The Blue Marble - The Ocean's Call
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The Blue Marble - The Ocean's Call
"Dolphin mating varies species to species." I type. "In some species there is a long ritual that is followed by both genders, while in others it varies. In my own species, mating rituals typically.." *KNOCK KNOCK* "..consist of.." *KNOCK* My tail twitches.. *KNOCK KNOCK* 'Hello? Anyone home?' Twitch.. "...a short.." *KNOCK* My tail jerks, knocking over several boxes behind me.
"WHAT?!" I yell, not used to having visitors while I'm working on my book. I get up, the rolling computer chair flying off to the side of the boat office. My tail jerks more as I spin around, I stomp annoyed over to the ladder leading out to the door.
I shove open the door and see my fox assistant, James, backing away. "Uhm," he mouths, "Sorry," realizing from the noise he just annoyed me. He gulps, and says, "I'm, uh, here to help you prepare for the trip?"
I lower my head, shaking it, running my hand over the back of my neck to calm myself down. "Right," I say, a hint of annoyance in my voice. "Well come on in I guess," I say as I push the door open the rest of the way for him, my voice going back to normal.
He wanders in as I climb back down the ladder. "Sorry for the mess," I say, looking around at boxes of research notes and various things, "I never really let anyone in here you see."
James peers around as he climbs down the ladder. "Wow," he says, "There's a lot of... stuff... in here." He looks around a bit more, noting a computer, a washer, and boxes... but nothing else. "Where's your bed?" he asks, looking around more to see if he missed anything.
"I don't have one," I say, as I move back toward my computer rocking the boat office a bit. James stumbles around, not used to a smaller vessel's rocking. "I sleep in the water, James," I explain, "I'm a fairly water-bound dolphin, you know."
"Suure," he says slowly, still looking around a bit, holding onto the ladder to balance himself. "So this is where you work then?" he asks, starting to get the idea.
"Yes," I begin, "I needed somewhere to put my things. It was a logical idea at the time to get a boat house." I pause, licking my dry lips, then adding, "As you can see, this thing rocks more than a one person raft."
"Right," James nods, "So what are you working on," he says, staring at my computer curiously, and then noticing... I'm not wearing anything, "Uh, er, where's your clothes?!"
I look down, remembering I forgot to put on my undersuit after last night. I shrug it off, not caring too much, swinging back to my computer. James needs to learn how to get used to me if he's going to travel with me anyway. "I guess I forgot to put them back on," I say, tilting my head in a grin, "It's no problem though, I don't typically wear it in here or in the water anyway." I lick my lips once more, then add, "It's not like we phins need it to cover anything anyway."
"I see," he says slowly, giving me an odd stare, trying to get over the fact that there's a naked dolphin anthro in front of him. "So, uh, you're normally nude?" he asks uneasily.
"Yes," I say, turning to face him, pointing to my tail, "See? Nothing to worry about, nothing exposed." Nothing but my tail slit that's closed up tightly, that is.
"I know," he says, looking away from the slit. I almost forgot he's studying to be a marine biologist, he already knows these things. He lets go of the ladder, trying to balance himself on the floor, still not exactly at ease with the situation, but trying to distract himself anyway. As he gets his footing, he looks back, "I'm just used to, well, you know," he says, hoping I'll complete his sentence.
"Yes," I say, turning back to my computer. Yes yes, I note, land furs have different opinions of things. I look around for my chair, grabbing it and putting it back in it's place before sitting down. I stretch my arms and fingers out with a bit of a crack, then begin to complete the line I was typing.
"So, what are you working on?" he asks again, trying to become more comfortable. I continue typing.
"A book," I begin. "It's basically about my research, and well, why the ocean is important, basically," I begin to explain, still focused on the screen.
"Oh," he says, losing interest, not wanting to touch another book after his studies this semester. "Well, that sounds interesting," he says, slowly, pausing to think back, remembering why he's here in the first place. "So, what can I do to help you pack?", he asks.
