Social: Fishing

A day out on the river, in which Kama'o invents backseat fishing.

-=--=--=--=--=--=<* Outside the North Gates - Eldwyn Road *>-=--=--=--=--=--=-

Clusters of leafy green trees form borders along the country road as one moves towards or away from the city. Branches begin to obscure the sky, whether bright blue and cloudless or gray and stormy. Tall meadow grasses sway in the breezes that weave their way through the clusters of trees. Wild flowers grow abundantly, mingled with the grasses, and overhead birds can be seen flitting through the canopy.

Alexandria sprawls in the distance to the south and beyond her lies the expanse of the great gulf of Arcania, glittering like a bed of blue-green jewels. The great river winds its way south through the forested area and logging encampements and buildings can be seen as well as a ferry which allows for crossing for those who plan to head further east towards the mountains as opposed to north into the woods.

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It's Eliday, Eatonis 18 15:52:46 1014. The full moon is up. The tide is low and rising.

Everything is grey, veiled by mist. It's cool and the air feels damp. There is no wind.

It's a lazy day, though Kama'o is one of many who rarely fully stops working. At the moment, she has waded a little ways out into the (gasp) water, and is deftly weaving a basket from a mixture of soaked tree bark and newly-green grass. She's a ways downstream from Garth, so as not to interrupt his fishing with her ripples--though, in fairness, she's not actually making that many.

Keeping a close eye on his line while weaving, lest he miss the all-important bite that might herald fish for supper, she's also chattering away, just finishing up yet another story about Ipu'something or other and the dangers of being in low places. Even if there are fish in low places, and baskets are easier to make. "...so she went back, and told the rest of the aerie, and they saw the wisdom in her words," she finishes.

If one thought Garth looks like a bear before, today the resemblance is even more uncanny. A brown bearhide cloak - sans head - is drapped about his shoulders, possibly having been the only animal hide that could contain his bulk.

The man is sitting on an old log, long since hollowed out and turned into a state not unlike stone by the elements and nature. A still-empty bucket is set beside him, and a pickaxe is leaned haphazardly on it, to battle the thankfully thin residual ice on the river. Hints of his hands can be seen from under the coarse bristles, and in them he grips the fishing rod - simple, crude, little more than just stick with a fishing line on it.

That very fishing line is completely still. The bobber rocks in the water from the river's own movement, no wind to send it along. It's shiny, and has a feather on it - another reason for Kama'o to like fishing, perhaps?

"Good story, that." the Angorite rumbles appreciatively, leaning back slightly in his seat. Giving a look towards the unmoving line, he turns back to regarding the druidess. "Speakin' of stories, did ya like the book?"

"Oh, yes, Kama'o liked them very much." The Egalrin should be freezing to death, but she's probably cheating with a spell. Still, her feathers are well clear of the water, tail held high to avoid even small splashes. "Though Kama'o did not really understand the one about the girl and the magic horse. But maybe it is because it was about horses. I do not understand them, much." Her bill dips underwater briefly to snap a bit of bark off. While there, she scoops up a mouthful of river and then tosses her head back, swallowing it.

"Iiii. This fishing takes a very long time, doesn't it? It is good that Kama'o has enough for two baskets," she says, pulling a finished version out of the water and carefully wading toward the bank with it, dripping all the way. She seems to have little trouble with the slippery river stones.

"I think it's one of them... metamaphorical stories." Garth says, after a moment of thought.

Garth knows the long words, certainly, but he doesn't use them very often. As anyone sensible knows, words are a weapon - a powerful one, if the saying about quills and swords is true - and weapons require practise to use with familiarity and finesse.

"Yeah, it can take a while." Garth says, a look of nostalgic recollection crossing the rugged features. "My uncle used to take me out onto the river to fish. We ain't never caught a lot o' fish - if ya wanna catch a lot o' fish, ya need a boat and a net. We mostly just got to relax. Talk, sometimes, but not much. He weren't a talkin' man."

