Merpeople Make Good Eating

[Closetmonster]

Ticon arched his back with a grunt of pain. The boat under his feet shifted only slightly in response to his movement, but it was a sturdy craft and a simple bend and flex would do little to it in the long run. No – the Bandaro, a ship named after the silver fish upon which it preyed, was as solid as a rock in the worst of weather. This of course, was a good thing as this evening, the sea had become choppy and waves grew with each moment he remained. Still, he did not want to give up because of a little wind. The sky above remained clear of darker clouds and only the wind had begun to turn bad, not the weather. There was little reason to run just yet. Of course this could change in a matter of hours and in the time it would take to pull in his nets, pull anchor and set his sails could be enough time for a bank of clouds to come upon him and toss his craft into a fretful anxiety.
He would wait.
The sun beat down on his back as he turned and lifted his last net. The constant pull of water and heavy rope, the dangerous lifestyle he'd taken on by doing his work alone had taken its toll on his body. He was a broad man, thick shouldered and even thicker armed. His skin was almost brown as a farmer's field and had furrows of pale scarring from each of the adventures he'd survived. His black hair was shorn as close to his skull as he could get it without taking it all off. Hair was a danger, as were any stray bits of clothing. His shirts were tucked into a small keeper and he work his close fitting pants tucked into the tightly tied boots on his feet. The ties on the boots were tucked into the boots as well and nothing was free to tug or draw him from his perch above the ocean.
He muttered a prayer as he began to draw up the lead of the net. “O Mother, O Giver of Life, accept this not as a ravage but as a plea. My cords, my ties, my ropes do only work to hold back thy hair. They ask and they are given, but all men must give first of their lives. I give up my blood to you, my spirit. Take of me what you will and give me what I must have for my family, for my people.”
With the words, he gripped the thick weights tied into the netting and heaved it over the side. As the net slithered over the roller edge of the boat, he quickly went to attach the pulley rope to the other end. The netting flew and he stepped back, allowing it to snake over the side of the boat without getting tangled into it. The most dangerous time, outside of bad weather, was this moment when the netting flew from the bottom of the boat and, in a long thirty foot length, spread out into the waters below.
Few men netted in the way Ticon did. They went in teams and netted in the shallows for the larger table fish. Their nets could be thrown and then drawn in after. If they did not do the net fishing, then they took the larger boats and slipped into the deepest ocean to harpoon their prey. It was the danger of being alone and the immense amount of work, a small boat on a broad sea with specific netting which made the Bandaro fishing so rare. The long nets could snag, were lost when they tangled the larger, air breathing fish and could not be pulled up. The netting was smaller gapped, with a smaller rope which was meant to be torn by the larger fish, yet even larger fish could not always free themselves. Ticon used slender ropes and had lost few in his particular fishing area because the nets could tear even easier. The Bandaro would flash and the small silver bodies could fall into the small netting, captured and held fast, like butterflies in a cupped hand. He rarely caught more than four or five drums of them in one day, then he was forced quickly prepare each fish before the heat could ruin their delicate flesh. Then, he had to fix his netting for the next fortnight before he could go to try once more. Still, the Bandaro fish, in their long, sweeping draperies of schools were a delicacy that garnered a price beat out only bird tongues and sea feathers.
For the day, it had been quiet under his boat. He'd managed a considerable amount of fry, smaller fish from other species, of which one drum-full he kept, but the Bandaros were not always present. He had dropped his nets three times each during his long day, drawing them in with the pulley slowly and seperately, carefully threading out fish which he did not want from the netting and setting them back into the water as he drew the nets up. It was time consuming and he turned to do it once more. Each net drifted outside of his boat and he began the arduous process of drawing up his primary net in hopes something would have ended in it worth more than small fry which were suited for is own table.