"Well I'm almost done here, then I guess we can get my ship packed for the trip," I say, still typing.
"Sure," he says, sitting down on the floor against a box, not wanting to try to keep himself up from the constant rocking of the vessel.
He hums to himself after a few minutes, and my tail muscles begin to twitch again as he does...
--- Heavy Boxes ---
Sure, being a large cold water bottlenose, I'm fairly strong and can lift quite a bit. Poor James though, he can barely lift one of my overfilled filing boxes.
I put the pair of boxes I'm carrying down inside the hull of The White Glider, and James follows behind me, trying his best to not drop the single box he's carrying. I reach over to help him, taking the box out of his arms, and stack the box on top the other two. He leans over on a wall and pants heavily. I laugh a bit.
"Ah James, you can tie a knot strong enough to hold a whale, but you can't do some simple lifting for me," I say with a chuckle. "Tsk tsk, I shoulda got another helper," I say, joking.
He looks up to me, too tired to tell if I'm joking or not. I laugh again and pat him on the back, heading back out to grab some more filing boxes.
I turn an eye toward the morning sea, and spot an odd ripple in the water, possibly a fin of some kind. I stop and turn to study it, but it's gone. I tilt my head a bit confusedly, questioning my own eyesight. I shake it off, moving back toward my office. I wander inside, finding another box full of blank plastic paper, before heading back out. James arrives at the door as I exit. I say to him, "Last one, go take a rest." I walk the docks back toward my ship as James follows, him still panting quite a bit.
I drop the box down in the hull with the others, taking some loose straps dangling from the wall, putting them over the boxes, and strapping them down in place. James finds a bench on the bow to rest on, laying down when I come back up. I hear splashes in the water below. I quickly look over the ship to investigate. Once again, I question my senses, seeing nothing.
I walk back grabbing a debit card and box of equipment, as well as a few changes of clothes in case I need to stop in a town or something. I set them down by the ladder, pulling a harness off a rack, holding it in my hand for a moment. I pick up my final few things, putting everything in the equipment box. I carry it up the ladder, locking the hatch behind me. I carry the box down to the ship, James still laying down.
"Alrighty James," I say as I drop the box by him, jerking him up. "We're ready to go now, forgetting anything?" I ask.
"Aayy uh," he pronounces, "Uh, no, I think I have everything. My suit case is in the sleeping cabin, and I have everything I think."
"Good then, you said goodbye to your parents and all right?" I ask, and add, "And how'd you do on that final?"
"Oh yes, the final went well, thank you for that," he says. "Oh and yes, I did say bye to my parents, they said thanks for bringing me on this trip," he says, giving a shy grin.
"Good then," I say, glad everything is in order. I feel the ship rock slightly, I look around. I spot someone on the bow. "Whoa hey, this is private property," I announce to them.
"Oh? Is that so," the figure says. I realize it's Missi. "Sorry then, perhaps I should leave?" she says jokingly.
"Ah, well," I say, relieved and happy to see her, "Hi there Missi. I'm sorry I didn't recognize you, what brings you up here?" I ask, making my way to her, reaching out to take her hand. James sits there, mouth open, staring at the female dolphin.
"Well I wanted to offer a morning fishing with the pod before you left, but I see you have a friend here," she says, motioning toward James as she takes my hand.
"Oh. Yes this is James, Missi, my helper I've been talking about," I say to her, turning looking back at the fox, "James meet my mate," I say, motioning James over. "It kind of sucks that this is the first time you two have met," I say, chuckling.
"Hi Missi," James says, extending a paw. Missi reluctantly takes his paw and gives it a shake, nodding to him.
"It's nice to meet you James," Missi says, trying to smile a bit at the fox, deep down uneasy about land furs. She looks back to me, I nod to her reassuringly. She smiles a bit more warmly, looking back at James, "I'm sorry," she starts, "You have to understand, I don't like coming near land."
James blinks a bit, confusedly, "Oh, uh, sure that's fine," he says, "I understand," he lies. He nods again at Missi sheepishly, letting go of her hand and retreating back to his bench. Missi faces me again.
