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 Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 9:43 pm
 Ah, to swim; to swim where the water temperature was not almost ice but instead a pleasant few degrees cooler than the air; to swim where the fish were scattering minnows instead of the monsters in the mountains. The summer weather had called to the warm-blooded female and once again she seemed to forget her pack borders. They were so empty now anyway that she wondered what point there was in staying.
There was a beaver family patching the dam that created this lake, though they fled inside their home when they saw the wolf approach. She did not seek a meal, only to amuse herself in the water. She waded in slowly, her fur growing heavy with the water. Her winter coat had shed, which was good -- otherwise, she feared she may drown. To challenge herself, Adriana chose to paddle to the center of the water and to the other side, only her masked face appearing above the water. She felt pleasantly at home here. This area had all the pleasantries of her native land, without the pesky annoyances of family.
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Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 9:58 pm
 The sun shone warmly on his fur, but the young male felt a coldness around his heart. The fight with his father weighed heavily on his spirit, made his steps slow and uncertain.
The great overlook high up on the plateau at the base of the mountain, where his pack made their home, loomed far in the distance. His angry run had taken him out of pack lands, but he didn't feel a compulsion to turn back yet. The wanderlust of youth had overtaken him, and now he wandered, waiting for the homesickness to drive him back.
His nose caught the scent of water on the gentle breeze, and his thirst pushed him towards the lake where it came from, his tongue lolling in the gentle heat.
Something caught his eye, and as he stood on the water's edge, his keen bi-colored eyes, a trait that had so far been in every generation of his family, tracking what looked to be an animal swimming in the middle of the lake.
"A...wolf?" he murmured to himself, tilting his head this way and that, trying to catch a better look at it.
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Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 10:48 pm
Adriana couldn't hear his mumbled words, which was fine, as she highly disliked those with an apparent low intelligence. If a creature could not even recognize its own species, it was not one she wanted to talk to. She was no genius, but ignorance she did not tolerate -- male ignorance even less.
At first the brown-and-black male looked only like a piece of the shore, until the shore started moving. It was then that she saw what she had mistaken as a brilliant leaf was a tuft of hair on the adolescent's head. She wouldn't mind brief company, and continued on her route. This wasn't her lake or her territory, so there was no reason to avoid or run off visitors.
The water grew shallow enough for her to walk on it a good fifteen feet out, the water plants and algae slippery under her feet. "Hello," she drawled, knowing it was always best to make your intentions friendly, "where d'you hail from?"
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Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 10:57 pm
Finally able to see more than the vague shape of her head, Phrixos eyed the female as she left the deeper water, his stance wary. At her drawled greeting, he relaxed enough to offer her a flick of an ear in acknowledgment.
"The Acropolis packlands," he said in a clear voice that would grow smooth and rich with age. The young male non-chalantly lowered to his haunches, watching her approach with curious eyes. "Do you swim often?" he asked, choosing that question over something more obvious and less intelligent then "Do you like to swim?"
Stupidity was not a trait he had been affected by.
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Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 7:59 pm
Adriana did the opposite, lower her front half to stretch before shaking her body to loose it of water. Only then did she move closer to the other wolf, having maintained the distance only to keep him from being affected by her spray.
She hadn't heard even rumors of those lands, but she wasn't the sort to fear the unknown. His relaxed posture suggested he felt he had nothing to fear from her, either.
"Oh, it's great fun," she said, finally stepping onto the shore. "Been doing it since I was a pup." Her family had relied on the river for all its needs; to provide them with food, guide them through their packlands, disguise their scent from land prey and undesirables, and protect them from overheating in the ever-present sun. "Have you, ever?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 08, 2010 3:54 pm
He gave her a sheepish look, his ears flicking back. To be honest, he'd never stepped into any body of water, out of respect of his mother's anxiety about the river that bordered the pack lands.
"I...well...no. I've never swam before," he finished quietly, looking at the water with a neutral expression. "My mother nearly drowned when she was a pup. She never let my siblings or I near the water except to drink."
Sighing softly, he looked back at her, and his bi-colored eyes were curious. "Is it...hard? To swim, I mean..." After he asked the question, he ducked his head a little, berating himself for sounding like the adolescent he tried so hard not to be.
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Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2010 8:30 pm
"Oh." She also pinned her ears back against her head. Death was a looming spectre, nothing to be mocked; Adriana could certainly understand a mother's desire to keep her pups safe.
But there was no reason to avoid swimming forever. There were dangers under the water, and if anything a good swimmer overstated them to herself, but once you understood those dangers they were easy to avoid. If water seemed dangerous you didn't enter it; and if you only entered safe water, the probability of you drowning were very, very low. Adriana had grown up in a pack of water-dwellers, and throughout her whole time there she could remember only one drowning--an older male who had overestimated his ability to handle a fast stream he'd managed as a youngster.
"Oh, it's no harder than walkin'," she told the young male reassuringly, giving her tail a light wag. "Though I suppose walkin' was hard, too, when you were first figurin' it out."
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Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2010 11:46 pm
He gave the water a slightly nervous glance, one ear flicking briefly flat. Then he puffed his chest and stood, walking with a determined stride to the water's edge.
