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Post by Noa on Jun 3, 2020 19:34:29 GMT -6
As it was, from a distance, the two of them were still a little difficult to tell apart. Up close, the red streak on Alioth was easier to see, and it was also clear that he was a little bigger, a little stronger, than poor little Roland. When they were all tangled up, it was hard to tell one from the other, and sometimes that had made disentangling them a bit tricky too.
Right now though, they were playing nice, making a little game of wandering around in the grass. Here on the banks of the river, where people only came out for a little recreational fishing once in a while, the grass grew long and unhindered, perfect for some hatchlings to play around in or to hide in. Of course, it was also the perfect kind of grass for hiding any predators, which was why Aster was keeping a careful eye on the lot of them, and listening for any sign of movement that wasn't coming from any of them. But honestly, he didn't really expect much trouble. Not many people frequented this place as of yet; fishing wasn't as popular a hobby as spelunking in these parts, possibly because of the higher cost of equipment. It wasn't that fishing gear was inherently pricier than mining gear, but you had to replace it a lot more often, which made it less of a sound, one-off investment, and more of a... well, almost like a renewed membership deal, or like ammo.
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Post by Noa on Jun 3, 2020 19:35:58 GMT -6
Aster only had the one fishing pole himself now, none of the bait or the rest of that fancy stuff. He used to, but they'd broken, and the ones that were for sale from Nature's Bounty now seemed even less durable than the ones he'd purchased before. At that point he figured he might as well just try his luck with the fishing pole only, and make it a test of his own skills as a fisherman. Besides, he didn't go very often himself, and he was only out here now because it felt like an easier alternative than taking three hatchlings on an outing into the caves.
Maybe it wasn't more dangerous, and he only thought it would be. But Aster knew for a fact that there were other Sarane living down in those tunnels, many of them adults, and it wasn't unheard of for Sarane to kill hatchlings that weren't their own if they encountered them. Hells, Aster kept his own Sarane well away from the hatchlings unless it was the mother of the brood herself, and even then only if it seemed like she would mother them properly. For this lot, one being born from an orphaned egg and the other two from a mother that lived with Rey and not himself, Aster kept them in a separate enclosure of their own as a matter of fact.
He wondered, then, if they thought of him as a parent. He was the one who was feeding them, after all.
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Post by Noa on Jun 3, 2020 19:36:58 GMT -6
He had raised all the Sarane hatchlings in his care himself from a fairly early age, with the exception of Albion and Axchel, whose mother had been on hand and also willing to rear her kids. So those two had gotten to stay with her a lot longer than the rest of the Sarane that Aster had had occasion to work with, which might explain why Albion's temper was so unpleasant. He just hadn't been socialized enough early on to like people, Aster supposed... But even then, Axchel had a more even temper than Albion did, so maybe Albion's antisocial qualities were something unique to him. Fortunately they didn't seem to have passed down any further, at least not as far as Aster could tell. Alioth and Abelia had a bit of a mean streak sometimes, but Aster didn't think that at their age it was more than the instinctive jostling that they engaged in to establish a pecking order. And it had sorted itself out for the most part by now, so he felt a little more confident in his assessment that they would grow up to be reasonable individuals, at least as much as Sarane could be said to be reasonable. The whole flying into a rage upon maturity thing didn't really lend a lot of credence to the idea that they made particularly steady companions, but fortunately breaking was in practice a one and done thing if you succeeded, unless they went off to a new handler, anyway.
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Post by Noa on Jun 3, 2020 19:39:09 GMT -6
Come to think of it though, Avander had numbered among the hatchlings Aster had raised from the egg. Maybe he ought to ask Avander sometime whether he had thought of Aster as a parent at first, when he was too young to know any better. Though then again, even if that were true, it might not have been something that Avander would admit to when asked, if he thought that it was something embarrassing. Which, in his defense, it kind of was. Aster certainly wouldn't have been able to resist ribbing him about it if that was the case.
No, he supposed Avander wouldn't have given him a straight answer. Maybe Aurelius then, if Aster could find his ribbon. Guileless, cheerful Aurelius seemed the most likely to tell Aster the truth.