"So what do you say?" she asks, "Think you can make it one last time?"
I look toward James, and nod back toward Missi. "Sure, I suppose one last time. I don't think James had anything to eat yet anyway," I say, looking back at James.
James sighs. He nods, "I guess I'll go back into town," he says, something on his mind. "Just, when will you be back Mick?" he asks with an uneven frown.
"Oh about an hour I think," I say to him, not exactly noticing his frown. I look toward Missi, very glad she came this way to get me. "Well, I guess we should go," I say, taking Missi by her hand, a wide smile on my beak. "I'll be back soon James, simply lock the gate while your in town," I say looking back quickly at him, Missi's beak following mine.
I turn and nod at Missi, she smiles back at me. We walk together to the front of the boat, climbing up the side and leaping into the water as if we've done it a thousand times before, our tails hitting the water and immediately thrusting ourselves through the sea and away from the docks.
James sits there on the bench, staring at where we were. He sighs loudly to himself, laying back down on the hard wooden bench, rubbing his face. He settles in, producing a tear and a sad moan. He curls up, crying somewhat as he falls asleep, wanting so much what I have...
--- Turrack's Pod ---
I swim off with Missi toward her, well, our, pod. The noise from the chattering dolphins is growing from a distant whine to booming white noise. Half of the pod is preparing for the first round of fishing for the day. I greet the bottlenoses as I pass deeper into the pod, admiring some of the younger ones playing with each other and their mothers. A few curiously buzz at me, since I'm an odd one, being anthro as well as brown instead of their typical grey.
Me and Missi swim together toward the small section of phins going out to fish, the pod leader giving a sort of prep talk to a few new members of a different pod, explaining the pod's fishing tactics.
"Now the A team here will be out in front searching for a large school," the old, and rather large, non-anthro phin leader explains, in the pod's native tongue, "They will signal to the B team who will swim around the other direction to enclose the school in. When I give the signal, the C team, YOUR team, will come underneath to begin netting them. You had done netting before right?"
The two members do the dolphin equivalent of a nod.
"Good then," he says as me and Missi approach, exclaiming our names to the old phin and greetings to him, "Get with the rest of the team, we'll leave momentarily!" He turns his attention to us. "I see you're here today Mick, I thought you were leaving?" he asks, demandingly.
"Yes Turrack," I say to him, "Missi invited me for some more fishing." I hide the fact that I'm really not glad he's leading the fishing this morning.
"Good then. You lead the C team with Missi, since at least you know what you're doing compared to these two know-nothings," he exclaims and then abruptly leaves, turning his attention to the other two teams.
"Right," I say. I greet the two other phins, "Don't worry too much about him," I say, meaning Turrack, "Just don't get in his way and he's quite a decent phin."
"Heh, well he's better then our last pod's leader," one of the phins, who goes by the name of Greg, explains.
The other phin nods. He still hasn't said anything, so I'm not too sure of his name. So I ask him in the pod's tongue, he says nothing, gesturing confusedly.
"He doesn't speak your dialect," Greg explains, "We come from a far south pod." Grey swims around to the side of his friend.
I ask the phin in a southern bottlenose dialect, this time he gets it, lighting up, glad someone understands. He announces his name. It's Tony.
"Do you understand what to do?" I ask Tony in the southern dialect again. Missi leaves my side, getting distracted chatting with another few phins.
"Yes, fishing right? Bubble team?" he asks hopefully.
I nod to him, he nods back, more at ease now. "Well I think we're all set then, Missi and I will go first, you two after our first set of bubbles," I say to them in their dialect again. "Also," I continue, "You'll need to learn our dialect," I say to Tony, "Before the leader finds out. He has no real patience with phins that don't understand him, so be careful." They both nod, chitting a note to each other to stick together in case of that.
Missi nudges me as she swims past, "We're about to leave," she says to me and the other two, her spinning around back to my side. I tell that to Tony, and then the two phins spin to my side. We swim off toward the fishing grounds, fin to fin, to hand to hand. The other two teams being lead by Turrack, already leaving without us.