Perhaps that is why Garth is a talking man - it is entirely possible a lot of the talking in his childhood had to be done by him.

The Angorite gives a sideways glance to the basket, brows lifting in surprise at how... well, solid and real it looks.

"I ain't ever seen someone make a basket outta--" Garth begins, but is suddenly cut off, distracted, by movement from the bobber.

The little bauble dances and weaves, tugging downstream, the feather on it spinning wildly as weight pulls on it. Hopping to his feet, the man begins to reel in the catch!

And as the bobber and hook beneath leave the surface of the water behind, the catch reveals itself! It is a whole bundle of riverbed plants, tangled into an absolute mess and snagged on the hook.

"Aw man." goes Garth, shoulders slumping.

"Kama'o has never heard you talk about your family before," the Egalrin says, rather delicately, given her usual seeming lack of tact. Perhaps she does realize more than she lets on, sometimes. "Is your kama'u still alive?" Okay, not -that- much tact.

Puzzled at his comment, she glances down at the dripping-wet basket in her hands. "Really? What -have- you seen them made out of? What else would you make them out of?" she seems genuinely confused as she sets it down on the ground and is thus, thankfully, on the bank when she whistles loudly and begins hopping from foot to foot. "Pull it in, pull it in!" she calls...at least, until the catch makes itself known. "Iiiii," she says, feathers flattening in disappointment. "Well, Kama'o thinks some of those are edible. Bring them in, and Kama'o will fix them with the fish. If there's fish." She's starting to sound dubious as she walks along the bank to his log to accept the pile of riverweeds.

"I uh. Straws and twigs an' things. I guess somethin' more dry." Garth says of the basket, a hand scratching idly at the stubble on his chin and leaving a bit of grime there. That stubble doesn't seem to ever really go away, just very slightly vary in length, making one wonder if the man ever properly shaves. Probably not.

Setting the fishing rod down, Garth goes about untangling the dripping, somewhat slimy ball of weeds from the hook, obediently handing it over to Kama'o.

That done, he goes about spearing a new worm to the hook's serrated tip, as the last one - or more likely, torn bits of it - are somewhere in the ball. No point fishing without bait, he'd said. He'd dug for those worms. There's still dirt under his fingertips from it.

The bait set and bobber straightened and secure, the Angorite casts the line back into the water, where it lands with a wet little 'sploosh!'. It's not a particularly graceful cast, but at least it gets into the river rather than remaining attached to his clothing. That's something.

Finally resettling into the waiting routine, the man doubles back to the topic he'd unconsciously left for then.

"Naw. She was gone 'fore I was born, I think. Never met her." he says, shaking his head slightly. "My uncle took me in to learn his trade. Raised me like a son." One can see, there, the shadows that momentarily fall on his expression, the way his hand tightens around the fishing rod. "But the Bluds came 'fore I could finish."

Taking a pause to banish the darkness of bad memory, the man smiles softly. "Ended up learnin' another trade entirely." he finishes.

"Iiiii. But if you weave in the water and then you dry it out, it tightens up. Much easier to make a basket waterproof that way," Kama'o explains, slowly wading back out into the water to start on her second basket. She starts by making a skeleton out of long bits of bark, and then begins weaving almost microscopic bits of grass in between them. Her eyesight must be just fine despite her age.

"Iiii. Kama'o meant your...uncle," she says. "He was your father's brother?" She's still asking delicately, or as delicately as she can around a mouthful of grass. "What was his trade?" Because, hey. If it's carpentry, then she can totally ask him over to help her with barrels. Or something.

"I guess that makes sense." Garth says, with another glance at the basket. Eyes lazily return to the deathly-still bobber. He eyes it, as if trying to will it to move with his mind.

"Oh. Er, sorry. Mother's side." he answers the question properly as it is clarified. "He was the finest cooper ya could find that side of the hill." he announces, a little happier and most certainly proud.

There's a tiny shake of his head, though a shadow of the smile remains. "I ain't never really picked up the tricks proper. Never got to work as much more than assistant. Still, know a couple things. Help out an ol' cooper in the city these days when I can. He knows the tricks, but his back and arms ain't what they used to be."

