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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:48:39 GMT -6
“Think you’ll have a bit more of a challenge hurtin’ yerself in soft mud than hard rock?” The sarane did not respond, his muscles standing out underneath his scaly skin. She wrapped the slack of the rope around her arm as she approached him, then squatted down next to him. She met his eyes, cold things for all their yellow, thin slits of black unwavering as she asked him in a purely casual tone, “Ever tell yah why I like tah wear these too-thick gloves everywhere?” She dropped her voice to a whisper but did not move her face any closer. Silly little beast he might be, but her face was a lot easier to tear into than a rock. “Would yah like to know?”
A great deal of screeching later, mostly sarane but with a bit of human when the former tried to test just how thick the gloves of the latter were around the fingers, and the duo were once again on their way. 6
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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:48:49 GMT -6
The mud sucked at her boots, but, this far from the shinier mud that was the water, it lacked the spirit to really try to steal her boots. The sarane was at first content to leave a thick trail in the mud behind him, stubbornly holding his same position as he had done on the stones, but he began to squeak furiously as he realized he was no longer able to slow her down as he had done before. “At least, pretty sure that’s why you’re all squeaky now,” she laughed as she paused to look behind her, the river sarane now resembling a forest breed with the amount of brown splattered across his hide, “seeing as it’s yer own bloody fault we ain’t walking on the nice ‘n dry rocks over there.”
The blue wailed as she took a few more steps forward, legs slipping into a slightly deeper patch and dunking his low hanging snout. 7
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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:49:04 GMT -6
With another cry, he twisted onto his side as he tried to lift his head away from the offending patch, and Alma dragged him a few more steps before stopping to look. “Seriously? Now you want to nap?” The blue continued to cry, and Alma stepped back to him with a put-out sigh. “Guess I could carry,” she began, stopping next to the prone blue. But her offer to carry the sarane ended in an explosive curse as his head whipped up and his teeth snapped shut on the shin of her rubber boots.
Resisting the urge to punt the small creature into the river, “You are incredibly lucky you are not a forest breed,” she snapped as she strove to shove her glove-fattened fingers between the jaws of the blue and her thankfully oversized clogs that let her still wear her normal boots beneath them. When that seemed to do little more than push his jaws to a slightly new spot and help him tear larger holes in her lovely rubber boots, she cursed and opted to smack him in the nose with the back of her hand. Not a hard enough hit to hurt him, just enough to make him let go, but the sarane cried murder all the same and scampered to the end of the rope to quiver and shake. 8
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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:49:14 GMT -6
Alma looked at the sorry sight, the quivering sarane covered in cold mud, then looked down at the twin rows of punctures around the top of her clogs. She stood, nodded briskly at the sarane as she saw his shivers were not enough to stop him from shifting back into his usual pose. “Right. Fine.” She looked down at the water, then at the bank in the direction they had come, at the small trench the sarane had dug. “Great to see you’ve got some strength in you.” Then she turned back the way she had been facing, glancing at the water one last time. “Good to know.” And then Alma began walking as fast as the pack full of supplies and the slightly sucking mud would allow her.
By the time they found a lovely spot to set up at , one where the water could not be mistaken for being slightly shinier mud and some enterprising fisherman had scattered rocks through the mud to provide some respite from the grasping earth, it was all Alma could do to not throw down the supplies on the piled stones and use the sack as a lumpy seat. 9
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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:49:26 GMT -6
The sarane, more of a mudball than beast at that point, hissed and squealed at the sudden stop, as he had done at the constant walk and each foray at a conversation Alma attempted. “Right,” she said, pulling a long metal spike from the pack, one that had begun to dig its knobbed end into her spine during the last half a mile of the walk. The sarane squealed as she held it up, “You know, that sound loses all meaning when you never stop doing it,”, scampering as far back as he could as she unwound the rope and watched the shining spike with wide eyes.She dragged the sarane slightly closer as she tied the rope as firmly as she could to the spike, then slammed it into the mud. When it did not go deep enough, she leaned on it, hitting the top with her closed fist to drive it down until only an inch peeked above the mud. 10
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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:49:39 GMT -6
“There, you absolute,” her choice of word there, she would later think, was not nearly harsh enough to match her feelings at the time. She continued on, stepping away from the post and sarane to the stones slowly being overtaken by mud. “Now I can fish, you can even reach the stones and that little pond right there,” she gestured at the puddle she so generously described as she rifled through her bag with her other hand, crouching as she started to pull things out of it, “so start being-” The sarane did not wait, but charged the instant her eyes slipped away to look at the fishing pole she was pulling out, his feet wetly slapping against the mud and coming free with a plop as he attacked.