[Gyuki]

Today the water had been exceptionally pleasant, the undercurrents having calmed to a mere light tug that any sea creature could swim from.All of the wonderful creatures swam about, dolphins chimmed to one another while swirling about in a giddy manner, anemones danced among the other colorful plant life, starfish crawled together in groups, and the merfolk sang and giggled to both one another and the sea creatures who came to watch.All of the merpeople were exceptionally beautiful, but their songs were so graceful and appealing to the ear that one couldn't help but to come near and listen.A merfolk's vioce could even be heard above the ocean waves if one were to listen close enough, though humans were so self consumed now that they wouldn't possibly be able to the choruses of song among the sea, their minds were long ago taken by a need to be dominant over all, including the sea creatures they had once been friends with.Now the merpeople stayed far from the shores where the humans loitered, no longer searching for a relationship from them, merely solitude.To the merpeople who lived rather lengthy and happy lives, the humans were merely a fleeting race who narrow-mindedly had forgotten of the seapeople in exchange for controll of all that walked on land and most likely would move their controll to the sea if given the chance.
As the others sang amongst each other, one merman swam with a small leather pouch at his hip down to the seabed where he watched the starfish slowly move up onto the rocks to eat the algea that grew there.The merman, his interest now moved on, began to collect the shells left behind by the sea creatures who had moved on to live with the sky mother, thanking each creature in his head for the beautiful shells they'd left behind.The other merfolk looked on the male disdainfully, their noses turned cruely to the boy as they glared at him with their blue and green eyes.
"Pathetic, songless begar.It would seem that he should be taught a lesson, would it not,"one seamaiden hissed with a malicious smirk.The others nodded in agreement before advancing slowly toward the lone male with evil intent.Feeling that something was wrong, the male turned with horror to see the four others whom he'd left be coming towards him before taking off through the water as fast as his elegent fins would carry him.His purple-blue tail pumping through the water, the male only managed to keep his perwinkle eyes on the group behind him and not the danger ahead.Before he knew it, the merman found that he could no longer swim or kick about.While looking around to inspect his surroundings, he noticed that he was caught in a human net and began to panic.Surely the humans would kill him, or worse, take him on to the land where he would slowly dry out until nothing was left of him.Still, all of his flipping and kicking was to no avail as the net was soon tugged out of the water and thrown onto a hard, wooden deck where many fish who'd also been snared by the ropes of man's net flopped in need of the water they lived in naturally.Like any sea creature dragged from it's habbitat, the male began to flop too, though stopped as he looked around in fright.As his scales dried, they began to slide off onto the deck as a piled of slimey scales, only to reveal to legs that were just as fair as the rest of his skin.Though human enough now in appearance, the merman's ears still held the webbed appearance of the merfolk and the pupil of his eyes were faded, as were all merfolk's.
Though he didn't know how to use his new legs, it didn't stop the male from trying as best as he could to crawl through the nets and over to the side of the deck so he could slip away into the ocean from whence he came.


OOC: Loved your post!Hope mine is up to par. c:

[Closetmonster]

Ticon felt the sudden drag on the one side of his boat as something large caught itself in his net. Where he'd normally have brought the net in by degrees, returning fish he did not want to have, each one alive so that it did not attract burglarizing birds by floating on the water, and putting the other smaller and more pricey Bandaros into the drum of water, the apperance of something so large and actually caught signified a greater loss than just a few threads. He cursed and stood. With a powerful motion, he began to draw the net in, hand over hand. A dolphin at one time had been caught as it had a fluke caught in the thicker ropes at the edging of the net, and it had dragged the net and some very expensive rope into the sea. From that time on, he'd had it only happen once before where a larger fish had caught itself and he'd managed to free it and save his materials. So it was in his best interest to pull all in at once.
The net, he hooked to a pulley and began a sudden and quick pulling, the net coming over the edge of the boat and ending in a folded mass at his feet. He grimaced at the sight of color and fins and brought the rest of the net up so that the creature, whatever it was, could not pull the entire net in after itself. Then he quickly went toward it to stop its thrashing.
He broke his advance for a moment, shock burning through him as he recognized arms and hair, a wild eye focused back on him as scales fell to the floor of the boat in the same manner of flower petals. The air seemed to have an instant reaction with the creature's body, drying it out as if it were afire and averse to ever being wet. Then, as if it had always been, there was a slender man on the deck of his boat.
Ticon's frozen mind kicked into motion. He grunted and leapt for the figure as he divined rather quickly that it meant to escape. A merman was something which he'd not thought to have ever heard of, let alone seen, but for in the maddest of stories. That he had his hands gripped around the ankle of such a creature was a treasure he'd never have thought to have landed. Without much thought at all, he quickly took the netting which he'd hauled the beast up onto his deck with, and began to tie its arms and legs fast. He half sat on it to keep it from getting away and he kept a close eye on its mouth, no doubt it had teeth, for it seemed to have little of nothing else, being fully nude and slick as a fish.
He said not a word for he didn't expect the creature to understand a word he spoke. Rather, he worked in silent determination to wrap it securely, then attach the netting to the cross bar of his boat. That finished, he fell back to sit down and stare at it, his chest heaving in both effort and shock. Before him, wriggling in an attempt to free itself, was most definitely a man, where before there had been scales and a creature of legend. He stared at it in amazement, unable to fully comprehend what it was he had.

