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 Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2014 11:59 pm
Gods, how long had it been? Could it really be as long as he was thinking? When was the last time he had fished properly? When he was very young and in his birth pride, Saba used to fish all the time, at least before the whole responsibility of future leadership thing was hefted upon his shoulders. It had been a fun way to spend afternoons and great for grabbing a quick snack if one was feeling peckish. However since his leaving in adolescence, the vast majority of his food came from standard hunting or, if he was pressed some way or another, scavenging.
At present, the large male sat on the shore, contemplatively gazing at the water of the lake, debating with himself. If fishing was anything like swimming, it wouldn’t be anything at all to catch some fish. Surely catching fish in the lake wouldn’t be harder than fishing in the sea. There was less wave action and, unless there were hungry crocodiles or aggressive hippos, there were no large dangers to worry about. Hm. Could be fun to try his paw at fishing again, even if it was just to see how bad he had gotten from falling out of practice. Push came to shove, Saba could just use it as an excuse to swim around a bit and let the water cool his hide from the heat of the sun. He had no doubt that he was still a capable swimmer. Dipping a paw into the water, he swished it about. What could it hurt? It was a hot and sunny day with very mild winds; the skies nigh completely devoid of cloud cover. A dip was just the sort of thing this type of dayPrincess_Feylin Let me know if you need more to work off of or if the color of his text is too taxing for your eyes. I'd be fine with just straight up black if it's what you'd prefer. ^^
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Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:01 am
 Tuva had come up with an ingenious method of dealing with the heat. She had positioned herself at the shore of the lake, close enough that she could dip her tail in, which she did. Once the tuft was completely soaked through, she would flick it back toward her body, lightly misting herself. It was pretty clever, in her opinion.
On the edge of her vision she could see a large, striped male dangling one paw in the water. She didn't know him, but in the Pridelands that was nothing out of the ordinary. The pride was enormous, and the odds of meeting a stranger on any given day were very high, unless you stuck to a small family group and never went out, like Tuva's mother preferred to do. Her mother, though, was so very painfully shy that kind of lifestyle made sense.
Tuva wasn't like that.
"Hello over there," she called to the stranger. "Thinking about a swim?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 6:49 pm
A feminine voice drew him from his recollections and absent swirling of the water to the here and now. Blinking and looking around as if having to refocus his vision, Saba spotted the gray lioness a short ways off. She wasn't familiar to him, but that wasn't surprising. This wasn't the place he was born and, considering how truly populous the pride was, it never really surprised him to be meeting strangers on an almost daily basis. Sure, there were some faces he'd see somewhat regularly, but he was always getting to meet new, interesting, and varied sorts of folks. It was nice after having spent so much of his time on his own.
He offered her an easy smile and an angled dip of his head. "Afternoon," He greeted brightly. "As a matter of fact, I am. Mm, maybe with a little spot of fishing to see if I'm still up to snuff, but mostly swimming, I think. How about yourself? Looking to escape the heat with a little dip? Oh, I'm Saba, by the way. Might I inquire as to your name, miss?" The male said as he rose to his feet and waded into the water to where it was almost up to his elbows. "You're most welcome to join me, if you'd like. Swimming and fishing was always better with company as I recall it."
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Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 5:07 am
"Fishing?" There was a measure of incredulity in her voice as she repeated this word to make sure she'd heard what she thought she'd heard. Then she remembered he'd asked about her name. "Sorry. I'm Tuva. But really? Fishing?"
Believe it or not, Tuva had never eaten a fish. She had seen a few of them darting below the surface of the water, but when she was younger they had always moved far too quickly for her small claws to hook one, and as she got older they started looking too small for a meal, and thus too small to bother catching. At that point she had lost interest in them, as long as none of them nibbled on her.
"I don't really swim," she confessed, because she didn't. She could paddle around, lifting all of her paws from the bottom in shallow water and thereby pretend to be swimming, but if she ever reached a depth where she couldn't put her feet down and touch bottom with all of them, she tended to panic a little. More than a little if there was anything resembling a current.
"But I could watch you and point out fish," she offered by way of a compromise. It was hot enough that wading sounded nice, but her tail dipping worked well enough that she saw no reason to immerse herself and spend the rest of the day with fur lying in odd directions because it had dried funny.
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Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 12:33 pm
The sound of disbelief at his mention of fishing caused him to stifle an amused grin. He chuckled lightly and briefly bowed his head to her upon learning her name. "Pleased to meet you, Tuva, and yes indeed, I do mean fishing. I used to do it all the time when I lived on the coast. We used to eat fish of all sorts, crabs, eel. Urchins were pretty good but they really require work and care to get at the meat." He shook his head with a wrinkling of his nose, remembering the trial and error learning process of urchin handling. "From time to time, we'd also eat turtle, but not so often. They didn't tend to hang around the shore for too long. Just long enough to lay their eggs and head back out to sea. There were sea snakes, but they pack a bite that can very well be lethal, so we let them be."
"Oh. I see," Said Saba at the revelation that the lioness didn't swim. He offered her a smile at her suggestion. "That'd be perfect. Sure. Thank you. Company is company whether in the water or no." He waded in further to where the water lapped at his belly and, without much in the way of ceremony or warning, dove under the surface of the water, pushing off the ground to glide deeper into the water. It felt wonderful. There wasn't much in the way of current, just the mild waves nearer to the surface from the wind blowing. There were indeed fish around. His dive sent those nearest to him darting away. Mostly they were small fry that weren't worth much notice, but he could see the silhouettes of larger fish swimming around. With this discovery, the big male pushed off the bottom and paddled for the surface and shallower waters.
