The Second Day (Kaiko)

[Norani]

Norani listened intently at this marine biology lesson from Kaiko. It was fascinating to learn. She knew of many an animal, but had not learned so many specific things about them. Perhaps it was time to focus more on her Animus learnings after all.

She hadn’t really ever used her Animus Rune much since getting it. She smiled to herself, remember how much she had pestered and pestered Old Nurn to initiate her, because she wanted to be taller, like the giraffe that was her first totem.

But she hated the idea of making totems, to the point that she hadn’t pursued it further over the years. Now a mediocre hunter, she was less squeamish of such things, but she still didn’t care for the idea of killing something solely to claim its form. If the creature wasn’t edible, it was even further a waste.

But maybe there was another way.

And soon, amid her pondering, Kaiko had returned, a jar in hand, with several creatures Norani had never seen before trapped inside. She frowned a bit, hating the idea of these creatures trapped in such a way. Kaiko gave a warning of pretty meaning pain and Norani smiled softly.

She reached into the jar, wondering how this creature would inflict its pain upon her. “My mother, Kiki, once told me that, as children, everything is beautiful.” Her fingers scooped gently beneath the cap of the jellyfish and into the tentacles, which immediately began to sting as Norani winced, “It’s only when we begin to grow that we find that things are ugly.”

She called upon her Aether, pulling it through her rune, and offering it to the creature, much like she did when communing with the elements. Tears filled her eyes as she continued to hold the jellyfish in such a manner, keeping it beneath the water. With her Aether, she felt a connection beginning to form, one that was similar to that first time she made a totem.

“I don’t wish to lose that, just because I’m pained,” she grunted through grit teeth. The connection finished, and Norani could feel the addition of the jellyfish within her Rune upon her back. She removed her hand from the creature, then overturned the jar to let them free once more.

She looked at her hand, large welts forming in streaks now. And it still burned terribly. “What is that creature called?” She could feel that she could turn into it if she tried. But with her hand burning as such, maintaining concentration would be difficult. “Do you know a way to soften the pain? I wish to transform into that creature, but I need to be able to focus.”

[Kaiko Marina]

As Norani reached into the jar Kaiko closed an eye and looked away. True the sting never affected her, but she had seen first hand what the little things could do to flesh. Just because she could sting people did not mean she liked to do it. Nore did it mean that she liked seeing its effects.

As someone who lives in the Salt water she saw the act of purposefully getting stung as a bad idea. Even so, the words Norani spoke about pretty, knowledge, and ugly being tied were very smart. It took a second for Kaito to turn and look at the jellyfish and its damage. Norani simply let all of the jellyfish go then asked what they were.

Kaiko tilted her head, curious as to why that had happened. She was going to try to grow them in her room. But it seemed that was no longer an option. "Those are jellyfish. And you're lucky that one was simply a Nomura Jellyfish and not a box jellyfish," She said. She did not expect anyone to test a tech from a jellyfish so soon after being told it was painful.

When asked for any knowledge on stopping the pain, part of her checks grew darker with embarrassment. As her mouth clinched and eyes widened slightly. "The sailors usually pee on it." She said then hid her mouth with her hand. After a few seconds she added. "Some dump rum on it but it usually doesn't help. Others dump vinegar on it. Either way this particular sting should go away in two or three hours." With that her embarrassment faded.

She then realized something. Her eyes widened as she went silent. All the other people in the water had the possibility of getting stung. And most jellyfish stay in large schools. She dived below the water and swam back towards where she had caught the first few jellyfish. She was right. There were hundreds of them in various sizes though most were still young. She grabbed one that's head was just a little bigger than her hand and swam back.

"We need to get everyone out of the water before they get stung." She then looked up towards the deck and waved until she got someone's attention. Then picked the jellyfish up out of the water. To show the danger.

"It's probably best if we ask for vinegar to help that sting. You should also get it out of the salt water. They say that cold and salt make it worse. But if you think you can turn into a jellyfish then you can try in my room. It will be much safer than the open water."

She bit into the jellyfish so she could take it with her for breakfast. One thing to note was that the jellyfish was unable to actually sting her.

[Norani]

Norani watched as Kaiko flushed deeply at mentioning the remedy for the stings. Norani wasn’t quite sure why she was blushing like that, but one thing she learned from Yeva was that blushing seemed to come easily for foreigners outside of Ecith.