Your post was fabulous - I'm making assumptions that he dried REALLY quickly, because of how much time it would have taken Ticon to get to his side. Also - may I make one request? To enable me to read a bit more easily, could you either indent your paragraph beginnings or put a space between them? That would break up the writing some and I wouldn't have to get out a straightedge just to keep the line of writing my eye is on. *L* I should get glasses, but apparently I can still legally drive, so my eyes aren't quite as bad as all that.

[Gyuki]

Entirely out of his element and left with two foreign limbs rather than his beautiful, powerful tail, the merman could only flop and try to move to the best of his ability.Sadly, it appeared that all his struggle was for naught as a human had snagged his ankle and quickly bound his new legs and arms together tightly as if he were some creature.Of course, since it had been at least a good five-hundred years since man had seen merfolk, perhaps they had forgotten the sea dwellers in their conquest for power and wealth over all beings in this world.Being a mute as well, the merman could only stare back at the human before him, his pale form curled in as close as the male could manage in his current bindings.He knew that if push came to shove, he could always just bite the land walker, but his teeth weren't all too sharp, not like those of a predator who could eat through meat and bone easily.His glazed eyes stayed glued to the man, his own chest heaving nearly as hard as the human's.Perhaps this was the end of the line for him.After all, now the merman had nothing to defend himself with and was sitting open and helpless before this man who could kill him and drain his blood for some strange ritual or worse.Though inside the male was quivering, he showed no emotion to the human, staring blankly at the man as he pulled himself as far away from the other as he could manage.He quickly began to bite and knaw at the bindings on his wrists and ankles, his mind set on the freedom he wanted so dearly from the cruel humans aboard this vessal.Of course, having had fairly normal teeth, the merman was unable to chew through the rope as efficiently as he'd hoped, but at the moment he was fraying it rather badly.If this human intended to use this netting once more, then he would have to release the merman.
The male had always been treated the worst, especially by his own kind, so he was accustomed to be the omega of the crowd.Though at least down in the sea, he was able to get away from his abusers, but up here on dry land, a place the male had never been, he had no sliver of hope for escape, not with this man watching him like a hawk the way he was.Having someone stare at him like that, it made him so uncomfortable that his skin almost wanted to crawl.A human's eye was so strange to the male, with it's black pupil and bold, vibrant color, it was almost creepy to the male, but in it's own way, it seemed sort of beautiful.Still, even if there were a few qualities that drew the merman's curiosity, humans were still humans.Selfish and heartless brutes who trampled over all, and this merman would surely be no different than the other creatures in the world as far as his treatment went.
Feeling a few strings pop under his teeth, the male felt a sliver of hope and began a furious dance of bucking his feet, trying to kick the bindings from around his ankles.As he continued to struggle, he could feel the rope rubbing his wrists and ankles raw until finally, he managed to squeeze just one delicate wrist from the binding and quickly dove it into the small satchel at his side.The male had never carried weapons before, but he knew that after hitting the boat's deck with such force that surely his small collection of shells had broken into sharp, jagged pieces.His hands slightly shaking, the male snagged one of the larger, more jagged pieces and held it out in front of him like an inexpirienced child might hold out a knife to protect themself.At the same time, the merman gave an airy, yet somewhat unconvincing hiss, his dedication to escaping haven risen to a higher priority than before.

