Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ah, this was the life. With the grace and elegance of an eel, Bastian arrowed his way through the water, relishing the smooth sensations as it ran over his body. As the b*****d son of a Kelpi and a water ‘Suti, he liked to think that he’d inherited the best of both worlds: the ability to swim and hold his breath for long periods of time, small size, horns, and the ability to summon a small pool of water in an emergency. That last thing had often proved a wonderful trick; he himself couldn’t stray too far from water for long, and his familiar, a sea turtle, was completely dependent on the wet stuff.

Today, he hadn’t needed to use his summoning ability, as he was on his third day occupying this wonderful lake. It was big enough to allow for many water creatures, deep enough to provide hours of interest exploring, and cold enough to keep the nasty summer heat at bay. Really, he could stand to stay here for some weeks!

“Ah!” With a satisfied gasp, he burst up through the surface of the lake, shaking his head to clear the water from his ears. Having no mane to worry about meant his ears and horns were his only concerns, and in heat like this they would dry quickly.

Shaking his head again, Bastian took a quick glance around to see what the scene at the surface was. Considering how hot it was, he expected it to be hopping…but there was only one other Soquili anywhere near him, and she was on the lake shore! He shook his head; how anyone could be in proximity to the lake and not be swimming in it was beyond him!

Still, company was company, and with a few strokes of his powerful tail he was heading towards the mare. “Water’s great, if you’d like to swim!”

Well, obviously Bastian and the mare were never going to be firm friends; the very idea, that someone could hate swimming! Why, it was the most perfect form of fun and exercise in the world, never mind the health benefits, cooling benefits, hydration benefits…Yep, water was downright perfect, the finest medium in the world!

Still, just because the mare had completely wrong opinions was no reason to be rude and swim away, however pleasant that activity might sound. So he simply treaded water, his large tail fanning back and forth to help keep him upright. “Well, that’s a bummer; I don’t think life would be worth living without water…though I’d most likely dry out and die anyway, so there’s not much point in considering that sort of life.” He shrugged, breaking his stationary pose to swim a bit closer to the shore and the mare. “You must be a Soquili of a different sort, to be so…anti-water.” A bit frank, but that was Bastian!

If there was any scorn or derision in the mare's tone or face, it was lost on Bastian. Since his earliest days, he'd known he was a child or two races; his Water Ulun'suti mother, who had raised him entirely on her own, had held no grudge against his kelpi father. As she had seen it, Bastian was a child of two worlds and ought to be firmly aware of both of them.

So Bastian had no shame in who he was; as far as he was concerned, he was far better off as a mongrel than he ever could be as a pure blooded anything. Kelpi needed water, but they couldn't summon it; Water 'Suti could summon water, but weren't necessarily great swimmers. It was true he might have gotten useless traits from each side, but happily, that hadn't been the case.

So he simply chuckled at her question about his parentage, calling out a merry, "Bingo! Mongrel Soquili, that would be me; half Suti, half Kelpi, and entirely myself. Makes my lifestyle a whole lot easier," he added with a lazy grin. It was obvious she wasn't one who believed in his lifestyle, and for that he pitied her. How sad, to go through life hating water!

"Intrude as long as you want; this isn't my lake, and even if you're anti-water you might as well take all the benefit from it you can. Earth needs water to grow, right?" He was a bit hazy on the different species of Ulun'Suti; he'd only ever met Waters before. But that logic sounded rational; plants grew from earth, right?