Ecithians had no such qualms of discussing body matters such as urination, so much so that Norani could not fathom the societal taboo of such. She pressed her good hand against the hull of the ship, the other go between her thighs as she relieved herself, letting the urine soothe her wounds, hopefully. It did seem to be burning less now.

Kaiko came up in a panic, worried about the jellyfish harming everyone else. Norani peered under the water at the ones she had released from the jar. They were moving ambiently, carried by how the waters rocked and moved. Norani took a deep breath and slipped down under the water, and began pulling more aether through her animus rune, through her new jellyfish totem. She then brought that aether to her mouth, to her ears.

And she listened.

The sounds the jellyfish made, as translated by her Echolalia, showed that they were all in unison. They simply wished to enjoy being carried by the current, with a fresh batch of young. There was such an age disparity for they were coming from a breeding bay it seemed. Norani smiled. They might be a danger, but not an intentional one.

She reached into her elementalism rune, and a hand went out, letting the aether flow from her, grabbing onto the water around her. She pushed, creating a gentle current, widening it as much as she could while stil maintaining control, and she sent it straight through the large school of jellyfish that Kaiko had spotted.

She watched as it pushed the beautiful fishes away from the ship and further out to sea a bit. As she continue to push them, those outside of her current drifted into it, staying together. Family traveling together. Soon, they were all pushed into an existing ocean current and began being carried away from the ship.

Norani came back up to the surface, gasping, so focused on her task that she forgot she’d been holding her breath. She looked at her wounded hand, still marked, but only now realized that the pain was a dull throb. And it hadn’t affected her concentration. And she smiled.

“Thanks for the pee help, Kaiko!”

She looked around the bobbing ocean, “The jellyfish are moving onward now. We’re not in danger from them.”

Smiling, she found Kaiko’s face once more, “Do you have water in your room? Mine came with a lake.”

[Kaiko Marina]

As Norani took the advice and then disappeared below the waves Kaiko began to eat. Nomura Jellyfish were not the best tightening Jelly out there. Nore were there stings the most painful but to have a warning sting could be helpful. She took the creature in her hands and began eating it from where the stingers met the bell. Just like noodles she slurped then stingers down into her stomach to be separated and moved to her cnidosacs pouch to be used later. Once she had swallowed the last of the dangerous parts she looked around to find where Norani had gone.

For a split second Kaiko looked at her lunch remembering Norani said she wanted to transform into one of them. She couldn't be eating her friend as she had shown Norani this particular jellyfish. At the gasp Kaiko turned to see Norani. A relief that she wasn't eating Norani washed over her. She swam closer than looked beneath the waves. All the jellyfish were gone. How odd. But that meant more time in the water.

She popped back above the water. "Half of my room is water. The other half is a common wood cabin," she said. She rather liked her simple room but it was cramped. Not much room to stretch or move. But if she has many of these stops then it would not be a problem. "You have a lake? That's cool." She would want to see that eventually.

She lifted the remains of her jellyfish out of the water. "You should try this." She offered. "It's squishy. Not my favorite kind but definitely one most people can eat."

"If you can take on the skin breathing from the jellyfish I can show you a wonderful world air breathers don't get to see." After she said this she slipped below the waves. She swam straight down, turned and swam straight up as fast as she could. She jumped high out of the water and caught her hand on a window. She placed her jar on the ledge. “Good ship Duck, can you return that to my room?” she asked. “Thanks.” With that she used her tail to flip away from the ship. She dived hands first back into the water and went back to find her new friend.

[Norani]

Food was offered to Norani by her young companion, the remains of a partially eaten jellyfish. Norani was grateful, cradling the soft, goopy form in her hands. She brought her fingers to her lips, slurping it inward, finding the texture foreign and strange, and obviously quite salty, but it was not an unpleasant experience. Sharing of food was one of the most important aspects of her upbringing, and would continue to be, despite her own feelings toward her family and culture.

Then Kaiko had a terribly intelligent idea.

"Jellyfish breathe through their skin?" What a curious thought. Excitedly, she smiled broadly, thinking about the prospect of going somewhere she'd never been. "Let's try!"

She reached within, grabbing a hefty amount of aether, letting her excitement take over, and ripping it through her Animus rune. She filtered it through the new jellyfish totem, feeling the flavor of it change. Soft and mellow, salty, more of a simplicity to it than any of her other forms, including her normal. They were truly simple beings. She focused on the skin, on the desire to breathe, on the feeling of the water around her, hoping to translate it into what she desired. Once she felt her aether was properly filled with her intent, she began to spread it through her own body, applying it to her skin. This would be invisible to Kaiko, but Norani could feel the itching spreading as the change became real.

