pilgrimmages to Micronesia. The outlying islands were perfect for a person of the sea, like him. The native people on the isolated islands were nice and sensible, though a bit too eager to embed a spear in his eye. Too bad, too bad. Snowy might like it there. He thought that she probably would.
"It is a very long swim. Then, there are reefs, islands, lots of fish things to eat. Lots of sand. Gravel. Little kind of people, in little houses. Maye you come." This exceptionally long speech had tired Bolide, and he continued to swim idly around Snowy. He had been planning to escape to the islands for a long time, but kept getting distracted. Part of it was the thought of the loneliness he would face. Escaping from the terrific stress of the human world was the main reason he went to the primitive island, but he wasn't a loner by nature. He abhorred most human company, but he wanted companionship. It was an awkward situation. Maybe Snowy would come. He would guard her from the big toothy fish on the way, and keep her sad jelly fish hide from being popped by a spearfisher.
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