[Nykan Outlands] Land Ho!

[Boris]

Winter the 5th, 511 Middle light cycle. There was a city not far from here. Like so many others before it, it sat close to the water, her water, their water, touching the shore with its unique smells and bizarre shapes. Boris was particularly familiarized with the signature scents of any landwalker's civilization. They smelled of filth, refuse, rot, and wood. This one had a particularly potent stench, which she recognized as manure runoff from the fields. Farms! She loved farms. They were like tiny pieces of ocean, stretching on and on, so unnaturally square and orderly. The stink of humans. Was there nothing sweeter? Boris slid through the water, flanked on all sides by her jubilant kin. They were following a different scent, the alkaline tang of shinyfish (so she called them). They had a tart, metallic flavor that Boris was particularly fond of, and so at first she was content to let the city wait while she swam with her pod to fill her belly. For at least three or four light cycles, Boris and her adoptive family had been following this ribbon of flavor through the cold, salty water, occasionally crossing paths with other hungry fish-eaters that would share the bounty with them. This shoal was big, Boris' companions had told her, and there would be plenty to eat for everyone. Don't fear the sharks, they'd said, because they are dull and will keep the fish distracted, while we will dine on our wits. Eager for food, Boris released a series of guttural clicks from her closed beak, using the sounds to feel at the water. This close to shore, she could already feel the nearby cliffs and the rocky sea bottom. She heard something strange echo back as well: thick, cylindrical shafts reaching that plunged into the water, like the long legs of an impossibly large human. Dock posts, she recognized. There was a dock! Just off to the side of them, something large echoed. It was oval, shaped like an eye, and bulged into the water like a round belly. An inexperienced dolphin would mistake it for a small whale or a dead seal. Boris knew better. "Boat!" she exclaimed to the rest of her pod, relaying the message in a loud, excited whistle. "Boat!" they echoed back, sharing in her excitement without question. As Boris altered her course to get a better look at the boat's underside, the members of her pod moved with her. They were all hungry, but even if she knew her friends were more leery of humans, they all knew that humans often meant free food. They cast long, linen cages that would trap fish, so many fish, just for the dolphins to eat them. It was Boris' favorite thing about the fish-eating humans. "Fish!" someone else in the pod signaled, dramatically altering his course. It was a larger male, one of the pod leaders. "Fish!" they all agreed, turning away again and following the stronger scent of shinyfish. The pod leader was right: the fish were much closer than everyone thought. Even Boris could see their shimmering sides from here, glittering in a massive, quivering shadow barely perceptible to her soft brown eyes. The sharks were there too, Boris could feel them in the water. Her pod had said not to fear, but she feared. And anyway, there were humans! That was almost a guarantee of a full belly. Let the pod have their fish. Boris wanted her humans. "I'm leaving! I'll return!" she told her pod. "Bye!" they all called in tandem, distracted and brimming with excitement over the shiny fish. As Boris neared the shore, she sent another burst of clicks at the rocky beach. It was the same as before, though she noticed from the echo that the boat was empty. It was merely a small vessel, not a fish-eating one, stationary at the dock and waiting for a human. The dock posts were still there. The coarse ocean bed was the same. Wait, there was something else! Small, but familiar! "Feet!" Boris cheered to no one. In celebration she rose to the surface of the water, skimming the air with her dorsal fin. Not fifty feet from shore, the dolphin broke the waves, breaching into freezing air and flying for a few brief moments. With a splash, she was gone again, but her gray, mottled shape could still be seen gliding through the water, risking the shallow shoreline to get a glimpse of the human whose feet moved through the water.

[Shade]

There were days of work and then there were days of play. For some, that play came in the form of heavy drink among companions with a good brawl to round out an evening. Shade's play consisted of mostly solitude and wandering the world exploring as much of it as he could. The path from the city to the sea was one he was well familiar with. He always skipped his plain brown monks robe in favor of a pair of sturdy pants and a woven shirt, both woolen this time of year. A pack was slung over his shoulders stuffed with his days allotment of food and a wineskin holding only water. Riding half under his arm and half across his back, a bow and quiver rested against him as well, bouncing slightly as he walked.

The other monks would be scandalized.