Once the Therianthropy finished, she severed the connection. She looked down at her hands, not seeing anything that was physically different. Well. Maybe? Maybe she was a bit shinier? It was hard to tell. Without warning, she immediately dunked herself underwater without taking a breath with her lungs. She didn't get so far, bobbing upward with the air still within her lungs. She blew it all out in a series of bubbles, feeling herself growing less buoyant. She expected to feel a burning in her chest, the hard contractions of her body yearning for air. But nothing happened. She was fine. She smiled broadly.

Still didn't solve her floating problem.

She pulled some aether through her elementalism rune, offering it to the water around her, asking it to treat her more like Stone instead of an Elementalist. She'd never tried asking an element to interpret herself differently, but she did know that stones sink in water and she wanted to go down quickly.

A startled underwater yelp escaped her lips as she began racing downward, leaving a trail of light bubbles behind her, seeing the light above quickly fleeting. She severed the flow of aether quickly, coming to a slow stop, bobbing in place fifty meters or so beneath the surface. Looking around, she was realizing that the ocean was far bigger than it looked even from the surface. She still couldn't see the bottom, couldn't see any creatures, could barely see the ship above against the light. Massive, lonely, and scary.

She tried the same type of Influence use again, but this time asking to be treated as Air, like a bubble, and she began to float upwards, smiling all the while, looking for Kaiko. It was going to be exciting to explore these oceans with her. Once she found Kaiko, she would try to speak through the water, asking it to carry her words to the girl, "Lead the way!"

[Kaiko Marina]

Kaiko returned to where she had left Norani to find her missing. This did not worry Kaiko as she knew the orken could now breath the salt water. Or that's what she thought till she saw a large amount of bubbles pop the serfaus. Curious she popped her head under the water and began to circle the bubbles as she went down. When she found Norani, it was due to her shooting past her. Kaiko swam back up just to hear words carried by the water. Clear understandable words. Kaiko was not able to speak underwater and none of her water forms were able to make vocal noise under water. Kaiko gave a nod. Where to first?

Kaiko slowly transformed. Her feather-like fins were absorbed into her body, replaced by the solid gray fins of a Tiger shark. A single dorsal fin growed from the upper part of her back. Her teeth grew sharp. Soon she was a full 8 foot long Tiger shark. Complete with gills and the ability to smell things in water.

She took a good sniff and decided where to go. Where there was death there was food, where there was food there was life. Kaiko swam a full circle around Norani before holding out her pectoral fin for her to grab.

Kaiko then began swimming away from the boat hoping that her nose was not lying about food. After a minute of swimming she slowed. In the distance was a large fuzzy black thing being attacked by smaller dots. But as they got closer one could see the big dot was a floating carcass. The little dots were a variety of sharks and small fish taking advantage of the free meal.

As they got closer Kaiko let off a smell in the water saying to the other sharks to not harm her friend. Kaiko would swim to the carcass and take a good bite before swimming back to Norani.

[Norani]

Norani saw the nod from Kaiko, and watched as the young lass began an animus transformation. It had been a while since she'd seen someone other than herself transform. It was fascinating. Limbs disappeared, reshaped, reformed. Norani knew it to be painful from her own experience, especially being such a slow process. She waited, watching and studying Kaiko until her new form took hold. It was big. And terribly scary looking. Some sort of fish, and it looked incredibly fast, powerful, and those teeth could do some serious damage.

Norani only now realized how careless she'd been. If creatures like that existed in the ocean, she was rather defenseless, a warm slipped off a hook. She didn't have any aquatic forms that could provide any sort of defense against such a creature, so she'd have to be very mindful to stick to her elementalism. More likely needing to escape than to fight.

With Kaiko circling her, Norani reached out to the proffered fin, and let Kaiko tow her. They swam about like this, Kaiko clearly looking for something. Soon, she found the trail she sought, and they raced toward it. Norani's eyes strained to look through the ocean, but once she saw it, her eyes grew wide. Some massive beast, as large as those in North Ecith, was dead and floating in the ocean, being consumed by many of these dangerous fish that looked similar to Kaiko, though pointedly different. Norani dismounted Kaiko, who swam forward to take a bite and came back.