Apparently, should it be barrels Kama'o needs, all she need do is ask.

"Well. If you ever need anything woven or knitted, you just ask Kama'o. We practice our weaving for longer than most of you humans are alive," the Egalrin replies, and indeed, she's already come a visible way on her basket, which appears to be growing rather larger than the last. "Kama'o knows all the tricks." As to the rest of his words, she gives a slow nod. "We get most of our barrels from the dwarves. They are good at making things like that for us. Sometimes, they even come full." She beams over at him. Dwarven liquor. "But we use pots, mostly, instead of barrels. They are easier to carry. And fly with."

She dips her head back down into the water to grasp a particularly recalcitrant bit of grass, and has to let a nictitating membrane cross her eyes to protect them from the water. This stills her chatter for a bit, at least until she straightens back up and continues with her talons. "But now Kama'o supposes she knows where to get barrels for brewing. Where is the man you help?"

"West side, little shop on Rivton Road." A fairly small side-street near the western gates. Garthos grins slightly, idly adjusting the bearskin cloak about his shoulders. "Ya can tell which one it is from the cussin'. Good man, though, foul words aside. Good, solid barrels, don't matter if it's me or his regular assistant helpin', and fair prices."

Politely waiting for the Egalrin to resurface, he adds: "Ain't all barrels. Make kegs, too, an' firkins." There's a pause. "Smaller barrels. Easier to carry. An' buckets, though I ain't sure if those would do ya any good."

There's a second pause, out of which the man jerks as there's a tug on the line. Unlike the previous, this one is more erratic, more frenzied - and the contest against the panicked fish begins, the Angorite leaping to his feet in the excitement of the moment. A fish couldn't do much to him, but it could certainly snap the line in its desperate bid for freedom if he weren't careful.

"Kama'o will be sure to buy things there, then. Buckets are always useful," she says with a flick of her feathers, though she does seem interested in his talk of smaller barrels. "Iiii. Kama'o will go by soon, then, and see what he has for sale." She ducks her head under the water again to deal with the weaving...it must be nice to have a fifth...well, a seventh...limb for grasping.

Of course, that means that she misses the initial excitement, though her head comes up quickly when she hears the thrashing under the water. "What is it?" she half-whistles. "Is it more weed? Is it...iiiiii. It's a fish, isn't it? How big is it? Is it good to eat?" If he loses this fish, he's not going to get another the way she's dancing about in the water in excitement. Famous Egalrin reticence and dignity? Psh. Who needs that?

"Whatever it is, it's fightin'! I think it might be an actual fish!" Garth says as he haphazardly pulls on the fishing rod, sounding surprised and excited himself.

Fish! In a river! Who woulda thought?!

It becomes apparent, at this point, that while Garth is experienced at fishing, he isn't too terribly experienced at doing so successfully. The way he's skewing his face in concentration and biting his lip, as if going through the steps of what he needs to do in his head, is quite telling. One wouldn't think a tiny fish could cause a man of his size to exert these amounts of effort. The wood of the rod creaks ominously, bending this way and that, but Garthos just holds on - and slowly, the movements of the line become more sluggish, slower, less frenzied. The fish is tiring itself out.

And finally, finally, Garth pulls it in. The ridiculous amount of concentration - which makes his face look like he's on some very bad medicine, incidentally - and effort would make one think he was fighting some horrible river monster, but what comes out attached to the hook is, well, just a fish. One certainly wouldn't call it enormous or ferocious nor have anyone paint the fisherman showing it off in his arms, unless maybe said fisherman was five years of age and it was his first catch. The unfortunate thing gasps on the hook, gills undulating, flippers flailing with last bits of energy, tiny scales irridescent with the fading sunlight.

