71st of Fall, 512 AV
Eastern part of the North Suvan
It was a slow morning, not much happening for Kirvan as he sat at the edge of his casinor and gazed into the sea. He'd been asleep most of the morning, despite Ster's early wake-up call of knocking the boat, and now that he was awake he pondered over what to do. For the last few days or so he'd been sailing around aimlessly, looking for other people to interact with. The Flotilla was in the lower part of the North Suvan, but he didn't feel like sailing to meet a bunch of people who would undoubtedly frown upon him and pressure him to return to the Deepseekers. So what if he wanted to be alone for a while? What was wrong with that?
Rising from the water, Ster's head moved forward and gently nudged the casinor right underneath where Kirvan sat, squeaking a small greeting. The young svefra looked lazily over at his old friend and smiled. "Hello Ster," he said, reaching forward and putting his hand on the whale's nose. Pleased, the beluga started whistling and clicking affectionately, keeping the physical connection between the two for a while longer before diving beneath the boat and coming up on the far side, squeaking for Kirvan's attention again. Get off your lazy bum and swim, he seemed to be saying.
"Fine, why not?" Kirvan sighed, smiling at the following chorus of squeaks. Easing himself up onto his feet, the young svefra did a few quick stretches and promptly jumped overboard into the sea, unconcerned about his de-rigged boat. The water felt great, cold and fluid, smooth even as he dove under the surface and started a simple breast stroke, the liquid rippling across his skin. Soon Ster was beside him, swimming quickly to join his friend and then slowing down to keep pace. Before long though, Kirvan's began paddling for the surface, his lungs not prepared to hold out for that long yet.
Breaking the top, the young svefra breathed deeply, his legs kicking to keep himself afloat. Ster surfaced right beside him, squeaking in what appeared to be amusement. "Yeah yeah," the human retorted, "we can't all be whales you know." more squeaks, and Kirvan's was pretty sure he meant along the lines of, no, but Mizahar would be a much better place if we all were. Sighing, Kirvan took a deep breath before diving under again, Ster following soon after.
This time, Kirvan dove straight down, rushing his flat hands forward and pulling them to either side of him, pushing himself through the water. His legs were simply kicking up and down, none of those fancy strokes that some people in his pods did. The darkness was overwhelming yet oddly inviting, as if welcoming the son of Laviku to his father's true domain. Ster soon joined his human buddy, the two of them seeing how long Kirvan could keep this up. A few strokes later, Kirvan realized that it wouldn't be much further until he had to stop, so he stopped moving and let himself float slowly downwards, peering into the dark deep. Immediately Ster knew what to do, swimming down below e human then rising quickly to the surface, Kirvan latched onto his back like a starfish.
Moments later they broke the surface again, Kirvan gasping for breath this time. "Do you think that's a new record?" he asked his tavan, who only squeaked his reply. A bout of clicks accompanied them, but it took almost a chime before Kirvan realized that they weren't from Ster. Looking up from his position on his friend's back, the svefra saw a couple dolphins swimming abut near the surface, seemingly minding their own business.
Kirvan thought they would make good catches.
"Can you take me back to the boat, Ster?" the human asked his buddy. Whistling, the whale did so, swimming quickly towards the edge of the casinor and allowing Kirvan to hop on. Rushing forward to the bow, he quickly picked up one of the barbed tethered harpoons stacked beside the cabin and loading it into the heavy harpoon device with a click, locking it in place. Grabbing the back of it, he moved it around to loosen the joint slightly and aimed it at one of the swimming dolphins. He had no aiming mechanism, so he had to line up the length of the harpoon with a projected path of flight to a target, which sounded complicated but really came down to just pointing and shooting. Lining up the target, Kirvan pulled the trigger and launched the harpoon with a clang, sending it sailing through the air.
A distressed click emerged from one of the dolphins as its tail was pierced, trapping it to the casinor. Its friend became distressed, swimming around the captured mammal and clicking uncertainly. Swiftly, Kirvan loaded another harpoon, endeavoring to take the shot before he lost the second one. Unfortunately, the other dolphin was circling the first, meaning that lining up a direct shot was going to be difficult timing. Aiming his harpoon along the path that the mammal was taking, Kirvan tried to think of how much time it would take for the harpoon to connect and tried to wait for a good time. Then, relying largely on gut instinct, he fired, the harpoon clanging off into the sea.
It was good. The shot hit the dolphin just as it was coming around, burying itself in the mammal's head. Now the first catch wa becoming even more distressed, falling into outright panic as Kirvan began reeling them in. It was difficult work, especially with the struggling dolphin, but Ster came in and tried to help, shepherding the dolphin near the boat so Kirvan could lift it - with great difficulty mind - into the bow. Even there, it kept flopping about like a giant fish, so th svefra retrieved his cutlass from e cabin and returned, jutting it throughout the dolphin's head to end it quickly.
"Sorry," he told the dead dolphins, as genuinely as he could in his position. Such was the way of Laviku, some were sacrificed so others could live. That's how it worked in e deep between predators and prey, and that's how it worked on the surface too. It wasn't always pretty, but it was the Sea Father's design and intention.
Walking back to the stern of the small boat, Kirvan began rigging the sails. He attached the main sail to the halyard and began raising it, sliding the length of the sail along the boom afterwards. Ster swam just off to the side, whistling and clicking, and Kirvan looked over. "I'm going to see what else I can find," he explains. "There's a long day ahead of us." |
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by Kirvan Deepseeker on December 1st, 2012, 1:31 am 
A solo this quick will work as a job thread, but if you wish for more lores and experience, just note that you'll have to put in more threads. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to PM me!