OOC: Is having it like this a bit better?

[Closetmonster]

It was, no doubt, shock that held Ticon's limbs fast while he watched the strange boy work away at the bonds. He'd tied the creature quite securely, but it still gnawed away as if it were a wolf caught in a trap. He half expected it to begin on its own arm had the rope not separated at the last moment and given the slender creature a way to burst free.
Despite being nude, the male had a small satchel about his middle. Ticon blinked as suddenly the slim being was on his feet, a jagged shell held out before him. The fisherman had stood as the other rose, and he canted his head to the side, staring at the creature there. Then, with a huff of amusement from his nostrils, he took one stride in, and cold cocked the poor thing in the head with his fish club.
It was designed, the hit, to knock out his guest and it did. He noted with a great deal of satisfaction, that his catch fell to the floor of the boat like a cut net.
He left the boy's body on the bottom of the boat and quickly went to the netting. It hadn't been in the water long enough to catch much, and being in the deeper water meant an empty net at times. He cleared a few fish from it, unfortunately dead, and threw them into a satchel at the fore of the boat. Then he got some rope and set about tying the small figure back up. He had hit the young man rather hard and he wasn't sure that his catch would waken any time soon. Still, it wouldn't do to have the figure chewing his way out again. This time, he tied the creature's hands behind his back. He bound slender ankles and, in the manner of a hog tie, pulled those ankles back and the hands back and tied ankles to hands, so that the boy wouldn't be able to move.
The fishing took an hour to clear up the netting, put everything away, and turn his bow toward port once more. The waves were choppy that afternoon, with an oncoming storm and he barely made it to the small harbor. There were other men battening down hatches and bringing in their catches. He had wrapped the boy's inert body in netting, cut the ties between ankles and wrists, and heaved the entire bundle over his shoulder, along with the other netting, then striding up the dock.
His home was at the end of the middle town lane, some miles out of the town, at a small inlet. To aid in hauling his gear to and fro, he kept a small hand cart at the dock. He dumped the creature in this, then quickly went back to get his solitary tub of fish which he wrapped the young man, tied and wrapped in netting, around. With everything in, his boat tied down, and the storm almost upon them, he too, like all of the other fishermen, made his way as quickly as he could to his home.
The storm, due to being of a mind that storms had where anyone too far from shelter ought to be pelted with rain, had him soaked by the time he got to his small cottage. He hefted the fish inside, his netting, and the boy, whom he put on the fur lined, half moon bed sunken into the floor. After he'd dried the slim limbs and cut the figure's leg bindings, the fire was built up. The warmth filled the cabin quickly. Then, he went about the task of cleaning the small fish, those he'd caught. As he did so, a tiny grey tabby murred in pleasure at having her master home, and leapt casually into the small hollow to sniff at the newest arrival.

It is somewhat helpful. In the end, do as you wish. I'll cut and paste and clarify so I can read it. So no worries, hey?

[Gyuki]

