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Chapter Three: Learning

For the next few days I stayed in the nursery. I had nowhere else to be after all. Food and water would be brought in regularly by others from the village. Almost always fish of some sort. I didn't complain. After a few days my splinted leg grew restless and I began to pick at it, until finally just tearing the apparatus off one night. I could finally walk on it again, though it was still sore. None of the others spoke to me and Baka did not come to check in on me either. For those five days it was just me and the two eggs. Which I had admittedly become invested in. Whenever I went to bathe or void my bowels, I would leave them wrapped snugly in my cape. Apparently it was quite frowned upon to take something from someone else's nest and punishments for doing so were severe. I found myself actually enjoying my time in the nursery. It was quiet and gave me time to think and plan what I was going to do more clearly. The eggs had become nearly second nature to me now, the way I handled them that is. I figured it was some deep seeded instinctive response or something along those lines. I was a reptile after all. It was sometime on the fifth day after I had been up and about when Baka came to see me. I was sat up in the nest, eating from a small clay bowl. Eggs sat snug in my lap with my cap wrapped around them. She smiled. "I knew your paternal instinct would kick in." she said softly. You weren't allowed to raise your voice in the nursery so everyone spoke softly or whispered or just used rudimentary hisses and clicks and such. I shrugged as a reply, before I told her my plan. She listened closely, nodding or turning her head a little here and there. When I was done, she smiled "Well, I see some peace and quiet has given you time to reflect. I'm quite glad to hear you so driven to learn. We can start this afternoon if you wish." I nodded in agreement. "I'd like that. Thank you." So after a quick midday nap, I left the two eggs wrapped in my cape and followed Baka down to the water. Where she introduced me to the head spearfisher of the village, one of the Patriarchs as it were. A tall, dull yellowish Vermian with blazing soft blue eyes and numerous small bites and scars littering his arms and torso. "This is Kooda. He's been quite eager to meet you ever since he fished you out of the sea the other week." Baka said. Kooda smiled wide and nodded, giving me a lusty, yet friendly look. "Definitely my tastiest looking catch to date." He said confidently, puffing out his chest and lashing his tail about. Flirting. I was familiar with it, my nights spent with Seht in Siricuse had taught me a good deal. So I responded warmly, sizing him up as I did. "Why thank you. But if you want a bite, you'll have to work for it," Kooda threw his head skyward and issued a single laugh. Smiling wide as he nudged Baka's shoulder with his elbow. "Oh I like this one already."! Baka left to two of us, and Kooda handed me a Frai, it was woven from wool and reed grass, with a wide patch of fish scales on the left hip, from which was strung a loose length of corded leather. I put it on without a word and followed Kooda out into the shallows. The water was icy cold, but it sent pleasant chills up my spine. We made for a small yet wide shelf of protruding rocks not far off shore. Once we reached it, I was handed a wood shafted spear whose head looked like half a broad head arrow, with a nasty looking barb extended backward from it. Kooda took up a crouched position right on the edge of the land facing side of the rock shelf. I followed his lead. "Ever done any fishing before"? He asked me. I shook my head. "Ah. Well, it's boring. Fishing, hunting, tracking, all of it is boring. It all requires patience. You can't just start throwing spears and nab something. You've gotta wait for the right moment to strike and be quick. Hesitating means you go hungry." He then demonstrated. Hefting his spear up in one hand poised to strike, he leant out over the lip of the rocks, his tail stiff and straight behind him, acting as a counter weight. I watched closely, his eyes picked a target and followed it unblinkingly. A nice fat looking mudfish. He waited, and waited, then struck. In a flash he speared the fish through the middle and wrenched it out of the water in one swift motion. He looked at me with a smile as he pulled the thrashing fish off and beat it on the rocks till it stopped moving. "Your turn," He said. I nodded and crept up to the lip of the rocks, balancing myself out over the water just as Kooda had done. Most of the fish had scrambled, but a few remained, none of them very big. I picked one and watched it carefully. It was a grimy looking fish with a long, snake-like body. I raised my spear, waiting, then struck. I just