He could have asked any of the hatchlings, but he wasn't sure he wanted to commit a ribbon to any of them just yet. He didn't have that many left, and he was thinking it might be possible to train these guys without one, save himself some money and even some grief. Stretching himself among too many different minds was sometimes exhausting, and Summer was always chastising him for it too. She never thought he listened to her, but he was at least thinking about it.
For now, Aster picked a good, likely looking spot, and set about casting his line in the water. He didn't have much hope for catching anything interesting, but hey, he was already here, wasn't he?
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Post by Noa on Jun 3, 2020 19:41:39 GMT -6
And seeing as he was already here, not to mention the fact that he had actually brought his fishing rod with him, it seemed to him that it would be a real waste if he didn't say much as make an attempt to fish, even if he knew that he was going to be otherwise occupied with watching the hatchling Sarane. It wasn’t a great way to fish, and if just the act of fishing itself was his goal, then he would have been much better off bringing a different creature with him, but as it was, he was mostly out here for some socialization time with the hatchlings. This was just a little side gig, to help pass the time, or make more efficient use of his current resources.
But the nice thing about not having bought any bait or lures was that he had absolutely nothing to lose by casting his line into the water. It wasn't as though something could come up and eat his whole fishing rod, right? ... Right? He did hear that there were sometimes sharks in these waters. He thought it must have been just a rumor, since he had never seen a specimen himself, living or otherwise, but maybe he ought to keep the hatchlings well back from the water's edge, just in case.
He'd heard of there being whales too, but his fishing hook was probably way too small to tempt the likes of something like that into biting onto it.
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Post by Noa on Jun 3, 2020 19:43:58 GMT -6
Aster looked out over the water's surface, picked a likely looking place, and began the process of casting. It had been some time since he had actually come out to practice fishing, but at one point in time he had been quite good at it, and had gone quite often.
Back then, he had thought of it as something he could do for food if things ever became tough for him again, mostly in terms of his finances. But then, at the time, he had been living among the draconics, who had provided him with pretty much everything he needed.
Which had been all well and good, but charity was charity, and it sat badly with him to be reliant on such a thing. Aster misliked depending on others, since it meant that he would be left at a loss when they left, or betrayed him, or stopped providing for whatever other reason.
Well, that and the principle of the whole thing too; he had his own pride to consider. He knew that pride didn't fill your stomach, but even when he had been a starving urchin, there were some lines he couldn't bring himself to cross. He had never been a beggar, once he was old enough to understand what it really meant, even though it might have made things easier for him sometimes. And so, while he had been recovering under the care of those draconics, Aster had endeavored to learn a skill with which he could feed himself later.
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Post by Noa on Jun 3, 2020 19:46:24 GMT -6
Plus, fishing was such a boring, solitary pursuit when it was pursued seriously, as he had been; not many of the draconics themselves had an interest in it. Doing it helped give him an excuse to get away from them. Marric's family had meant well, but their attention was often overwhelming for Aster, and he never did figure out what to do with all of it. He still wouldn't have known now. His solution to the problem that it had presented to him was to run away from them altogether, and start life anew in the neighboring city.
There had been hatchlings in the draconic den during Aster's time with Marric's clan, and on occasion one or another would jain him for something, even fishing, if they were bored enough or there was no one else to mind them.
The situation he found himself in now, sitting on a riverbank with three little Sarane hatchlings in tow, was a little reminiscent of that, in a way. Though he was sure that the hatchlings he had known back then wouldn't have taken kindly to the comparison, since Sarane were a far cry from draconics in a lot of ways, first and foremost in intelligence. Sarane were just animals, while the draconics were a people, with their own clans and civilizations and all. The ones from Marric's clan had been exceedingly clever, even the hatchlings, and some of those fishing trips where a hatchling had joined him had involved some very complicated, trying conversations.
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Post by Noa on Jun 3, 2020 19:49:49 GMT -6
For that reason, Aster found that he preferred this arrangement, where none of the hatchlings in his companionship asked him any difficult questions. At the time, Aster hadn’t had a chance to experience being around human kids after he had stopped being one himself, but he thought the draconic hatchlings’ questions had to be worse to field than those of regular children from his own species. And while he hadn’t had much experience with human children now either, he had raised several Harachiu, who were of a more similar intelligence to himself. And while Rey and Dami’s ‘why’ phase had been a bit tiresome and occasionally frustrating, for the most part he had been right on the money with his guess about the draconics. At that level of intelligence, the ‘why’ phase had been singularly headache-inducing.
