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Post by Alma on Dec 30, 2022 20:37:09 GMT -6
He tried to charge a few times more after that, getting swatted only once when his eagerness for the treat overpowered a quieter “No” Alma risked, but the word seemed enough to keep the attacks at bay. The last attempt, one that Alma hesitated to refer to as a charge rather than a casual jog, stopped almost as soon as it began when she called out the word.
So, with the sarane watching her carefully but behaving himself, and a bag still far too full of treats, Alma dropped a treat at her feet. Soak lunged for it as he did for all the thrown treats, claws digging into the rocks to slow himself as he heard the warning “No” from her, but he did not stop. Treats on the ground were his, he had learned that well.
Almost as well as he had learned how to recover from suddenly sent skidding the wrong way over stones, mouth full of drool and nothing else.
Alma looked at the sarane as he squeaked, walking back to where she and the treat waited and stopping just out of shoving reach to stare at her, then at the treat. He took a step towards her, mouth opening slowly as though she could not see him if he moved slowly enough, then yanked back his head as she said, “No.”
35 ((Soak No - 4))
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Post by Alma on Dec 30, 2022 20:37:56 GMT -6
She did not let him have the treat then, instead tossing him a fresh one out of the treat bag. She plucked the other one off the ground as he finished the minnow he had been tossed, standing back up with a look at her boots and gloves. Even with the colder air, the sun had done admirable work while she wasted time teaching Soak his first trick, with both sets looking decently dry. She pulled the boots on first, giving a warning “No” that made Soak pull back from the bag of treats she had put down, praising him with a brightly toned, “Good boy! Maybe something’s between yer ears after all, Soak?” Then came on the gloves, one still whole, both crackling and sprinkling a small amount of dried mud flakes that had stubbornly clung on during their earlier shakes.
Then the little blue drake pointed his nose into the air and took a deep sniff of the moist air, and turned away from Alma to run towards the river. Alma chased after him, a dried minnow in hand, shouting a belated “No!” that sent him sliding to a stop by the little pool she had washed him in earlier. Another repeat of the command a few seconds later had him pull his head back from the pool, the blue snorting water off his nose as he looked up at her. She gave him the minnow, and knelt by the pool, ignoring the fresh mud joining the dried amount on her knee and the nearby crunching of bones.
36 ((Soak No - 5, End?))
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Post by Alma on Dec 30, 2022 20:39:00 GMT -6
“Hey, you got a catch!” Alma clapped her hands together as she looked into the pool at the new inhabitants. Some of them she recognized from the books she had read on the subject of the river, like the red finned and short whiskered pair keeping near the sides of the pool. The three shells in the center eluded her memory until the black fantail swam too near, the two larger shells opening up to reveal what looked like a mouthful of teeth. Mimic clams! And even what she could only assume was a hydrish, the words in her memory of a tiny creature built like a lasiobel but with three heads.
Even if there was nothing else to be found in the water, that last one made the entire trip worth it. Something like that was a collector’s piece, something perfect to set to swimming in the tank she had prepared.
The question was how to get them there. She looked at Soak, the minnow long forgotten, as he stared at the things swimming in the water. 37
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Post by Alma on Dec 30, 2022 20:39:38 GMT -6
Suddenly, Alma grinned down at the little sarane as he continued his study of the fishy intruders. “Looks like you’re going to get a few more treats today ‘fore I get back to fishing.” She clapped her hands together forcefully, the noise startling the blue sarane into looking away from the valuable fish in the pool. Alma held out her hand in the same position as she had done when holding minnow, her fingers curled around empty air as she waved it side to side. Soak’s head followed the movement of the hand, but he made no move to follow her as she stepped away from him.
“Guess you learned that first one pretty well, huh?” Alma kept her hand up as she crouched beside the bag of treats, the young sarane only having moved enough to track her after she passed beyond the bank to the beach. She palmed a minnow then slapped her knees loudly, scattering some mud, yelling a cheerful “Come here!” Soak slowly came closer as she repeated the command, keeping her tone light and the minnow held in plain sight.
38 ((Soak Come - Start 1))
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Post by Alma on Dec 30, 2022 20:40:31 GMT -6
When he stood just out of shove range, Alma ceased slapping her legs and tossed him the treat, replacing the repeated command with a “Good boy, Soak!” While he ate that treat without a second of hesitation, Alma took several quick steps past the buckets before the sarane finished his minnow. “Come,” she said, slapping her legs again, and Soak waddled up to her, this time stopping just within shoving reach. She praised him and tossed the treat to land slightly behind him, taking the time he spent digging up the treat and gulping it down to get even farther away. Alma called out “Come” and he spun around looking for her, waddling over with decent speed once he found her.
