Nightingale Palisade You and me go fishing in the dark

There are several fresh rabbit tracks in the mud. Hunt Opportunity

Sorry for the wait, took a self-appointed mini-vacation this week.

 As the fish twisted and pulled in a desperate attempt to escape its predator's jaws, Merys locked down his grip on it firmly. That was actually a pretty impressive showmanship for him, he was glad that it had worked out; he had not been fishing in quite some time. The catfish must have been sluggish in the evening, just waking. Unfortunately there was something else he had forgotten with the large fish in these waters, and it was becoming increasingly obvious as he clamped down to prevent it from slipping away. He moved to go to the shore and snickered at Sylva for getting smacked in the nose by her prey. She really was a killer.. He pulled his heavy pelt from the water, and up on the shore enough so that the catfish would not be able to flop away and back into the river. Dropping the dying fish into the grass, he laid a paw on it as he attempted to massage his jaw, stretching and licking the drips of blood coming from it.

“They’ll die long enough out of water, or you can just bite into it, or even whack it off of a rock if you want,” he explained to the inquisitive yearling, licking his bleeding maw again. “But just make sure you watch out for those,” he said, pointing with his paw to the sharp dorsal fins on the catfish that were scaled and meant for protection. Something he had managed to forget about until they had stabbed at the inside of his gums. He hadn’t wanted to lose his lucky catch, but he had cringed when his mouth had covered over the wrong side of the fish. “Go for the belly if you can, it hurts much less,” he assured her, grabbing a bite from the hardly living fish then. “And much tastier,” he said through a full mouth. “Try again. Wait for them to come back to the shores; they’re inquisitive fish, but not gormless; you have to be still. I promise not to help this time,” he chuckled, swallowing his earned meal: a strange mix of his blood and the cold meat.

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Sylva nodded, the humor of the situation lost on the young girl as she was focused on the hunt, memorizing his suggestions as she crept toward the river’s edge again, though she moved further up river, logically, it seemed to her that her chances would improve if she hunted huathe rup river, as many of the fish would have fled down stream, the ones who had no clue that predators lurked, would then, be up stream.

She paused as flickering shadows darted to and fro below the water’s surface, taunting the ebony wolf with how tantalizingly close they were, and yet..just out of reach. Her brown gaze flicked around , calculating exactly what she would do and she chose the subtle approach. Standing stock still at the water’s edge, one particularly large shadow drifted close by and Sylva lunged, loud splashing could be heard as she snapped her teeth almost frantically into the water. Though she was rewarded when her teeth sunk into the tail of a fish and she yanked backwards, tossing it onto the shore and scurrying out of the water after it. Glancing around frantically..she did the only thing she could think of to keep it from flopping wildly back into the water, She planted her furry rump onto it to pin it to the rocks..

ThoughtDialogue

Merys was happy to see Sylva’s natural instincts move slightly up stream in an attempt to catch those who wouldn’t have been privy to their hunting splashes before. It was good that she was able to deduce that concept on her own without any prompting. He watched her with a small smirk of his face, as he chewed the remaining slivers of meat from his fish. He wondered what the next step down from pride was, as he couldn’t quite say he was proud of Sylva, but he was certainly happy that her instincts were ringing true with a hunter’s. He swallowed lastly, and though he could not see what was beneath the water from his point of view, he knew what she was seeing from her posturing.
 
After her frantic pouncing and snapping at the water, a surprised look followed by laughter ensued once she actually surfaced was a catfish. He had to side step to avoid being thwacked with the fish she hurled, but nonetheless, he was thrilled to see she had done well. The fish began flopping desperately on the land, and while he wished to step forward to help Sylva, he managed to hold himself back and look over to expectantly: she couldn’t stop there. Luckily, she also noticed this and quickly moved to plant herself onto the fish. His laughter continued both at and with the situation – though mostly at. The sight of the yearling plopped onto a still-flopping fish beneath her tail was just too encouraging not to laugh. “Kill it, Sylva!” He urged, barking excitedly for her. “You can’t just sit on it all evening, we’re going to need more for the rest of the pack.” She had done the hard part, now she just needed to free the rest of her body up to continue catching the fish. The few wolves that numbered the villatic pack would be happy for a change in meat, he was sure. 

As they finished their evening of fishing, Merys found himself coming to peace with the evening. The sun fell behind the horizon, and with enough fish to fill their bellies and stock the caches, his demeanour had softened with contentment. Heading back to White Fir Notch, he would welcome a good night's sleep. Hell, he might even head back to the bear's den, hopefully the heat of the other pack mates would help to dry their pelts quicker overnight. And if not, it would be a nice reminder of the peaceful and surprisingly comical evening the two had had.

(This post was last modified: Jun 11, 2016, 07:21 PM by Merys.)

founding member | 2016