Breaking the surface, he took a big inhale of breath and flashed a big old smile, in spite of not being able to see clearly as his mane now hung wetly down in front of his eyes. "There are some possibilities down there." He shook his head and blinked his eyes as he anchored his feet on the lake bed. "I'll try to chase some closer, okay? If I do it right, I can have 'em practically racing out of the water at you if you're up for a little catch." He gave a shrug. "Or I can more gently corral them in the shallows for easier catching. Have a preference, Tuva?" It truly didn't matter one way or another to him. He was just having fun playing around in the water.
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Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 2:31 pm
"Crabs, eels, and urchins, hm?" Tuva hoped she was managing to sound politely interested, instead of mildly confused. She was frustrated that she had been reduced to repeating everything Saba said, but he was throwing around a bunch of words she had never heard before. At least she knew what snakes were.
She offered an apologetic smile, but found herself gratified when Saba didn't seem terrifically disappointed by her lack of swimming prowess. Maybe she ought to have learned at some point, but it had never been a skill that she had needed. By and large, no one in the Pridelands found themselves in a position where swimming was a necessary skill. Not while they lived within the Pridelands, anyway.
Tuva watched as he ducked beneath the water and shook her head while he was under there. With all that mane, he was going to smell like lake water for days. At least it wasn't one of those stinky, swampy lakes her mother had told her about from her travels. She continued to follow his progress and wondered what sort of companionship she could possibly offer if he was going to remain submerged. Her question was answered when Saba surfaced.
"Whichever one you prefer," she said, putting on her game face. "What's more fun?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 7:21 pm
Tuva hid her confusion well enough for Saba not to take explicit notice. He nodded. "Yep, weird looking little critters, the lot of 'em. Difficult to get and more capable of putting some hurt on you." He shook his head at remembering a time a crab had grabbed hold of his lip when he made a lunge for it, needless to say, it certainly put him off of crab for a while. Eels could have a nasty bite and urchins required care when handling them. One either had to learn and adapt or stick to fish. While the more difficult to handle things were tasty, Saba didn't overly miss them. The foodstuffs of the grasslands and forests and such were every bit as good and, more often than not, a good bit more filling with less effort.
Saba offered her a smile. "If you ever want tips or pointers or swimming, I'm your guy. I'd be glad to teach you what I know if you ever get the itch to learn. I, ah, understand swimming isn't exactly a common practice so far from the sea." He bobbed his shoulders in an odd little shrug and shook head head again with a soft chuckle.
When given the option to pick his preference, he gave a warm, nigh booming laugh and nodded. He liked the cut of her jib, this one. "Alright! I think a game of catch is in order then, but be ready, Tuva. I'm gonna chase up a big one for you!" He gave her a wink and then began to prepare for his descent back to the bottom.
The male huffed and puffed several deep breaths in and out of his lungs before diving back into the water and making his way to the bottom. Half swimming and half just letting himself sink quietly to the bottom so as to not disturb the water too, too much, he more or less slowly bobbed along the bottom with an eye toward the surface. Honing in on a decently sized fish, the dark male carefully moved himself into position to where the fish was between him and the shore. If he did it right, and with a little luck, the frightened fish would flee directly from him and right towards Tuva up at the water's edge. Once in towards the shallows he'd be able to direct it a bit better, but it all depended on the success of the first move. Shifting into essentially a leaping position, Saba lined himself up as best he could manage and launched himself up and forward toward the unsuspecting fish, his front legs forward and his big paws spread wide. Sure enough, likely both in fright and from the rush of water and lion coming at it, the foot and a half long fish booked it in the opposite direction, away from Saba and the deeper water and towards the shallower, 'safer' water. Once he was able to get the shallow bottom under his paws, he leaped after the fish to give it, or rather the water directly behind it a swipe of his paw, sending the thing leaping for the shore in a last ditch effort to escape.
"It's all yours, Tuva! Catch," Called the thoroughly sodden Saba, looking like the picture of playful excitement.
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Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2014 6:06 am
Weird looking huh? Well, they certainly sounded weird enough to Tuva. She wanted to ask him more about how he had come to know water creatures like that, but this didn't seem the time. Later, she promised herself. She would satisfy her curiosity later.
"I will definitely think of you first," she promised him with a coy smile that surprised her. Coyness was not something she usually exhibited. But then, not too many people outside of her immediate family joked with her because of how painfully shy her mother was and how protective her father was.
"Catch. Right!" she nodded enthusiastically and shifted to be in what she hoped was a more ideal position for snagging the fish he would chase toward her. She really didn't know much at all about the business of fishing, but she supposed snagging it on her claws would be the most effective way, unless the fish was really large.
It was hard to stay focused on where the fish would show up, though, with Saba looking so silly floating along in the water like a very furry crocodile. She had to keep stopping herself from giggling at the sight.
When he called to her to catch the fish she lunged forward, forgetting her careful plans to snag the fish gracefully from the water and flip it onto the shore to suffocate. Both front paws were spread wide in an attempt to trap the fish between them, and her toes were splayed with bared claws. All of which was to no avail as the lioness found her front half submerged in water and her back half still on land with a wildly lashing tail.
With her head below the water she opened her eyes and tried to see the fish but it was long gone, so she backed up onto the shore again, grinning sheepishly. "That was fun."
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