Difference between revisions of "Logs:Bounty of the Sea"

The fog took forever to burn off this morning. Now is the latter part of the afternoon, the sky is overcast, echoing the gray of the rocky beach, and the sea too looks like slate. Riorde is a spot of colour out on the boulders trailing off into the water, though just barely; much of the vegetal dye washed out long ago. Pulling up the line for a woven pot used for crustaceans, she looks disgusted when confronted with an empty catch; the pot has broken, as it is wont to do, and the tide is coming in, and she had better turn around and head back to shore lest she get caught out.

Afternoon often finds Shimana on the beach, doing the rounds of her ceaseless inspection of the ocean. She moves on from exchanging brief words with a pair of children digging for mollusks, moving slowly down the beach towards Riorde. Her head tilts to one side as she observes, silently, the empty catch; a moment later, she calls, "Any luck today, Riorde?"

Riorde swallows her instinct to throw the damn thing out to sea and let the current take it, slinging it instead over her shoulder and beginning to make her slow progress back, boulder to boulder, rock to rock. There are more pots to check, at least. "No," she calls back, curt and irritated. "They eat through these things just to spite me." Or the salt does, but the result is the same: empty.

Patience personified, Shimana stands just above the incoming tide line, arms folded across her chest, and just-- watches. Always watches. "They will if you don't show them proper respect, you know. You make your own luck." Her tone is mild-- it's a lecture everyone in the settlement has probably heard innumerable times. "Did you weave them yourself?

Rolling her eyes, Riorde doesn't pause while pulling up the second, cynicism nearly audible. She straightens, holding up yet another broken pot, and the curse that follows doesn't quite remain under her breath. "Yes," she says shortly, tone discouraging comment, and balances on the balls of her feet a moment before hopping to the next rock closer to shore, moving on to the third and last trap.

Cynicism doesn't seem to affect Shimana's placidity in the slightest; she merely remains unruffled. "Did you ask for help, before you set the traps? For guidance? The ocean will tell you, if you stop and ask." A small smile curls her lips upwards. "A little patience will go a long way, dear. Better to wait now than to be hungry later."

"And who, pray tell, would I ask?" She half-turns, gaze sweeping out to the emptiness of the sea, a gesture of futility. "I know how to set my traps." Though her pots suggest otherwise. Riorde is now openly irritated as she begins pulling in the last line, pointedly trying to ignore Shimana though she knows it is likely a impotent action.

Shimana lets out a soft sigh, rife with mild disappointment. "The sea, of course. If you ask the sea, it will tell you where the best places are to set your traps." She circles around, carefully, to draw up against the nearest boulder. With only a little difficulty she scrambles aside, then gestures out towards the next. "Come, child, you know this. Did you ask where the seaweed was gathering, and where the tide was calmest?"

"The sea doesn't speak." Riorde's tone goes flat. Her dark hair falls over her shoulders as she negotiates the line around a rocky outcropping. She doesn't notice that she is biting her lower lip until her trap breaks free of the water line, seaweed tangled in the weave, and then lets her breath out in a sigh of relief to see movement inside. "I know how to set traps," she repeats, vindicated now that she holds proof. The young woman holds her prize out before her with care as she starts to cross the last few boulders remaining between her and the sand, empty traps banging against her back.

"Not to /you/, perhaps," Shimana remarks tartly, narrowed gaze lingering briefly on the final, successful trap. "And not in words." She slides back off the boulder with a groan, to await Riorde's arrival on the sand. "We depend on you children for a share of the food; it would behoove you to take advantage of our wisdom." There's no anger in her tone, just quiet disappointment. "Well done on your catch; we thank the sea for its bounty."

Standing on the final rock, Riorde turns to look back the way she came, staring out at the familiar view for a moment before she finally lowers herself down to the wet sand. She doesn't respond to the substance of Shimana's statements, which is common enough for this quiet, difficult girl. "I'm not a child," is all she says, adjusting the lines she has thrown over her shoulder from where they slipped on her descent.

"If you don't wish to be treated as a child, then stop behaving as one. You're as bad as Khorde; at least Rilka is biddable." The last is muttered half under Shimana's breath, complete with headshake - kids these days! "You all need mates and children to settle down the lot of you - I don't know why Devaki has waited this long. Honestly." But her gaze is drawn back out to the sea like iron to a lodestone; it always ends up there, given time.

Complaints Riorde's heard before. "And what does biddable Rilka say to that?" Intractable as always, she strings together a few sentences in order to argue. "How're you supposed to pair off with someone you've grown up with?" She lets out a soft, indelicate snort and calculates her next remark with a sly look at Shimana. "At least that new one is /different./"

All at once, hardness closes off Shimana's pleasant features, and her voice is a whipcrack of command: "Stay away from Raum." With visible effort, she masters herself - but some of that easy patience is lost. "Rilka will do as she's told. As will you all. Your parents managed it, and theirs. I'm certain you can find someone to suit your fancy, if you put your mind to it. Otherwise, who will set traps for you when you are old and joint-swollen?"

The faint line of a smile shows Riorde's pleasure at provoking a reaction. She doesn't pursue it further, but hardly looks cowed into submission. She takes the first step of many that will lead her back to camp, leaving Shimana to join in alongside or remain at the beach as she pleases. Laughter laces through her tone as she sings back, still unrepentant, "Rilka's children, I imagine!"

Shimana will fall in step with Riorde, still struggling to restore her earlier calm. "Rilka is a sweet, biddable girl," she chides. "She just has some strange ideas." Which, given the source, must mean they are truly bizarre indeed. "Likely she'll have to have one as well, though who can say if she'll have the rearing of it? Her blood is good." Her gaze drifts back to the sea, and then to the creature captured in the cage. "A good-sized catch," she notes idly.

"Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't all just throw ourselves into the sea." Riorde murmurs her dark thought so quietly it may not be heard. She lengthens her stride, though not so much that Shimana will have difficulty, and looks across at the older woman out of the corner of her eye. "Aye." Not quite a thank you, but Riorde accompanies her short answer with a small smile. She doesn't say much else but her silence is almost companionable, all the way back to camp.

"There's life yet in us. One day we'll all return to the sea, but not before we're ready," Shimana is confident of this, at least, though her gaze is once more fixed out upon the line of breakers. "I'll accompany you back," she affirms, content in the silence perhaps as much as Riorde. It's easier to hear the waves crash upon the shore that way.