barely caught it by the tail. It whipped around furiously as I pulled it free of the water. Kooda quickly took it from my spear and beat it on the rocks like he had with the other. "Coastal eel. Not bad for a first catch. But you need practice," I knew he was right, and I was willing to keep at it until I improved. The rest of the afternoon was spent out on those rocks, until the sun began to dip in the sky. By then Kooda had thirteen fish, all good sized ones, hung from the side of his frai. I only had six, and one was inedible, a stone fish. Kooda said to keep it anyways as Baka could use it. Kooda then went further along the rock shelf, away from the village and along the towering cliffs behind us. Until we reached the far point of the rock shelf. Here the water was deeper and dark blue in colour. I swallowed nervously. "Underwater caves," Kooda explained. "Shelf just drops off here. It's called the hollow coast, there's dozens of them. Nobody swims near them though." I cocked my head. "Why not."? A moment later I had my answer. A sleek, ugly brown dorsal fin broke the surface and gilded about in lazy circles. The shadow it belonged to was at least four meters long. Kooda grinned. "Snapper fish," He said. I swallowed, Sharks, that's what he meant, Snapper fish was just a crude name for them. I watched as Kooda unravelled a length of braided leather cord from his waist, threading it through a series of holes on the bottom of his spear shaft and tying a strong knot. He then tossed a second length to me, and watched as I did the same. I knew how to tie a proper knot, but we weren't really going to try and hunt a shark were we? "Time to teach you how to harpoon." Kooda said with a crazed smile. Yeah we were hunting a shark. Without skipping a beat, Kooda rose to his full height, took aim and threw. His spear struck just below the dorsal fin and in an instant the shark bolted downward into the water. The line went taunt and Kooda growled as he held it, pulling steadily back, digging in his heels and claws. I readied my spear, waiting for it to surface again. If I missed I likely would not get a second chance. As soon as I saw that fin break the surface, I threw. I struck it further down the body toward the tail. I grabbed the braided cord tight and heaved. About ten minutes of constant heaving and fighting, we both drug the thing from the water and Kooda quickly killed it with his knife. My arms by that time ached and my shoulders hurt. "Not bad." Kooda said with a smirk, flipping the shark onto its side and opening its jaws, where he quickly cut one of its teeth out. I noticed that his frai was actually decorated with them. There were six similar to the one he cut out, three bigger ones, and one rather nasty one that looked like a serrated arrowhead. With a smile he cut a second tooth out and handed it to me. I took it and gave him a smile in return. With the sun now setting, Kooda and I returned to the village with our catches, then Kooda took me back out to the shallows and started teaching me how to swim. I found that it was surprisingly easy, as a reptile I could actually hold my breath for a considerable amount of time, around four minutes. That and all I really had to use to swim was my tail. A single back and forth swish was all I needed to lazily cut through the water. The hard part, at least for me, was learning how to float. That's what took me the longest to figure out. Kooda also taught me how to tread water and taught me a little about water currents and how dangerous they could be if I was not careful. "Thank you Kooda. For all of this, you've taught me a lot today." I said with gratitude as we both trudged back to the village along the wet dark yellow sand. "Oh it's no problem. Young kin like you should know these things anyways. It never hurt to know how to fish or hunt. If you've got some time tomorrow afternoon, come by and we'll work on your skills." Kooda replied with a smile and a wink, I smirked but said nothing. Making my way back to the nursery I promptly curled up around the two eggs and brought them close to me. They were just as I had left them. Though truth be told it was just nice to actually be doing something. The last few weeks or so, I felt as if I had just been following someone else around. I'd felt that way Ever since Roderic had absconded with me. Learning new skills had put me back into a familiar mindset. One I quite enjoyed. I thought of Bastille and the training we used to do, deep down I had enjoyed every match, even though I never won a single one. Not yet at least. I let out a yawn as I curled up and got comfortable. It was late in the afternoon now, food would soon be served but I was tired. I closed my eyes, and soon found myself dreaming again of a stunning green and black mountain. And the little cabin that sat on its side.