Norani stayed there, suspended in the touch of the water around her. She wished to approach as well, if only just to capture this in her mind, so she could draw it later in her journals. She fed her aether into the water around her, taking an invisible hold on a sphere that held her at the center. She maintained that, so that if she needed to react to the fish, she could do so as rapidly as possible. And then she began to frog swim toward the animal carcass. As she drew closer, she was surprised to see almost no blood, even as they ripped large chunks out of the creature. She kept her distance from the large fish, staying above them, closer to the surface, as she looked down upon them. She studied each of them in turn. She watched as some tore the flesh sideways, others up and down, some had teeth that just sliced through like butter. Some were solid in color, others speckled, one was striped.

She swam down to the corpse itself. The flesh was tough but spongy directly underneath. An exposed area revealed the sponginess to be an incredibly thick layer of fat. She tore off a piece, popping it into her mouth. Strange taste, weirder texture. She swam about the carcass, studying each of the sharks from a respectable distance, until she felt satisfied. She asked the waters which direction the Duck could be found and they gently pushed her that way in response. She thanked them, then floated off to the side, to wait for Kaiko to finish eating.

[Kaiko Marina]

One small advantage of a tiger shark besides her size was that this was one of the few sharks that can breath without motion. That combined with the swim bladder floating controle made it easy for Kaiko to watch Norani. The excitement, wonder and fear showed on the orken. Kaiko did her best shark smile as she watched, glad to share her world with an outsider. As she watched to keep the other safe she would also return to the carcass to eat as the larger form would require more food to support.

Feeling full but not groggy, she would swim around the other sharks until she caught sight of a baby shark maybe 2 feet long. She would nudge it, despite it trying to run, directing it to her friend. She wanted to let Norani see one up close without anyone being eaten. In doing so she also picked up 7 or so cleaning fish known as cleaner wrasse. These long silver fish with black and white stripes started sucking on her. These daring fish were one of her favorites and for good reason. They cleaned Kaiko before cleaning Norani. All dead skin would be gone and Kaikos mouth would be clean. The fish would leave and go back to their original sharks once they were full.

Kaiko would then swim around Norani a few times then hold her fin out. She would then begin the swim back to the ship. Once the sharks were out of sight she would swim towards the surface as she went back to her Lycan form. Her fins would change shape and grow as her face went back to normal. She would keep her shark tail but only the tail. Her teeth would combine and shrink, losing their sharpness. By time she reached the surface she had completed the transformation. “Not much to see in the deep water unless you're closer to the sea floor. Though light doesn't really travel that far.” she said. “Which way is the ship? And what did you think of the sharks?”

[Norani]

Norani watched cautiously as she saw Kaiko's approach. She realized that if she were to explore these seas more often, she'd need to grow her repertoire of ocean forms. She felt more than capable enough on land and in the skies, when with Ruvaf at least. But here, she was vulnerable, weak.

Still, there was a fascination with this world she knew so little about. It was so big, so much to it. There was an excitement growing inside of her, so much to learn and to see. And Kaiko seemed more than eager to help and to join her. She smiled at the lass as she shifted away from her form back to the girl she recognized.

At Kaiko's question, Norani gently nodded back that way, "I asked the waters and they say it is back that way. We can ride the currents that way." Norani fed some aether to them, and the pair began to drift toward the ship at a comfortable pace. Norani thought on the other question. "Sharks seem to me as a high end predator, with scavenger tendencies. They look terribly fast and powerful, so quite the danger. Their colorings make them hard to see as well, so I assume they get in close unseen then strike fast."

With that thought, she asked the waters to let her know what creatures were close or would come close as they traveled. "I am not even sure what I would do if one decided to attack me. Quite vulnerable out here." Norani was a fledgling huntress at best, so wasn't used to being the prey. But she had the suspicion that maybe everything in the seas, sharks included, were more often both prey and predator.

"How do you deal with shark attacks? What about where you're from? Do they build protections against them?"

[Aegis]

REVIEW TIME

Kaiko Marino

Loot: Some captured jellyfish
Injuries: None

Points: 10 Exp, may be used for Animus

Comments: I quite enjoyed this thread and I await your return so we can write some more together.


Norani

Loot: +1 Jellyfish form for Animus
Injuries: +1 Jellyfish sting

Points: 10 Exp, may not be used for magic