The sun had yet to fully rise by the time Raiha had finished with her flock. The birds were fed, the chicks were weighed and measured, records written down, and the flights were cleaned out. She got Diallo his breakfast - kennels or no kennels, the deerstalker bunked with her, and likely always would - before helping herself and tidying up what few dishes she generated. She eyed the stables before rolling up her sleeves and deciding to just get done with it. She wasn’t on schedule for feeding and stall cleaning duty, but she never minded pitching in. Work was good for you. It was getting chilly, too, she noticed. Just as well. With a little luck, the weather would hold out. It didn’t look too much like rain, which didn’t bother her unduly, but when you were already down in the cold water of the sea hunting for clams and shellfish and anything else you could bring back for dinner, well, a little extra rain could be very annoying indeed for someone without gills.
Kadrath had agreed to meet her at the shore below Sanctuary at midday, and Raiha gathered up the supplies that she would need - buckets, shovels, and more buckets. She didn’t take a bird with her today - but Diallo was coming, as he usually did, and he seized the metal handle of one of the buckets in his teeth and carried it while she looped the remaining handles over the wooden shafts of the digging spades and headed for the sea, taking the winding path down the cliffs to the beach, whistling all the while. She picked up a pair of driftwood sticks on her way down, that had either washed ashore or fallen from the trees, lightly tapping her leg with them as she went. Once they reached the shore, she exhaled, breathing in the brisk, briny scent that came from the water, squaring her shoulders and opening her senses to the sea. It just felt good. On Konti Isle, she had gone swimming nearly every day, winter, spring, summer, or fall. Here, not so much.
The young Akontak dropped the driftwood, and sunk the spades into the sand, setting the buckets on the sand, their handles still looped around the handles of the shovels. She whistled for Diallo, who had carried his bucket into the water while getting his belly wet, and he hauled it back to her, shaking water from his short, white coat as he went. “You’re a brat,” she told him affectionately, emptying the pail of the gathered sea water and linking it over another shovel before taking her boots off, and rolling up her leather trousers to her knees. Her suvai, lakan, and hunting knife were on her wide leather belt, hidden underneath the warm woolen grey sweater she wore against the cold. Oh, the tips of the sheaths could be seen, but as to what they were, well, that would require closer inspection. Her long white hair had been braided flat against her scalp and out of the way, before ending in two long plaits that hung over her shoulders, tied with rawhide cord. She had her leather vest underneath, in the event that the sleeves became too much. But as it was, she just pushed them up to her elbows, and picked up one of the driftwood sticks.
One of them she would stick in a flight, but the other, well, this one was Diallo’s as she waved it, tapping the ground with it, and the big dog, usually so solemn and serious like his partner, was almost a puppy again as she drew back and sent the stick winging into the water. He plunged after it to retrieve it while she grinned to see the sight. “Bring it in!” she called to the dog. For all that throwing sticks was a good game, it was an excellent training method as well. If a dog was having fun doing something, it just reinforced that it was good to do, and for any hunting dog, knowing to bring back his quarry to his handler was imperative. He brought the stick back, water surging with his heavy body, as the cold water shocked her ankles, and the two grappled for the stick before Diallo let it go and Raiha threw it again.
Sometimes, girls just wanted to have fun.