He wondered how they were getting on now. The hatchlings might be grown already. He didn’t know how draconics aged, and hadn’t stayed long enough to find out, so maybe they weren’t, but Aster had the sense that they matured faster than humanoid children. Babies didn’t come out of the womb ready to eat and talk at people, after all.
Setting aside all those memories, he let the line fly, and was pleased to see it land more or less where he had been aiming. His skills could use some polish, or at least some repolishing, but they were still respectable enough that he didn’t have to be ashamed for them.
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Post by Noa on Jun 3, 2020 19:50:02 GMT -6
Not that there was anyone here to see except the hatchlings, and Aster would much prefer it stayed that way, but still. Even for his own satisfaction, he was glad his skills hadn’t rusted away to nothing in the intervening time.
And the hatchlings, for their part, were watching. The movement caught the attention of all three at once--- which Aster hoped was an auspicious sign for what he could actually catch from the river itself. He had hatchlings enough, but it would be nice to be able to go home with some fish on top of that, that was for sure.
Not that he would necessarily be able to go home with anything he caught, with those three gluttons around. He’d have to be careful about it if he did manage to reel anything in, Aster thought. There was a reasonably good chance that one of the hatchlings, or maybe even all of them, would make a pass at the fish. And while they were still small and clumsy, they had numbers on their side, and already they could be quick little buggers when the mood took them.
“Don’t think about stealing my catch,” Aster said to them as the three of them followed the line’s trajectory to the edge of the bank. They peered over it into the water, presumably to see what they could find down there. Aster didn’t immediately order them back, despite his earlier concern about sharks, but he did keep a careful eye on them, just in case.
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Post by Noa on Jun 7, 2020 18:26:57 GMT -6
It would really be a travesty if he lost all three of them in some sort of freak fishing accident. As far as possibilities went, Aster didn't think it was extremely likely, hut he also couldn't rule it out entirely. And if he didn't err on the side of caution, then if the unthinkable did happen, he would be kicking himself about it for the rest of his life.
Even so, he let the hatchlings have their little look. Aster wasn't a tyrant, or at least he didn't think of himself as one; he did understand their desire to look around and explore. But once they had their look, he left his fishing pole propped up, and went over to them to herd them back from where they were standing on the edge of the bank. "Alright, that's quite enough of that," he said. "l don't want any sharks to come looking for a snack here."
And while that was an outlandish if not completely impossible prospect, there was also the very real possibility of the Sarane hatchlings falling off the edge of the bank and into the river proper. While that wouldn't have been an immediate disaster, it sure would be a real pain to deal with. Aster could swim, and if he dove into the water fast enough, he could fish out a drowning hatchling and put them back on the shore, where they would be safe. He had intentionally chosen a stretch of river where the current wasn't very fast.
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Post by Noa on Jun 7, 2020 18:27:25 GMT -6
But even though it wasn't fast, the water was deep, and if Aster didn't notice that a hatchling had fallen in in time... Well, that would be it for that poor little one. And even supposing he could save them in time, they might be left with a fear of water. Not that he would blame them for it if that was the case, but it sure would be a pain to work them through it again, to make a well rounded and socialized hatchling that didn't spook at cornmon things. A Sarane that was afraid of water couldn't really be left that way if Aster ever wanted to do much with them.
So that was why he was herding the hatchlingsbback now, so that he could avoid all of that, or at least take preventative measures against it. If luck wasn't on his side, even this much might not be enough, but it was better to do it than to kick himself for it later that he hadn't.
The hatchlings, being small, were luckily easily shepherded, even if he had to do it rather bodily sometimes, and even if they raised a few squeaks of protest. If there were fewer of them, and if they were a little older, he might have done more coaxing and less jostling, but seeing as they were little hatchlings in a trio, this would have to do for now.
Once they were back enough from the bank though, Aster left them to play on their own again, with himself keeping a careful eye on them.
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Post by Noa on Jun 7, 2020 18:27:44 GMT -6
He went back to where he had left his rod, to check it for any sign of a bite.