The warmth of the lake water surprised him as it tickled his toes and he took that as a good sign, continuing forward until the liquid just lightly brushed his belly. Looking at the femme over his shoulder, he smiled slightly.
"It feels nice. Oh..." He gave her a meek grin but his eyes sparkled with the sudden, random happiness of youth. "My name is Phrixos."
Tail wagging, his confidence gaining, he went farther, the water now lapping gently against his chest. "This is pretty easy!" the young male laughed, his voice edged by newfound arrogance.
Unbeknownst to him, however, a steep drop-off lay in his path, and as he took another bold step, the sandy bottom was suddenly gone and he disappeared under the surface with a yelp.
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Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2010 11:43 am
She knew she should have stopped him sooner; warned him of letting his feet leave the ground and waded in with him. Swimming in water was nothing like walking on land -- on land dangers came from in front, behind, and to your sides; on occasion you had to worry about a threat from the air, or dangerous footing. But in the water, there was danger from all sides, especially below you, and a wolf had no senses keen enough to realize them. It took intuition and experience to stay safe, neither of which the adolescent had.
"Phrixos!" Since he had only just introduced himself, Adriana hoped shouting his name in panic would not be the only opportunity she had to say it. Without thinking, she splashed back into the water. Going against all her instincts, she dove, her head disappearing under the water. The sediments burned her eyes and the ruckus she'd made meant silt obscured any view she could hope to have, but the young male's bright green dots stood out against the murky colors of the water. Adriana paddled her feet in unison to reach him, gripping the hank of hair on his head in her jaws and powering toward the surface with her hind legs.
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Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2010 5:49 pm
He panicked as soon as the water closed over him, inhaling it. A cold fear gripped him, and he wondered briefly if his mother's fears would come true as he felt his lungs fill with the deadly liquid.
A sharp tug to the longer hair on his head galvanized him, and his pain-filled eyes opened to see the white patches of the female's fur. Realizing that she was trying to save his panicked dead weight, he started kicking his legs in an attempt to help. But his vision was started to grow spotty, dark patches flitting over his eyes at his lack of air, and he felt his limbs grow heavy.
He was going to die...
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Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2010 11:09 am
It was a good thing they were so close to shore; Adriana only had to pull the male's water-logged body into the shallows, until at least his nose would be above water. She let him like there on his front, and beat at his back with her forefeet. He hadn't been under long, though all it took was a little water and a minute to drown. If he'd inhaled, at all, and his body refused to expel the water, it wouldn't matter how quickly she had gotten him out.
"Breathe," she told him, a simple order. She didn't scream it. If he was going to obey, he would; it was beyond her power to assist now. He had to make that choice to exhale, or vomit, or both; all she could do was pound his back and help it along.
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Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2010 1:25 pm
He felt something beneath him, the terrible sinking feeling suddenly gone as Adriana dragged him into the shallows. Her words reached him, but they were muffled, as if cotton had been stuffed down his ears.
But his own brain kicked in, sending him a desperate message to breathe, that it was safe to inhale again, and he took that needed breath.
Gasping, his eyes flew open and he retched up the lake water, his sides heaving until there was no water left in his lungs or stomach. His nostrils burned and his strong body shook with weakness as he stumbled out of the water, collapsing before his hindquarters could make it to dry land.
Phrixos lay there panting and terrified, his body shaking. He couldn't meet Adriana's eyes, his adolescent male ego severely wounded. "Thank you..." he muttered, voice hoarse from his retching.
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Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 10:50 pm
She paced onto solid ground, pausing for a moment to sniff lightly at the water where Phrixos' diluted bile floated on the surface. This physical marker of his shame would quickly wash away.
"No, it's my fault, really," she said, stepping around his prone body. She wasn't sure what to do from here. "I should have told you to be mo' careful. There ain't just flat ground under the water."
Adriana nudged him lightly with her snout. "You'll be alright in a minute," she said. "Just a little water. Won't hurt you. Your body knows how to get rid of it." If there was one thing a body could do, it was react when it didn't have oxygen. To inhale or, if that was impossible, expel whatever was in the way of inhalation. But it needed to work quickly; suffocating to death was terrible but fairly quick, as deaths went. Adriana obviously had never spoken with anyone who had drowned, but survivors had told tales of stars behind their eyes and waking dreams.
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Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2010 11:08 am
"Breathing water is a terrible feeling," he said softly, his panting slowing to deep controlled breaths as his body finally stopped heaving up water. He looked at her and gave her a weak smile. "Maybe I should try again some other day."
Getting to his feet, he moved away from her to shake the water from his pelt without getting her wet too.
"I can see why my mother is terrified of water. She was carried by the river for who knows how long before our alpha saved her." He shivered slightly at the thought of being swept away by that raging river at the edge of their land.
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Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2010 9:45 am
Adriana watched as he politely shook his coat away from her. She wasn't sure what to do with polite youngsters. The only polite male she knew was Sirius, and, well, he was old -- and an alpha. Outside of him, and a charming male she'd met on a mountain side, she hadn't had much interaction with boys outside of her old, chauvinistic pack. There, the young males were never polite to you, unless they wanted something -- but Phrixos was too tired to want anything.
"Well," she replied, "you have t' know what you're doing before you get in. Otherwise... well." She tipped her nose toward him to indicate his current state. "But, at least you're willing to try again."
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