The truth was Shade was far simpler of a person than the facade he built up around himself allowed for. Shadekas had his sketch pad, charcoal pencils, and his beloved pipe. He gathered firewood in a sling as he walked so by the time he hit the beach and turned north, his canvas firewood carrier was neatly filled with a large bundle of driftwood and fallen limbs from along the path so get his fire started. The monk simply needed to find a place to set up a base. Shade planned a day at the beach and that included a bonfire. There was an enormous old tree that had washed up on the beach ages ago, stripped of bark and smooth, it made a great hollow for a bonfire complete with prerequisite back rest.

Shade made for the spot, dumped off his backpack and his load of wood, and quickly scouted the area for larger pieces of driftwood. Carrying or dragging them back to his campsight, the Monk was soon leaning over the fire adding bunches of dried sawgrass from the hightide line and striking his flint and steel together to spark a fire. As soon as he got the fire going, he was off to comb the beach.

The monk spent the next several bells walking up and down the shore, picking up babbles the sea had washed ashore. Shade mostly looked for rare rock - a particularly interesting colored Jasper for example - and delighted at each find. He was careful, however, not to loose himself too much in the beach combing. Instead his eyes darted up, around, alert and looking for danger wherever and whenever it may come.

After those bells, Shade's stomach grumbled in hunger. So he strung his bow, rolled up his pant legs, and notched an arrow wading out into the surf to go fishing. Hunting with his bow in the ocean was tricky since everything appeared a little off from where it looked to be. The water tended to bend the view a little, much like a gemstone, and refract the light back out at the observer oddly. He took a couple practice shots at rocks, checking the 'bend' today and then gathered his arrow and went back to patiently waiting. He was only in a few feet of water, soaked to his knees, when the dolphin pod crept close. He couldn't help but spot them based on the noise they were making. He figured they were making enough noise for a hundred of their kind when he guessed there was far fewer indeed. It annoyed him because he assumed the dolphins would drive the fish away, when just the opposite happened.

Suddenly his shallows was teaming with fish, fleeing to a depth where the dolphins couldn't follow. He was delighted and laughed, careful not to let the swarming fish trip him up. He let off two shots with his bow, got two large fish, and then got greedy and tried for a third. The arrow went wide and he lost sight of it in the water as another wave came through, murking up the clear water momentarily. Cussing softly to himself for carelessly loosing the arrow, Shade held the still-squirming fish on the ends of their arrows aloft and started back for shore.

It was then that he noticed the dolphin so close in. He hesitated, wondering what in the world the creature was doing so close to shore, and watched her dumbly, almost in awe, for a few moments. He wanted his sketch pad suddenly, inspired by the smooth form. Lovely jewelry fashioned after dolphins had always been popular with the ladies in Nyka. Seeing one first hand, he suddenly understood why. Although he didn't get to see all of her at once, he could see her upper half, sharply rising fin, and her round animated face. She darted back and forth squeeing with joy in a manner that made his lips curl up into a simple smile of pleasure.

"Hello lovely. Aren't you a little too close to the shore? Best get off back to your kin before something decides to eat you, love." He said with a smile, his voice soft and welcoming.

[Boris]

It was inevitable now. Boris could see him in every way a dolphin can see: through smell, through the feel of her echolocation, and through her dim eyesight. To her water eyes, he was a dark blob standing in the water, oblong and thin, but even with her inferior eyesight she could recognize that shape in a heartbeat. "Human!" she greeted merrily in her native tongue, the word pronounced with a series of clicks and two long chirps. There would be no escaping her: Boris was going to meet this human.

Something plunged into the water nearby and swam for a short distance before becoming a dead piece of driftwood enslaved by the whim of the shore's waves. Boris darted toward it immediately, like a kitten after a piece of dropped string. The thin shaft of the object, which she would later learn was called an arrow, fit well in her small, conical teeth, and she continued to close the distance between herself and the human. How happy would he be to have his item returned to him! Maybe he would give her one of his fish.

It had been so long since Boris had been to a city or seen any humans. She could hardly contain her excitement. Eagerly, she changed form while still in the water. Her pectoral fins had begun to graze the soft sand of the shallow water, which had become grievously uncomfortable, so now seemed like an appropriate time to use her land limbs. Her slender shadow under the waves briefly became an amorphous flash of light, and only a moment later, a woman's head and naked upper torso rose from the salty water.