--- You will call me Sir ---
A group of 12 phins, 4 per team, swim out and away from the pod. Turrack tells some of his fighting stories to the group, which I've stopped listening to a long time ago, while we approach our fishing location.
I note a few more boats out here than usual, swimming under and around them. The group surfaces for a last breath, all of us knowing the plan, going into hunting mode and remaining silent.
The A team, lead by Turrack, splits to search for a large school of fish, us and the B team wait, swimming around each other slowly, listening for their call.
A few minutes pass, and one of the B team members had enough, and breaks the silence once the A team is out of our range. "So have you guys heard about that new pod up north?" he asks casually, "Turrack doesn't seem to be too happy with them getting so close."
The group stirs. "Yes I've heard that," another member says, "I hope he doesn't want us to fight them off, none of the members here are fighters." The pod agrees.
One of the larger members speaks up, "If I had any say with it, I'd make a pact with them, share some of the stronger members for fighting off orcas."
I make a note of who's next for leadership, always politics with the larger members here. I may be fairly large as well, bordering on Turrack's size, but I'm no leader. I nuzzle Missi, distracting her, so she doesn't try adding anything in. I note that she's the only female out here with us. Turrack never lets females in with his groups, but Missi seems to be his only exception. Perhaps it's me?
The conversation and my thought are broken as an A team member lets out a loud whistle. The B team splits off us to help them. I direct my team of Missi and the 2 new members out.
We speed off, silent, slightly left of where the whistle came from. I click looking for a school of fish. I don't see anything and signal for Missi to help me look. She doesn't either. I hear the sound of a boat in the direction we're headed, I chit that it might be interfering with our clicks.
"Wait, ah, there it is," I chit quietly to the group, now hearing my clicks back and spotting the fish. I signal my team to dive deeper.
The two other teams scare the school together, circling and buzzing around, scaring the fish into a wide cloud.
My team swims under the school, and then Turrack gives us his signal. I swim to the outer end of the cloud and begin blowing a stream of bubbles, slowly encircling the fish. Missi swims around the opposite direction till we meet, the other two members follow our circle, releasing their own bubbles, as me and Missi speed to the surface to get more air.
Turrack gives another signal for the B team to help out with the bubble netting, while his team scares more fish into the forming ring of bubbles. I go back down to blow more, when my clicks hit something odd in the distance. The clicks back confuse me, so I ignore them temporarily, going back focusing on the fish.
The fish are quite panicked now, forming a ball of rapidly swimming fish inside the bubble ring, confused as heck as to what is going on.
Turrack signals for his team to dive in. They do, taking a mouth full of fish from the ring as me and the other team work to enclose the fish further. Turrack's team comes down to help with the bubbles as the B team get their turn, and finally our team is let into the ring.
I swim in through the bubbles, my beak open and my eyes closed. Fish pelt my sides as many of them get scooped into my mouth, before the school scatters out of my way as I exit the other side, closing my mouth. The other members swim in at different angles producing holes in the ball of fish, the fish trying their best to get out of our way, but most of them too late. The bubble ring gets smaller for the fish. I take a breath as I work on swallowing the load of fish.
I spot that odd thing in the distance again as I go down to blow more bubbles. I shake it off, not wanting to focus my thoughts on what it might be. Turrack's team dives in for another round.
I look out again, and a second later, it clicks with me. I look hard at it, buzzing loudly toward it. Yes, I recognize that reflection now... it's a net. Distant, but it's headed toward us..
I look around, seeing the same thing on two sides of us. I signal to Turrack, "There's fishing boats around here, we should get outta here Turrack."
"You will call me Sir!" he yells to me, ignoring my advice, he doesn't notice the net. He focuses the rest of the pod, "Get back in line!" he yells at me as I stare at him.
Fishing nets mess with a dolphin's sonar, the small mesh of strings don't properly reflect back to us. I only recognize them because I've encountered them so many times. Even then, it's hard to realize it till it's too late.
