Who

Therst, Odesse and dolphins

What

Therst was just minding his own business when suddenly he becomes part of a dolphin game.

When

It is evening of the nineteenth day of the tenth month of the eleventh turn of the 12th pass.

Where

Southern Weyr - Beach

OOC Date 27 Aug 2017 05:00

 

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"Alright I guess, got searched so everything is a little uneven right now."


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Beach

An eerie mirror, the glass-quiet Sea of Azov: the clear waters stretch along the dark-pebbled shores, and along this narrow beach. Here the faintest lap of waves belies the calm beyond; here the rocks have been ground down into finest, softest sand - those observant would mark upon the similarity between it and the sands of the hatching grounds. The soft sand soaks up summer sunlight as a sponge; painfully hot during the warmer months, it is only truly pleasant at wintertime. Rocks rise to east and west, lichen-limned and green against the abyssal darkness of stone.

It is the seventy-ninth day of Spring and 86 degrees. It is overcast and cloudy with very little stars out.


This Spring evening finds Therst at the beach, it is still a few hours before sun down which is perfect for a little evening swim. Between the cow pasture escapade and now having to help wash a rather gory Bronze dragon, he is in rather urgent need to wanting to be in the water. The young man floats out in the shallower water with his gear staked down on the beach well back from where the late evening tide could get it.

And lo and behold, Odesse will make her appearance. Not from the beach like most folks because she is not most folks. She's a dolphineer and been out doing dolphin stuff. You can tell, because from the open sea, comes a small pod of dolphins, their jumping and frolicking evident long before the woman comes into view with them. They eventually reach water that's chest level and she stands up, laughing. One of the younger dolphins however, spots someone floating and is curious as to what this might be (or maybe just what he will do) and so tries to sneakily swim closer and just poke the candidate with his nose with an 'attack' from below.

Calm, peaceful, Therst hasn't been this relaxed since after his Journeyman exams. But all of that changes as he is give poke, his hip and side still sore from when he did that dumb slide in the mines a few nights ago. The young man will shoot out of the water, easily clearing about two feet from a laying flat position and flail around as he sinks and resurfaces in the neck deep water looking around for the unknown intruder into his reprieve.

So that happy squeeing sound that is suddenly coming from multiple sources around Therst? That's totally the dolphins laughing at the poor candidate. Especially Javen who instigated that poke. He's squeeing the loudest and right behind the man. Once he turns around to face him, the dolphin squees again and attempts to flick water at the man's face with a big, toothy grin on his dolphin face. Odesse will add her own laughter into the mix from where she's swimming not too far away. "Ye should tag 'im back! Also, his belly is ticklish."

Stranger things have happened to the young man but right now with all the life upside downing candidacy has brought him, a game of tag seems the best medicine. And so he does, while Therst isn't as fast as some swimmers he knows his way around the water and will quickly try to tag or tickle the dolphin as instructed. He grins back at Odesse saying "Thanks for the tip"

Considering the dolphins are literally built for swimming and that's their only form of locomotion… it's not going to be easy to tag them. It's not like they're actively trying to stay out of Therst's way. They could do that, but there'd be no fun. Instead, Javen will stay tantalizingly just out of reach. The man's fingers may lightly brush the rubbery dolphin flesh, or maybe that was imagination? It could be hard to tell. But this looks like a fun game and soon, Javen will be joined in these escapades by two more dolphins, one slightly larger and the other slightly smaller. All three keep weaving in and out, close to the man and then flipping away. "No problem! Javen gets some weird ideas of what's 'funny'." Odesse will shrug it off, although considering she was laughing herself just a moment ago, apparently she agrees that this particular joke was.

Therst is grinning now instead of swimming after them he will tread water and let them come to him reaching out quickly to strike at them, but never actually getting his target. "How is your day to day Journeyman?" he calls over his shoulder as he keeps his eyes on his now three new playmates. Another lunge to his right and yet still no dolphin prize, but he is not detoured from this game.