Kama'o pulls her quarter-finished basket over to the bank and makes certain that the river won't pull it downstream before splashing over to where Garthos fights the fish. "Iiii! Iii! Pull, Garth! Pull! Put your back into it!" Oh, good, Kama'o just invented backseat fishing. She hops from foot to foot in the shallows, taloned hands waving a bit in...who knows. Vicarious experience, most likely.

And then, finally, there's a fish. On the bank. Calming down, the Egalrin proceeds to give it a good eyeing. "...Well," she says, finally. "Well. Kama'o supposes we could make fish stew." In other words, the fish -so- isn't going to feed both of them.

"Yeah. I uh. Don't think we got enough sunlight to wait for another one." Garth says, looking down at the sad, flopping fish in the mud - which definitely hasn't got enough meat on it to feed two people, let alone when someone Garth's size is involved. Setting the fishing rod down, the man picks up the fish itself - in several tries, its slippery body going right through his fingers several times before he gets a grip on it - and takes it over to the log, where he swiftly ends its life with a blow from the pickaxe handle. No sense letting it suffer if it's going to be stew anyway. Setting it into the bucket - where it lies, dead and lonely, the mud from it staining the water brown - Garthos gives Kama'o an apologetic look. Not a very good day of fishing, that.

"Iiii. Well. That is okay. If they meant you to catch every fish, it would be called catching, not fishing, wouldn't it?" Kama'o does her best not to look disappointed. "Kama'o can make a good stew with it anyway, but you are right. We should set it to stewing, if we are going to. Kama'o has some new onions and some little tubers and things that will go well with it. Have you been to Kama'o's aerie yet, iiwa? It is not too much further to the east, and you would be welcome to stay the night. Otherwise, we should probably make a fire here," the Egalrin chatters, all business now.

The Egalrin does go back to her basket, first, and ties a loop of grass to it before tying it to a half-submerged log. She scores that with her talon--a mark to help her identify where the basket lies, later. "Kama'o can finish this one some other day," she explains. "But if it tightens now, that will be as big as it ever gets."

"Been there once before, yeah, though was a while ago. Wouldn't mind gettin' out of the cold, if ya got room at your, er, aerie place." Garthos says, rubbing his hands together. He gathers the fishing rod, wrapping the line about the stick and securing the hook so he doesn't end up injuring himself with it in the trek. The pickaxe finds a place in his belt, and the bucket in the hand opposite the fishing rod. He nods to Kama'o brightly enough, ready to leave.

A final, curious look is given to the log, the unfinished basket submerged under it - but he doesn't seem inclined to ask much about it. After all, it makes a certain kind of sense, even if it is foreign to him, much like anything tied to a different culture - and the already-weaved basket looks quite sturdy, even if its color is one he's not terribly used to.

"Oh, is it cold?" Kama'o was cheating. "Of course, of course, let's get you in out of the cold, Garth Just Garth, and Kama'o will make a nice warm stew for you. Perhaps Sebropert will be around and there will be something else to go around for everyone to eat." It is, after all, the lean time of the year, before the year's first crops can be harvested.

She returns to the finished basket and takes it up, along with a few other things she left on the bank to be sure they kept dry. "Kama'o even made a bed, for when Alteri-iiwa and Sharna-iiwa come over. Although, Kama'o thinks you might prefer sharing with Sebropert." In other words, he is too big to climb trees!

"I'll go huntin' in the mornin'. I ain't too terrible at it. Might catch a couple hares or somethin'." Garth promises, more to himself than to Kama'o. He doesn't look like he can be persuaded not to do this.

As for the accomodations, his massive shoulders lift in an unconcerned shrug. "I'm sure I can make do, long as ya don't mind me bein' there. Ain't gonna be the first time I sleep outside." he says with a reassuring smile, before heading in the general direction of the aerie at relatively sedate pace - apparently remembering, at least vaguely, where it is.

"Oh, I am sure we will find something," Kama'o assures him. "And if not, Kama'o has plenty of money to buy food." She, too, begins to walk toward the ferry, carrying her finished basket, the rest in a pack on her back. "Iiii. That reminds Kama'o of a story," and she's off, chattering through yet another story as they walk.