Well, tried to attack.
“Should have watched out for that rope,” Alma said mildly, watching the sarane for a moment as he squeaked and struggled to right himself. 11
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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:49:50 GMT -6
Once he had, he snorted and shook his head, flinging away more of the excess mud before continuing his charge. He was within a yard of her before his feet suddenly could only push mud behind him in small mounts, a tightness growing around his neck and chest as he squealed and squeaked and backpedaled away from where Alma had watched him.
She laughed, letting the fingers of her hand uncurl as she watched the confused sarane try a second time, then flopped in the mud, his limbs pointing in different directions like a throw rug. “Told yah, shoulda watched for the rope.”
Alma spent the next few minutes pulling out supplies and organizing them for easy use. First came the small tarp in which most of the smaller bits and pieces had been wrapped, spread out across the rocky mud to protect said bits from sinking to where they would be no good to anyone but whatever creatures burrowed into the mud. 12
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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:50:01 GMT -6
Then the larger tools were laid out, and the fishing line was strung through the rod with practiced ease, the untied end laying flat on the tarp as she looked through her hooks.In theory, there had to be an assortment of fish hidden under the somewhat muddy water, the odds even higher now that no ice floated down it from the main body of the river. The question was what could be hidden beneath the placid surface, and which of the hooks and bait it would best respond to.
She ran the line to the fancy bobber as she thought on it, turning her head to ask the sarane, “What do yah think, blue? Which one?” She looked to the pile of drying mud that watched her with wide eyes, and sighed, pressing her knuckles of her fist against her brow. “It’s not my fault you can’t follow simple orders,” she muttered, closing her eyes. 13
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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:50:12 GMT -6
Opening them, catching the stare of the blue with one of her own, Alma let the edge of the line fall to the mud, spitting at it as she stood. “Fine.” She glared at the mudball, and stomped once, digging her rubber soles an inch into the mud. “Fine!” She snapped louder, snagging the handle of her largest bucket before stomping off to the stonier beach, stopping only once she was free of the mud. Alma drove the lip of the bucket into them at an angle, shattering the peaceful sounds of moving water and chirping bugs with the scrape of metal on stone.
She came back to the sarane shortly after that, watching the mud slowly rise and lower as he breathed. The stones were dumped by the puddle, and, after a few trips that saw her boots caked to nearly the ankle as if the mud wanted to eat her for dragging so many stones across it, she had a respectable imitation of the rockier part of the shore. 14
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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:50:23 GMT -6
“There. Now, just move there, dry off, and try to be a bit less miserable.” She almost spat that last part, making her way past the muddy sarane to where her gear lay untouched. She wiped the part of the line on the now mostly-empty sack to remove what mud clung to it. She carefully grabbed her pink lure, certain that it, if no other hook or lure, could catch the eye of a fish in the muddy depths. After the lure was secured, she skewered a worm onto it, then cast it with decent force near the center of the stream, hoping the pink of the lure and the wriggling of the worm would be enough to catch the eye, or, rather, the mouth of some curious fish.
