[PRP] Seaweed? Seaweed. (Nashwa/Zh'gan+Dergs)

[Meepfur]

Nashwa had to admit, she did prefer foraging to fishing. There was a little less that could go disastrously wrong, and with the tales of folk actually losing fingers to the activity (and the accounts of near-drownings), well, she was glad to be on foraging duty today instead. The successes weren't quite as substantial or heroic, not like managing to land a deepfish, but every little bit helped, and they did need food items that weren't fish or fish-adjacent. Green stuff was very much a necessity, even if that green stuff was a bit...slimy. Prepared well, the seaweed could be quite good, but even she would acknowledge that freshly-gathered, it didn't look like much.

Adding a cold, wet clump of the stuff to her bag - separate from the tidepool-critter and maybe-a-spiderclaw-if-they-got-lucky bag - she looked over to see how her foraging partner was making out. "Nothing especially exciting on your end, I take it?"

Nothing much exciting over here, that's for certain, Ilaorunth chimed in, though she wasn't the one who'd been addressed. Foraging wasn't a task for which the dragons were much help, unlike some of the fishing. Would you care to go for a swim while Ours look for slime, my dear Manahahtath?

Samuel Carlin

 

[Samuel Carlin]

All things considered, fishing hadn't been that bad from where Zh'gan stood. ot for him, at least. He was worried for Savindri and the loss of his thumb, but other than wiping out in the waves, spectacularly, he'd been more or less untouched.

He was also worried about whether they'd eve actually catch enough fish to feed everyone. Food was necessary, and so they'd been sent out to gather seaweed instead. Inoffensive, limp, reeking of seawater and slick with -- why wass it slimy anyway?

Zh'gan blorped a small handful of the stuff into his bag and shook his head. "Not even a little. I mean, I guess it's for the best that nothing's fighting back. And collecting it sure isn't making me hungry."

Manahantath gave himself a little shake when he Ilaorunth spoke. He'd been studying the water, transfixed by who knows what, the way the truly bored sometimes were. Yes. Yes please. The bronze stood and stretched his wings. I think that would be just the thing. Better than just sitting, that was for sure. After you.

Meepfur

 

[Meepfur]

"I suppose it's better than being pinched by spiderclaws, but somehow those feel a bit more useful than this," she said with a frown. "Not that we don't need our greens and all, but no one's going to be excited to see us when we come home with our bags of seaweed." Nashwa leaned down to dip her arm elbow-deep into the tidepool to feel along a rocky edge for anything edible that might be hanging onto it. There was...ah! After a bit of wriggling, she freed up a small mussel and held it up.

"Oh, and one of these. Very good eating." She dropped it into her not-seaweed bag and dipped down again to feel around for more. "Not that I'm complaining, but this is definitely not what I expected from weyrlinghood."

Ilaorunth was pleased when her brother agreed to her suggestion, and indulged in a long stretch of her own before slinking into the sea. Yes, this was much better than just sitting on the beach, watching Theirs collect the unappetizing green tendrils of seaweed. I must say, this is a very silly task to give Ours. Unlike Nashwa, the gold was freer with her complaints, when she had them. What a sorry state of affairs!

Samuel Carlin

 

[Samuel Carlin]

"Oh come on," Zh'gan joked. "Of course they're going to be glad to see us bringing this stuff in." Some of said stuff was stuck on his thumb and would not budge when he tried shaking it off, so he had to resort to scraping his hand against the edge of the bag. Yeeuch! "I mean, who isn't craving more sea lettuce that smells like fish so it can be wrapped around the bits of fish we drop into our steaming bowls of fish broth without changing the flavor much?" He might, already, have been a little tired of fish.

A little.

"It's not what I was expecting either. I mean, doing chores and helping out the Weyr and all, sure, but this isn't the right sort of adventure." Not even close. "What's the first thing you want to do when all of this is over?"

Manahahtath was not at all far behind Ilaorunth. He had seen His taken down by a simple, unexpected wave. Ilaorunth was, without question, more graceful than His, and yet the bronze still felt it important to stay close, just in case.

Once she'd settled into the water, he did the same, wings relaxing and bobbing a bit with the motion of the water. They have been given a trivial task, I agree. I think it is a test,, he offered. When there is little to do, we must still be willing to do as we are asked. We must show the others what must be done. After all, they will look to us.

Meepfur

 

[Meepfur]

Nashwa gave a genuine laugh at Savindri's description of the likely fate of the seaweed, and the commentary it was on the state of their diet. "But at least it's salty sea lettuce! Because the salt...helps...somehow. I don't know how, but I'm sure it does."

She'd had nothing against fish before all this, but now? Oh, what she wouldn't give for some wherry, or a proper roast! She'd never considered herself spoiled, either, but she supposed in some ways she was; after all, she'd never had to worry about where her next meal was coming from, nor go out and catch it herself. Prepare and cook it, yes, but being involved in the acquisition was new. "An adventure in how not to drown? What to clean our fingernails with so they won't be permanently green?" No, not much of an adventure at all. "I want to make a pie. A meat pie, with plenty of real vegetables. And lots of little cakes. And then I want to eat them all."

"Or, barring that, once we graduate I want to go to a Gather and eat everything that isn't fish." After all, even when the state of their tithes wasn't a disaster, it wasn't like she could just breeze into the kitchens and do as she pleased. But a girl could dream.

Though Ilaorunth was unaware of exactly why Manahahtath wanted to stay close, she approved regardless - she was always happy to have the bronze close. ...perhaps you are right. It does make much more sense when you put it that way. After all, why waste Ours time? And put them at risk, besides!

There had been near-drownings, lost fingers...it was all quite dreadful! She would quite prefer Hers not be maimed, and in pursuit of fish of all things. No, that wouldn't do at all.

Samuel Carlin