The arrow fell from Boris' mouth, but she caught it deftly with one hand, free now to flash a pleased smile at the unknown human. "Hi!" she greeted cheerfully in human-speak, wading waist deep in the waves toward him. It was taking a moment for her to adjust to her legs, so weak and sluggish in the water. As a dolphin, the ocean was her plaything. As a human, it seemed to want to devour her. "It's nice to see you! I found your thing. Is that a city? Are there—"

A strong ocean breeze assaulted Boris' unprotected skin, lashing across her back and biting into her exposed, nearly hairless scalp. Humans had no protection against the cold, a known fact that she so often forgot to remember. The freezing air felt like it sucked every ounce of warmth from her small body, and Boris dropped the arrow back into the water as she hunched forward and wrapped her arms around her chest (clearly out of a desire for warmth more than modesty, as her arms did not cover enough).

"It's cold!" Boris cried, stumbling forward in the water toward the man smelling of freshly caught fish, her unwieldy legs failing her as the ocean finally stole her balance.

[Shade]

There was decidedly a abundance of shapeshifters in and around Nyka, Shadekas thought, as the dolphin swam closer and shapeshifted into a human. He'd never seen so many kelvics as he had the last ten days of his life. He smiled at the fact she had his arrow and had brought it back up. Arrows were expensive and every one was valuable.

He also smiled at the fact she was naked. Shade wasn't a predator of any sort, but he did appreciate something beautiful to look at. "Hello to you, lady. It is cold out here. Do you want to come up to the beach? I've a fire, two fat fish to cook, and a cloak that will warm you up while your wearing skin." He said thoughtfully, backing out of the water in the general direction she was headed. He brandished two fish on the ends of arrows as if to reinforce what he was saying. There was well enough meat on both of them to share. Rock fish weren't the prettiest thing in the world to look at, but when it came to eating them they were butter sweet. "I'm called Shadekas, do you go by a name?" He asked, curious about her, taking a moment to pull his belt knife and gut and scale the fish on the edge of the water.

If she followed him, he'd lead her up to where he pushed the two logs together and had built a fire and makeshift camp for the day. There he'd empty his pockets of gathered stones and stake the fish still on their arrows to cook over the fire. Then he'd pick up his cloak and offer it to her for warmth if she felt comfortable enough to join him.

[Boris]

This cold was unbearable. Her least favorite part of her human shape was being so cold in the ocean. The waters of the Yahebah port had always been so refreshing and pleasant, a cool reprieve from the scorching desert sun. However, Boris had learned that few places were like Yahebah, and here in the north there was so little warmth. The dolphins didn't mind it, thriving in the frigid waters and hunting the many fish trapped by the nearby glaciers, easy prey as they were torpid from the cold. Humans wore stolen skins and furs to keep themselves warm, which confused their scent and made them look funny. Boris had clothing stashed somewhere, but she didn't feel like fetching it just now.

Maybe this had been a mistake. The human was kind and pretty and smelled pleasant, but Boris hated, hated being cold, and she wanted it to stop right now. All of her friends were off gorging themselves on shinyfish, and she could have been there. Boris could come back later, when—

Then the human said the magic word.

"Boris!" she answered jubilantly, breaking out into a wide, albeit pained grin. Her skinny human body and all its long, pointy parts shivered madly in the water, but she was eager to follow the human to his camp. It was clear she was excruciatingly uncomfortable, but he was offering free fish! Boris knew this about humans. They always had free fish. It felt good to be right.

"I'm B-Boris." Her teeth chattered, so she clamped down her jaw to still them. The cold was doing something to her human lips, making it hard for her to form words. She tried anyway, finding a thrill in making noises that her dolphin beak could not. "Ssha-d-de-khas. Shadekas." she sounded out carefully, then quickly, tasting the sound of the man's name.

It didn't occur to her that Shadekas seemed to be completely aware of what sort of creature she was. As a rule, she found that some humans knew, and some didn't. It never really made much difference, except that she was sometimes compelled to teach the ignorant something they needed to know. "I like the beach," she told Shadekas informatively, still clutching both of her arms in an attempt to conserve warmth. Her fingers were growing numb, but there was a fire. Fires were warm at a safe distance; this she knew.

Given the new, soft cloak, she quickly wrapped around herself and sank to the ground, sitting on her feet. It was easier to wrap the cloak that way, until only her head was visible, and she looked something like a turtle. "I like your ff-fish," she continued, her lips still sluggish in their operation. Not an expert in mathematics, it hadn't occurred to her that there could be a fish for the both of them. At the moment, her eyes were so much bigger than her stomach, and she wanted to eat all of his fish, even if she couldn't. "Easier to catch when they're not swimming. Let's be friends, okay? And I'll eat some of your fish, okay?"