There was a tiny, tiny part of him, which had somehow managed to remain optimistic despite everything that had happened to him over the course of his life, which now held the hope that he would get a bite out of somewhere. But it was really only a very small part of his mind, tempered by a lifetime's worth of disappointments and other lessons on just how much worse things could actually get for him. Thus, he wasn't particularly surprised to find that nothing had bitten in the intervening time. He really hadn't been gone for all that long, and fishing was one of those things where you might find yourself waiting hours on end without anything happening. Aster doubted that he would be so lucky as to get something so quickly.
Besides, his hook wasn't even baited, so there was nothing there to appeal to the fish and get them to take a nibble. At best, he could use his skills to entice a fish if he managed to spot one, but that would mean he had to spot one first. So far he wasn't having any luck on that front either, even though he did lean over to have a look himself once he returned to where he had left the rod when he went to go shepherd the hatchlings. The water wasn't perfectly clear, but it wasn't so murky that he didn't have a hope of seeing anything either.
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Post by Noa on Jun 7, 2020 18:31:10 GMT -6
Aster sort of wished it had been, because then it would have saved him the trouble of trying. As it was now, he had the means, so he couldn't exactly give up on it entirely.
The day passed relatively uneventfully like that, with Aster sometimes taking a break to meddle with the whelps when they were acting out, but for the most part sticking to the company of the fishing rod. Not that he caught anything; whether it was the weather or bad luck or what have you, nothing seemed to be biting. But then, well, it had been within his expectations to have bad luck there. At least the whelps were getting fresh air and exercise, which was all he really wanted in the end.
And it gave him something to do instead of constantly having to watch them. They liked to roughhouse, or at least Alioth did, and the other two were sort of just dragged in as a consequence, until Abelia had had her fill and told him to knock it off. And Aster for the most part just let it happen now, since that kind of play was good for their development.
Eventually, however, his other obligations called, and he was forced to pack up his fishing equipment and call the whelps to him. "Time to go home, guys. Bet you're real happy about that, huh, since it means feeding time for you lot." And with the whelps in tow, Aster walked away from the river, heading for home.
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Post by Noa on Jun 7, 2020 18:31:41 GMT -6
Today’s training session was going to be a bit of a doozy. Aster had the three Sarane whelps in his care in tow, or at least the three that he had been working with the most as of late, which was the trio of Abelia, Alioth and Roland. They had formed quite the tight knit group by this time, and while they weren’t necessarily inseparable, they did seem to be something resembling friends, as far as Sarane whelps could be said to have friends. As they had grown used to being together all the time, Aster decided to have them all together for this training session too. It might prove more efficient than doing things one at a time for them.
The thing was though, what he had on the docket for them today was to learn how to sense danger. Aster had taught it before, but seldom without a way to talk with the creature in question and explain what was happening. So he hoped this wasn’t going to break whatever trust they had in him, though he doubted it was going to be a pleasant experience regardless. None of the creatures he’d trained ever liked doing it. It was just that it was an indispensable skill if any of them were going to be fighters.
Not that Roland was likely to be one, if Aster was being honest. The older Roland got, the more obvious it became that this was the case with him.
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Post by Noa on Jun 7, 2020 18:32:09 GMT -6
It wasn’t that he was particularly stunted, though Aster wouldn’t have turned his nose up at a small drake--- Avander had been a runt, after all, and had stayed small even as an adult. It was just that Roland was of a milder temperament even than Aurelius, who had thus far been Aster’s measure of how relatively unaggressive a drake could be. Roland would have to be broken, but as it was, Aster suspected he would make a better display drake than anything else.
Well, there were worse things to be. And if his ‘siblings’ were learning something, Aster thought Roland might as well participate too. Learning how to sense danger was always a useful skill to have, even if you weren’t a fighter. At the very least, Roland had nothing to lose by it, aside from the bit of time devoted to the training, and a little unpleasantness at the start before they figured out what was happening..
To that end, Aster led the trio of them into a pen. It wasn’t very large, but it was big enough for the whelps to range around it comfortably, and even run a short distance if they wanted to. This, even though they were steadily growing into the teen bracket of Sarane development, which was why Aster felt comfortable enough to try this now. They were more or less in control of their bodies now, so he felt like they could do this, whereas it would have been pretty cruel to spring this on them prior to this point.
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