“Doing great so far,” she said, tossing down the treat and stepping past him to reach the buckets. This time, either he had found the treat faster or her walk had been slower, for she turned to find he had already raced back to her, squeaking in demand for more treats. Alma blinked slowly at him, then shook her head and ignored him. She picked up the buckets and her net and started walking back to where the shallow pool was. 39 ((Soak Come - 2))
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Post by Alma on Dec 30, 2022 20:41:23 GMT -6
Soak stopped following her after she set foot on the mud, letting off one final squeak before falling silent. Alma glanced back at him, yelling a quick “No!” that sent him scurrying back from the sack of supplies with a squeak of protest. “Or was it denial? You weren’t gonna eat any of the bait or other treats, maybe?” He glared at her from the stones, or maybe she had just been around the little sarane too long and was starting to imagine emotion in those blank eyes. “Trus’ me. You’d have ended up in the hooks or somethin’. And that ain’t gonna be a good time.”
Alma set the water-filled bucket down by the pool, then pulled the empty one through it, catching some of the slower residents of it as she filled the bucket with water. Then she looked back at the little sarane at the beach, still looking like it was glaring. “Come here,” she called out to him, giving a little wave. The sarane did not move from his place, and Alma repeated the command louder, slapping her knee with her free hand. Soak took off down the bank at what was a half-run, half-slide, catching himself with his fluttering wings a moment before he would have slammed into her boots. “Good boy, though we’re going to need you to know the word too.” She tossed him the minnow, and turned back to the pond. 40 ((Soak Come - 3 Soak 8.0/8.0 Alma-266))
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Post by Alma on Dec 30, 2022 20:42:26 GMT -6
Alma spent a good minute chasing around the faster swimmers with the net, occasionally warning off the curious Soak with a “No” and cursing the darting fish as they seemed to just suddenly not be in the nets path anymore. She had them soon enough, shaking the end of the net as she let them loose in the bucket, finding an extra little purple star critter that had been hidden beneath some of the mud. Once she was satisfied that she had all of the beasts, she tucked the net back under her arm and carried the buckets back up to the rest of the supplies. “Come,” she said, catching the eyes of Soak as he looked up from the now empty pool.
When he did not come over, and neither did she slap her knees, she yelled the command a second time as he turned away. This time when he looked back at her, she held up a dried minnow, repeating the command as she waved it in the air. Soak walked back to her slowly, and she tossed him the treat when he came to a nearby stop. “Good Soak! Bit slow, but at least you did it.” 41 ((Soak Come - 4))
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Post by Alma on Dec 30, 2022 20:44:06 GMT -6
After looking at the little sarane, Alma dropped the net with the rest of the supplies and picked up the buckets once more. The first one she placed a few meters away, then the second a few meters from that, forming a rough triangle. “Gotta make sure you get it,” she told the sarane with a shrug as it watched her.
Then, still standing by the second bucket, she called for him to come to her. He did so, and did it again after finishing his minnow when she moved to the first bucket. He followed her as she walked a few circuits around her things, and, when he finally stopped to look at a hydrish head poking out of one of the buckets, she called for him to come over and rewarded him when he did. That cycle continued for a while, with her sometimes walking past him, or stopping somewhere and not calling him to her, not so much as looking down at him if he ran up without the command. 42 ((Soak Come - 5))
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Post by Alma on Dec 30, 2022 20:45:18 GMT -6
Alma had been walking the uneven route long enough that her feet were beginning to throb. She walked it one last time to pick up the buckets and then call Soak back from where he was sniffing at their recently vacated spaces. He bounded over as though the stones were a paved road, taking his praise as Alma dropped off the buckets with the rest of the supplies. “Well, yah seem to have it. Still rather not risk you running into the water or something though,” she said, looking back down at the bank. “Can see the outline of the rope there, else a really skinny salaves.”
Her chuckle at the thought was cut short as something else on the bank caught her eye. She cursed then, the sarane fluttering a few paces back at the angry tone. “Of all the things to forget,” Alma snarled as she stomped down the muddy bank, stepping on the rope without a second thought as she made her way down the stony path, “I had to forget the priciest thing!”
Alma dropped into a crouch next to her forgotten fishing rod, the tool spotted with mud and weeds and somehow still jammed into the stones she had left it at. “Come here, Soak!” she yelled out, looking back at the sarane to see him walking down the bank to her as quickly as the mud would allow him. 43 ((Soak Come - 6 End?))