I blow more bubbles, looking out to see which direction they are coming. Both of them seem to be headed toward each other.. Wait a second, no, that's one large net.
"Turrack we have to go NOW," I yell to him. He squawks at me to be silent. I ditch the bubbles and ignore Turrack. I give a clear out, danger signal to the rest of the group. They stop, the fish ball dissipates, and immediately Turrack turns his attention to me. The rest of the group takes notice of the incoming net and begin to scramble away to safety. Missi follows quickly behind them, as do I. Turrack, on the other hand, doesn't notice the net at all, and instead charges at me.
"What do you think you're DOING?" he yells at me as he slams his beak into my back. I squawk in pain, twisting over, facing him in surprise. He tries to ram me again, but I manage to catch his beak, redirecting his blow away. He flips around quickly, and tries to bite my hands. He doesn't even notice the net incoming as he sinks his teeth into my left arm.
I screech out, clamping my own jaw on his flipper, trying in vain to get him to let go. I'm still squawking in pain, focusing to get control of him as he lets go. I try to grab around him, but he breaks loose. He doesn't say a sound, even though I see blood coming from his fin where I bite. He bites again on my arm, I squawk more. I break free from his jaw, and immediately scramble to overpower him, wrapping my arms around him preventing him from biting me again. He tries frantically to shake himself free.
It finally dawns on him what is going on, his head now facing the net. He squawks out in fear as he kicks his tail hard, breaking free from me and immediately fleeing. I squawk out, still in pain, trying to follow him, my back unable to move due to his first blow, and I'm unable to swim fast enough to escape the net. I let out a loud yelp for help as I feel the net scoop me up, its mesh pressing hard against my skin.
The speed of the net presses against me, I try to pull myself up toward the surface, then the net begins to slow down. I get tangled in it trying to climb up. I squawk a bit more, my arm in pain. I free myself, and finally reach the surface to take a breath. I peek out and look around, spotting two fishing ships the net is attached to, meeting each other and exchanging ends of it, preparing to reel their catch in, myself included.
I try to swim toward the ships, my back still hurting too much to move. I hear a panicked squawking coming where the gap was. It's Turrack. He yelps out, "I'm trapped! I'm trapped!" loudly, repeating it a few times. I wrap my hand around my bitten arm, Turrack's marks too big for one hand to cover.
I yell to him, "Jump over the net!" Somehow, I still want to help him despite the blood he extracted from my arm. He continues to squawk panicked, swimming around looking for a gap, before noticing me again.
He stops and focuses to me, demanding, "Get me out of here Mick!" He stops for a second, and corrects himself, "Get US out of here!"
"Jump OVER the net!" I yell to him. He looks to the net, and doesn't move. "Just do it!" I hold my arm, trying to stop the bleeding. The net begins to move again as one of the ships begins to haul it in. He's frozen.
Dolphins have a huge fear of jumping over things that separate them, especially if they don't understand it...
He sits there, frozen still. "JUMP OVER THE NET," I demand to him, "IT'S DEATH OR IT'S THAT, JUMP OVER IT." He clicks once at the net, then finally propels himself toward it, jumping clean over it, landing on the other side and spinning back, stopping and watching me, not making a sound or a gesture.
I let the pain go back to my arm as I begin to climb up and over the net, getting stuck a few times in its loops, but managing to get out and over it. The fishers don't even seem to notice me as I climb over, still squawking in pain, the pests don't even look up as they reel in their prized net.
I climb over the floats and sink back into the water, giving a loud sigh, then a squeak of pain again as I try to move my back. Turrack approaches me and inspects his bite on my arm, before looking at his own flipper, waving it, noting the mark I left him. I watch him, unable to judge what he'll do.
He swims around me, inspecting me a bit. He then faces me again, letting out a sigh of his own, spinning around and offering to pull me back to the group. I grasp his dorsal fin, and we begin to swim back.
He doesn't say a word. I, on the other hand, murmer quietly in pain.