There was no quick bite, the bobber cheerfully floating on the surface without any sign of a struggle before Alma thought of her blue sarane again. 15
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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:50:35 GMT -6
She still hadn’t come up with a name for him, though she doubted whatever name she eventually wrote on the registry forms of his offspring would need to sound all that impressive. “Not like they do tourneys anymore anyhow, right?” Alma turned her head from the placid water to look at the little sarane, who elicited yet another sigh of exasperation as she saw him still covered in mud, still doing little more than staring. With a quick glance showing the bobber floating as it had been, she reeled in the untouched hook, and laid the rod on the tarp. Bucket in hand, she returned to the stonier beach, vanishing from the sarane’s sight as the sounds of metal on rock resumed.
The sarane wiggled a little at the sound, but froze as he heard her returning, still doing nothing more than staring at her even as she dropped the bucket by the rocks near him. Then there was pressure at his neck as something grabbed him, and he squealed and slashed out with leaden limbs, flinging away some of the drying mud as the big thing snarled and held him fast. 16
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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:50:46 GMT -6
Then he was in cold water, his squeals forced back into his throat as the water pressed into his open mouth, and he fought harder to break free. He twisted and snapped blindly in the muddy water, feeling something scrape his hide near his wings as he tried to roll. His claws caught in the mud beneath him and he tried to hold onto it, but his claws did little more than churn more dirt into the mixture he was being held in.
And then he was out, the chill sinking into his hide as water dripped from his scales, eyes blinking at the sudden change from water to air. He hung there for a moment as his eyes focused on the big thing that fed him occasionally, his neck and body registering the warmer points on his body where something held him firmly, his ears picking up a sound from the big thing as its breath wafted across his face.
In the face of his death, the blue sarane did not snap at her. He was tired, cold, and hungry, and all he could do was cry. 17
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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:50:58 GMT -6
Alma had done her best to scrub the worst of the drying mud from the sarane when she had held him in the pool, a task made more difficult by his insistence in thrashing and jamming his head as deep into its shallow depths as he could. She was fairly certain sarane, even blues, could not breath in water like a seryn, and she had been unwilling to test her theory beyond the time it took to get most of the mud off of him. His thrashing had kicked up more mud, but it had also served to loosen it, and a quick scouring with a few wet handfuls of sand saw him looking like a river breed once again.
She had even decided on a name for him by the time he was pulled out, and had informed him that “Soak fits yah well” as they stared at one another, the hatchling held just far enough away that she felt she would keep her nose. 18
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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:51:10 GMT -6
When he showed no inclination to do more than loudly squeak, she set him carefully down upon the stones, hopping back up to her feet the instant she released him, and barely catching herself from slipping backwards into the mud a moment later. “It’s not that bad of a name,” she told him as he continued his squeaks, his position the same as when she had placed him. “Besides, if you end up having any good kids, I’d want to save the better names for them.” Alma dumped the rest of the collected gravel onto the stones before carrying away the bucket.
The sarane’s cries did not quiet down until Alma moved back to the rod. She upended the bucket, and left it by the rod, going to the water’s edge with a second, and perhaps a bit too optimistic now that she could see the paltry stream, bucket to scoop it full of water. She had to take several steps through the muddied water that dragged along the bank before it looked clear enough, and she shivered as the cold bit through the rubber even as the water was kept out. 19
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Post by Alma on Dec 28, 2022 15:51:26 GMT -6
The water bucket was set next to the upside down one, and, with a “Funny, ain’t it, how we’ve been here so long and done everything but fish,” pulled a rag out of the supply sack. Alma stalked over to Soak, trying to tell him over his panicked squeaks that “You better stay on the damned rocks” before squatting down to grab him again. His attempts to bite and fight her were no more successful than they had been in the water, and she wiped away as much of the water and bits of wet sand from his scales as she could. The sarane quieted as she muttered at him, and had resumed his earlier silence by the time she was wringing out the rag and setting it to dry on the mound of sand. “Don’t care if you eat that rag,” Alma said as she left him again, returning to cast her line into the water once more and sit upon the upside down bucket’s bottom. 20
Using:
((Soak-4.0/4.0 Alma-265))
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