After falling to the deck from the blow to his head, the merman could only surcome to the darkness that took him over.What had he done to deserve this?He'd been a good child just as his mother had told him and never once had he hurt those who hurt him.Did the gods just have a cruel sense of humor, or was he simply a mistake they sought to be rid of?Either way, now he was in this situation, a captive of a man who could easily do whatever he wished with the lad.There were a few creatures who took pity on him, though most shunned and hated him for being born so differently.Was he not a child of the sea as well?Weren't those around him acting just like the humans who took whatever they wished whenever they desired it?No matter how unfair it was, there was nothing that could be done, not now anyways.The merman was no longer under the jurisdiction of the sea, not so long as he walked the land with these new legs.One could only hope that this human who'd by sheer luck had a kind heart.
Soon, the male began to stir groggily, his head pounding as he felt as if he was suddenly dropped onto some hard surface.Sounds of distant thunder and various activity quickly woke him and urged him to look about.Whatever contraption was carrying him seemed to be moving and gave a view of many humans, all very loud and very busy.There were females scolding children, men heaving barrels of food, and children running about in a wild manner to cause mischief.Though, only one thing seemed to hold the merman's complete attention.As first small drops, then progressively larger splots of rain poured, the male could feel the liquid, smell it, and even taste it.At first he writhed in the strange cloth that held him, though soon calmed as he felt the water begin to land and lide over his face and feet.Without even looking, the male could feel the dark periwinkle scales begin to form over both legs, though unfortunately his calm didn't last too long.The human had picked him up and carried him inside some sort of shelter, one that seperated him from the pouring water that dripped from the sky.The male felt offended as he was then thrown onto a plush surface and the human soon dried his slimey scales from his legs.Though it was a relief to have his ankles unbound, it was still frustrating to not be able to move his hands, or even to enjoy the natural water that the land walkers were lucky to even recieve.
Soon, the male's train of thought broke as a small grey creature edged closer and closer to the merman while making a sort of bubbly sound.The closer the furry beast inched, the further the merman scooted back, not wanting the animal so near, though it seemed not to take the hint at all.As once more the animal neared, the male gave a loud hiss, surprising the feline enough to earn a short yowl and a quick disapearance of the beast back behind it's master's legs.With that nusience taken care of, the merman began to struggle with his hands, though found his bindings quite a bit harder to break from than the ones from before.He gave an exhasperated huff before taking a break from his incessive flopping and blew his long, dark hair from his face.The male's periwinkle eyes scanned about, soon finding an odd, rectangular hole that seemed to have a strange force field keeping out the rain.Such witchery, had the humans harvest the power of magic as well?The merman doubted it, but all the same the queer rectangle perplexed him.Tearing his eyes away, the male focused now on attempting to stand and slowly got to his knees.Shakily, he moved one foot to stand before trying to adjust the other in the same manner, though ended up falling face down back into the soft surface of cloth and gave a frustrated hiss.

OOC: Sorry for the late reply.This week is midterms and I've been studying my ass off.

[Closetmonster]

Ticon looked up as the kitten hissed and ran to hide across the room from the creature on his bed. He laughed softly. Watching the boy, he looked a good deal like a new foal, yet to find its legs. “Land legs,” he stated with a smirk and stood. He went to the other side of the cottage, there, pulled out some pants for the boy for no one should have to wander about nude as the boy was doing. If, Ticon still wondered that he'd dreamt it, the boy had had a tail instead of legs (and the scales later during the rain storm had made it seem more possible then impossible) then he'd never had to worry none about being naked. Ticon had captured a port whale once in his netting. He'd dragged it in, as it had drowned, and he'd cut it up, only to find it had been male. That they had a sex at all was strange to him, though his common sense had made sport of him long enough that he'd somehow thought they'd populated the seas via, what?
Then again, fish hadn't such parts, so a whale was something of a strange creature, almost human in a way, though fish-like at the same time. The boy, obviously, was warm blooded as well and he'd been clothed, via scales and a tail. Now he had nothing on at all.
As he found some drawstring pants, Ticon smiled and considered that this was indeed an oddity. He could not keep the boy just here with him. Though there were no rules that stated he could not. The boy was not human, was he? He was something entirely of the sea and Ticon had fished him out, hadn't he?
With pants in hand, he returned to the boy. Quickly, for fear the boy would try to bite him or some such equally frightening prospect, he leapt into the depression and caught the boy's arm. “Hold still,” he growled as he wrested the boy down to the bedding and straddled him backwards, facing the boy's feet, “I've got to get these on you.” He worked them down over the boy's ankles and drew them up to the boy's middle. As he had the boy laying on his own arms, the boy wasn't about to get away, but he wriggled fish-like rather well. Ticon laughed softly. “Damned thing, seeing that. Come on. No need for that. I am not taking anything from you, didn't even take off your little treasure sack around your waist. I'm just putting something on you to keep you warm. Gods forbid I put a sweater on your top.” He panted and turned as everything was on the boy, then pulled back and pushed his hair out of his eyes.
“Now,” he said as he flopped back on the bed with a smile, “let's have a look at you.”