--- Why feral phins ---
Missi and a small group of phins follow me back to my boat. Missi hops up onto my ship, giving me a hand up. The other phins watch us from the water, waiting for Missi's return. My back still aches in pain as I grab Missi's hand, pulling myself up onto the ship.
I say bye to the small group of phins, nodding at them a bit, still in pain but trying to be polite to them. I look around the deck, spotting James, still on the bench, sleeping.
I lead Missi into the boat cabin, not wanting to wake up James. I find the med kit, taking out some bandages, handing them to her. "I need you to wrap up my arm," I say, looking at her as she pauses.
She doesn't want any part of it, "No," she says, "Sorry Mick, I don't know how to do that, and I'd rather not," she says. I nod, sighing.
I wander over to James, tapping him on the shoulder to wake him up. He blinks sleepily at me and Missi, "Oh.. you're back," he says, getting up, then noticing my arm. "Oh my, what happened?" he said, waking up concerned.
"Just a fight," I reassure him, "Sorry I was gone so long." I hand him the med kit and bandages, and sit down next to him, laying out my arm on his lap.
James takes some lotion from the kit and rubs it on the bite marks. The stuff was from a dragon friend I met from my travels, helps prevents cuts, or bites, from leaving scars. James wraps some gauss and bandages around my arm, Missi watching curiously. He begins to work on the second bite mark on the arm. "Some fishers decided to set up down south of the bay," I explain, "We ran into some nets," I sigh, pausing, "The pod leader wasn't too happy with me breaking the group. We did a bit of damage to each other unfortunately."
"Ouch," James says, finishing up on the wrap. "How's the other phin?" he asks, not sure if he should even ask that.
"Oh he'll be fine," I say, "He has plenty of scars on him from other the years," chuckle a bit, feeling better already from James' work. I take Missi's hand, pulling her closer and giving her beak a nuzzle. "Thanks for escorting me back Missi," I say to her, "And the other phins as well," I say looking over toward them. I look back at Missi, "You better get going, they are waiting for you."
"Yes," she nods, pulling ourselves together, crossing our beaks to say goodbye. She lets go, and I watch her. She move back to the end of the ship, jumping back into the water with the other phins.
James stares at them. He looks down, organizing the kit, and closing it up. He resumes staring as Missi and the other phins head off silently through the waves. "Why does she travel with all those feral phins?" he asks.
"That's where she grew up," I say, watching Missi with him, "It's all she knows." I turn down to him, "I grew up the same way, you know," I explain.
James turns to me, "How'd you end up here then?" he asks.
I shrug, looking back out toward Missi, "All anthro phins end up on land at one point," I say, "Otherwise we'd have no use being anthro."
James stirs, looking at me. "What about the anthro phins that grew up on land?" he asks.
"They typically live on land most of the time, then," I explain. "Of course, even they can't help but explore the sea. It's just part of our nature. We're dolphins of course," I say. "The call of the ocean attracts all phins." I look at him and say, "Hopefully on these travels, you can learn more about that."
James nods. We stare out to the ocean some more.
He sighs loudly after several minutes, getting up, rummaging around, getting the ship ready for departure. I shake the thought off as well, heading down to the cabin for a final checklist.
--- What Home is like ---
James loosens the tie on The White Glider, I start up the engines. It's late in the day, and I'm off schedule. He jumps aboard, and I look back to make sure the docks are locked, and the boat is free. I direct it out from the docks into the bay. James runs up to me at the bridge and I guide him on how to use the controls. He gets the hang of it and I let him take the wheel for a bit.
I walk out of the cabin, looking out into the bay. I see the pod meet up, Turrack leading some jumps for me. I wave to him, and then Missi who's jumping with them, before we part their range.
I lean over the edge feeling the spray of the ocean. I stick out my tongue to catch some of the water, to remember it by. We're moving toward Different Seas, and I don't want to forget what home is like.
The Blue Marble: The Ocean's Call [3]
By micksam7
Copyright 2008 micksam7
All Rights Reserved