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Post by Alma on Dec 30, 2022 20:46:22 GMT -6
Despite the first impression, the rod proved to be in oddly good condition. The rocks that had somehow held it in place during the sudden flood had kept the mechanism from sinking into the mud, allowing her to wipe away most of the muck and unwind the weeds with no more tools than her gloved hands. The reeling mechanism also worked without a hitch, leaking some water as she pulled the line back in to check it. The bobber was still tied to the line, and she wiped it down to reveal the bright red and white paint job.
But the lure was gone, sucked off to only the gods knew where with its impaled worm. “Still, rod’s the important part, right Soak?” Alma said with good cheer, pleased that the rod itself seemed fine. “Just need a new hook, and good as new.” She was so happy in fact, that she reached towards the sarane without a second thought, patting him on the head like a houluh before she remembered herself.
She snatched her hand back and smiled down at the sarane. “Well, thanks for not bitin’ this time. I owe you another minnow for that.” She walked back to the supplies pile with the rod, Soak following close behind her. 44
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Post by Alma on Dec 30, 2022 20:49:10 GMT -6
Picking the new hook and tying it on the line took almost no time at all, but Alma left it with the rest of the supplies while she went back to locate the rope and stake. Digging the stake out of the wet mud took several minutes, Alma finally pulling what was left under the mud with a pop. The rope and stake were rinsed in the water, the former untied from the latter to be retied onto her arm and the rope harness fastened upon the blue sarane.
With Soak now secured, Alma picked the rod back up and returned to the bank, casting the hook into the water with a practiced flick. Soak wandered around the mud for a short while, digging at certain points and hopping away with a flutter of his wings when a patch of mud proved less ground than water. Eventually, the sarane made his way to the rocks and curled up to take a nap.
Using:
45
((Soak-9.0))
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Post by Jack on Dec 30, 2022 20:59:04 GMT -6
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Post by Alma on Jan 1, 2023 15:33:37 GMT -6
It was a good deal later that the sarane was awake again, the sun high in the sky and winning for a brief bit against the chilly morning air. He missed out on the excitement of finding the can full of fish to be netted and deposited into buckets, and the panicked scream of “A bobbit? Nonono,” as Alma sought to recapture the offending worm in the can and keep it from eating any of her catches. Throughout it all, Alma had kept the length of rope tying her to the sarane somewhat loose, letting her bolt down to the river’s edge and back to the rockier beach without dragging him along behind her.
But the moment she caught him lifting up his head to yawn at the sky, she jammed her rod into a rocky pile made to hold it, and turned fully to grin at him. “Now that you’re awake, Soak,” she stressed his name, “let’s teach yah a few more things.” He blinked at her as she walked past him to where the dried minnow bag lay. “And while it ain’t gonna help when yer trying to throw me, I think it’s about time you learned your name, Soak.”
46 ((Soak Name - 1 Start))
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Post by Alma on Jan 1, 2023 15:34:18 GMT -6
“Now, I know I’ve been sayin’ your name a lot today, Soak,” Alma shook the bag of minnows, and watched as the blue sarane shook off the last bits of sleep, “on account of just coming up with it today. So I have a feeling you might already have picked up on me addressing you when I say Soak.” Alma walked over to him as she spoke, and, as the sarane met her eyes on the last word, she tossed him a minnow. “But I want to be sure yah know it,’cause there are some guild points to be earned if you definitely respond to it and don’t choke.” She stressed that last word, but did not look down as the sarane looked up from the minnow flakes he was licking from his claws. Instead, she walked past him to stand at the bank, looking down at the river. She waited until she saw him look away before continuing speaking. “Funny to think you’ll be a better trained sarane than some of my actual fighters,” she said crossing her arms as she watched him out of the corner of her eye, “but it’s better than letting yah grow up to only be good as breeding stock for the hens. So we have to do this.” She saw him start to amble over to her as she said “so”, and deliberately walked away.
47 ((Soak Name - 2))
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Post by Alma on Jan 1, 2023 15:34:43 GMT -6
When the puzzled sarane stopped, Alma stopped a few steps later. “C’mon now, Soak,” the sarane cocked his head to the side at the word, and Alma tossed him a treat and some praise to go with it, “See, I knew you had to have picked up something by now. Or else yah might have thought your name was bastard or somethin’.” That thought made her laugh. “Maybe I’ll name one of yer kids that down the line. After all Soak, you good boy,” she tossed him a treat as she passed him, “yer stubbornness combined with Drips gluttony ought to be a sight to see. At least they should be pretty though.”
She continued to babble on for quite some time, tossing him treats for responding to the name with at least a look, sometimes tossing in a “Soak, come on over here” to make sure he would come when called.
48 ((Soak Name - 3))
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