[Shade]

Shadekas smiled. "Sure, I'll be your friend. But friends don't let friends be this cold." He said sensibly and then poured her a cup of tea. It was lemon tea with ginger and he gently put the cup in her hands, once he dug one of her hands from under the cloak, and made her hold the warmth close.

"Drink that. It will warm you from the inside out faster. And if you don't get warm fairly quickly, you can come over and sit with me and borrow my body heat." He invited, watching the fish to make sure they weren't going to burn. "Just as soon as they cook - I imagine you eat a great deal of raw fish - we'll eat them. They are fairly huge, so I imagine just one is going to fill you up. But if you're still hungry after eating one, I'll give you mine as well. I like fish, but I have already eaten breakfast this morning." He added, offering her a smile.

"I imagine the winter ocean feels just fine to a dolphin, but to a human its very very cold. In another ten days I won't even go wading in the water. There will be snow on the ground and ice everywhere." He added, adjusting the location of the fish one more and then taking a two apples from his pack (one of which had been for his horse) and slicing it for her. He offered it to Boris in case she was hungry and didn't want to wait for the fish, and then settled back down.

"So are you from these waters here? Or are you from somewhere else? I must confess I k now next to nothing about dolphins. I can't even swim that well. I've been meaning to learn, but with the water being so cold, its not a good time of year to do so. " He added, sitting back and nibbling on his own apple while waiting for the fish to cook.

[Boris]

Boris' numb, slender fingers curled around her warm glass cup as she laughed softly, not meaning to mock Shadekas but doing so anyway. The rolling steam from the tea wafted in her face in silken tendrils, tingling her sensitive skin with aromatic warmth. It was simple colored water, so far as she could tell, but it smelled tart and sweet. It was nothing like the ocean could ever offer.

"Humans are the worst swimmers," Boris observed blatantly, lifting the cup to her soft, fleshy lips and drawing the hot liquid across her tongue. It singed at first, and reflexively she cringed and squeezed her eyes shut. As the pain passed however, she could feel the hot tea moving down her throat and warming her chest and stomach. The kelvic shivered once, violently, but only as a sign of her body regaining its heat under her borrowed cloak. "I still like them. I wasn't always a good swimmer either. No one showed me how to do it right, until I met Mama. She knows all the tricks."

As she spoke, Boris' fragranced breath washed back over her tastebuds. The tea's flavor was very mild, she realized, but she decided that she liked it. She took another sip, cradling the cup in both hands. The shivering had stopped now. Boris smiled gratefully at the man in front of her. He was very kind, kinder than most. That was good, because she was too cold to play any games right now. "I know the water is cold to humans. If you weren't so nice to me, I would be back in the water again, with my friends. They're eating fish, too. "

Snow. Had Boris seen that before? The word was familiar. She knew what ice was for certain, at least.

Her large brown eyes flitted hungrily back to the fish roasting over the fire. Boris was mildly familiar with cooking. Humans liked their food hot. It was strange and made absolutely no sense, but there were a lot of strange things about humans. It made them so wonderful.

When she looked at him again, her eyes were glittering. She hadn't forgotten his offer to sidle up next to him. Maybe when she was a little warmed up, she'd take him up on that. Right now she didn't want to move and risk taking a brisk breeze upon her wet, exposed skin. "I'm not from the water," she pointed out, turning to glance at the waves lapping up on the beach. "Not like my friends are. I'm from, um…" Boris closed her eyes as she tried to remember, placing her warm palm against her cool forehead. "It had a funny name. There was lots of sand, and people, and boats. It was in the south. Anyway, I'm not a real dolphin. I'm not a real human, either."

Boris turned her head to glance over the hills opposite the beach, intrigued by the secrets of a land she had barely explored. It was a world so far away from her own. One day, she'd see it all, and tell her pod all about it. "There's a city here, right. What's it called? What are the people like? Are you from there? Do you have lots of friends?"

Suddenly, she beamed, squirming happily underneath her cloak. "I feel so much better now!"

[Shade]

Grades

Shadekas -

Planning +1, Body Building +1, Endurance +1, Scavenging +1, Fishing +1, Compound Longbow +1, Observation +2, Socialization +2, Cooking +1, Interrogation +2, Hostessing +2

Boris: Appearance and Mannerism, Fishing: With A Bow, Kelvic Dolphins: Cold In Human Form

Boris - If you return, I grade you.