Two of the dolphins will continue with this play, although modifying the game slightly so they're darting in close and trying to poke at Therst before he can reach them. The third however, swims a bit further away so he can jump out of the water and come down with an incredibly large splash towards the others. Odesse just dives under the wave when she sees it coming, and comes up laughing. She's used to this since she deals with it almost every day. "It was pretty good. We were checkin' out some of the shippin' lanes, makin' sure the winter storms didn't alter 'em too much. Need to make make some alterations to some maps." Because of course they weren't lucky enough to get away with no change. That's not how oceans work. "'N how was your's? Ye look like ye got in a fight." Even from here, she can see some of that bruising.

Therst was not prepared for the splash, and takes some water full in the face. He sputters a little but still is laughing as he tries to block and parry with the two remaining dolphins. He nods when she asks how he is "Alright I guess, got searched so everything is a little uneven right now." When she notes his bruising he will add "I was part of that raid on that mine the other night. Slipped and fell a little really so much going on it was hard to focus."

See, that was their plan, Therst. Dolphins are excellent pack hunters. Two were the diversion so the third could make his attack. Luckily, all they are hunting for now is fun because Therst is not a fish. "Searched, huh?" Odesse nods and seems to look over her shoulder as if the mere mention of the word could bring riders or dragons swooping down handing out little white knots, but so far the coast is clear. "Oh, I heard 'bout that! Mostly just that they got 'em 'n so we could ease off the extra patrols. Back to normal." Or at least as normal as Southern ever gets. And the woman was not a part of the raiding party because well… a dolphineer out of water and away from any body of water is kind of like a fish out of water.

Therst laughs and will lunge to the left now, man they are fast as he misses again. "Yeah had to go in and check to make sure the mine was alright and to see if there was anything that needed to be addressed right then. The guards and the riders from Ocelot wing did all the heroics, R'zel even took down a guy single handily." He will change tactics now and as one zips close to him he will use the flat of his hand against the water to send a heavy splash at the animal hoping to catch it off guard.

Splashing at the dolphins probably isn't the best plan considering they live underwater and spend their days jumping into and out of it all the time. The splash definitely hits the dolphin who takes it in stride. And that means after he gets splashed, he'll give a squee and then swim back a little bit so he has room to flick a bunch of water at Therst with his tail! Much more efficient for splashing than hands. "Ocelot? Everyone was alright though?" Ocelot is one wing that Odesse does know fairly well considering Search and Rescue is part of both of their jobs.

Getting soaked again Therst puts his hands up to shield this time as he laughs and nods "No injuries that I heard of though D'wane and another candidate got the Zida woman who was behind it all." He will wait now and then he reaches out and runs a hand down the side of the littlest dolphin there tagging it and grinning "Ha!" he exclaims that is one, to like the twelve they have gotten on him but at least he got that one!!!

And one is better than none, but dolphins can be fickle creatures. It seems Therst has gotten the hang of this game and so… it loses some of the appeal. There will be a few more passes, but after that, one by one, the dolphins are going to trickle away back to the deeper water. Odesee will nod at the revelation. "That's ah, good." That they got her. As heavily involved as the dolphineer was in looking for smugglers, the actual mines and refugees weren't her focus. Anything about boats or suspicious shipping, she's your gal. Anything onshore though and nope.

Therst grins and waves to the retreating dolphins, turning and nods saying "fickle bunch arnt they" he points to the dolphins and then will go back to floating and enjoying his day. "At least you won't have to much extra work." Because that is always important to others is there work load.

"It's they're dinner time," Odesse grins and nods towards the departing pod. Who wants to stand in the way of tasty, tasty fish? "Fer now. I'm sure somethin' or 'nother will come up. But time fer me to go write down the changes we found 'fore I forget." And with a wave, she's going to be heading off towards the seacraft complex to update some maps. And then eventually some dinner of her own.

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