Spring Has Sprung: Gone Fishin' (April 2022)

“Of course, I’d love to help out.” Were the words that tumbled out of Asix’s mouth, and she had meant it, truly. Had meant it while dew still coated the grass, the sun peeking through a spattering of clouds. Cypris bobbing his head in agreement with a low garble.

 

--

 

Now, however, she felt her resolve slipping like the fish that kept wriggling out of her grasp. Her trousers were rolled up to her knees as she traipsed through the warm stream. Any semblance of cloud cover had evaporated as quickly as mist, the sun having chased away any memory of what this morning had felt like. Her jackets had long since been discarded along the river bank, and the pebbles she balanced on had started to dig uncomfortably into the soles of her feet.

 

Cypris, her stryx, was a bit nosier, but still managed to pull more than she could.

 

If the fishmongers and sailors themselves were struggling with pulling in catches, then it only made sense that Asix would fail miserably at this task. She glanced over at Cypris, his chocolate feathers now a soaking molten brown, his seafoam gaze watching the waters with rapt attention. She almost thought he had caught something when his neck snapped forward, lightning-fast, only to gape at her with an empty beak, water draining out the sides. She had to stifle a giggle at his perplexed expression.

 

The corva actually had some semblance of luck as the scales of three shimmering fish lay atop her discarded jacket. For what the Loftmaster needed, it wasn't even a drop in the bucket. In fact, Asix almost felt guilty for adding onto the sweet woman's troubles.

 

She and Cypris had traversed this way, toting along a tyto egg as a favor for a friend. The friend's aerie was getting quite large and crowded when she had stumbled upon this abandoned egg while out scavenging. Not wanting to leave it to its fate, she cared for it until Asix had stopped by and heard her request. She had agreed, as she was headed to the next city over anyways, and it would be but a temporary stop. Well it had been temporary until she had unwittingly ended up adding to the Loftmaster's load of current and future mouths to feed; and the poor frazzled woman hadn't even given it a second thought when she hurried the egg over to an occupied nest, sat over by a kindling hearth, nestling it in just so.

 

It was only right that Asix extended her services to help the woman with finding food for the full loft.

 

Cypris snaked his head forward again with a splash, only to come up empty. Where had all the fish gone?

 

At this time, fish was in hot demand. The soft slippery flesh made it the perfect meal for the loft's hatchlings who were weaning off of the vitamin-rich mash, and it gave them something easy to tear into as they learned to take on tougher hides. Fish was also a go to for older stryx who were picky eaters. There were very few stryx who ever rejected fish.

 

From what little information the loftmaster had gathered, the nets were simply pulling up empty, and talks of underwater creatures, monsters who usually relied on the deep depths were suddenly surfacing. A few had even claimed to see a shadow, larger than a harpia, beneath the darker waters.

 

Asix wasn't sure what to make of it. Sure their world was plagued by all manner of creatures, so something like that wasn't far off, but why would a creature like that all of a sudden have an interest in what humans were catching? Unless its own prey was vanishing, or something worse was happening beneath Wyvera's oceans...

 

She was shaken out of her musings when Cypris splashed over to her, his many silken tails whisking water this way and that. He cooed and brought up a talon, showing off yet another catch. 

 

"Oh what a good job. You're doing far better than me." She huffed, but smiled nonetheless at his efforts. At this rate, they'd have maybe ten whole fish by sundown.

 

He tossed the still squirming creature onto the shore, bending to snuffle his beak through her hair, sending her brown strands astray from its ponytail.

 

"Oh stop that." She laughed, batting his sodden beak away as he chirped again.

 

He nosily clambered out of the river, leaving Asix to wonder how he even caught anything.

 

He rummaged around in the bag she kept further up from the water, dragging out the rope she kept wrapped up. She watched him with curious green eyes as he searched and grabbed ahold of a fallen branch roughly the size of her wrist. He trampled back over and dropped the items in front of her with a low rumble.

 

Ah, he wanted her to put together a fishing pole. "I don't have any bait..."

---

Oh. He hadn't thought of that. All Cypris ever needed was his razor-sharp beak, two talons, and his wits. And yet he was always reminded that humans needed many more things to be just as successful. Maybe they could try elsewhere. He pawed at the water with a talon and shook out his feathers, splattering Asix's face with an assault of droplets.

 

She gasped, wiping at her face to stare at him. He palmed the water again and gave a gentler shake of his head. Having been together for many moons, he knew she figured out what he wanted by the realization that lit up her eyes.

 

"You think we should try elsewhere? That's not a bad idea...This stream seems to be out-fished for right now." She pondered on it for a second. Cypris could only imagine she was running the terrain in her head, trying to figure out the nearest body of water. He remembered spying a crystalline lake from above when they were first arriving at the loft. He sent the mental picture of a large lake full of reflecting gems to Asix.

 

He watched her grasp the idea and nod in affirmation.

 

"Alright, we'll head there."

 

She jogged back up to the gate to inform the older lady that they would be back before nightfall. She grabbed her things and her bag, leaving their meager catch to dry out.

 

Cypris nestled his belly low against the ground, lowering his neck for her to clamber on. Once he felt her grip onto his crest of feathers, he rose into the sky with steady wingbeats.

 

The lake they came upon wasn't very large by any means, but a small waterfall did feed into it, creeping up the slope of the hill to feed into another river further up. Cypris made sure to land them closer to the tree-line, to help obscure his shadow. Asix slid off of his neck and squinted at the foamy waterfall. Sure enough they were both able to spy flashes of pink and yellow.

 

She let out a whistle. "Sun Trout. Nice eye Cy."

 

Cypris couldn't help but to preen a little at the praise, his shorter feathers puffing up a little. Sun Trout tended to spawn at a much faster rate than other fish, and were known for trying to swim upstream. He wasn't really sure why. To him, it would be akin to flying against a gale of buffeting winds, and he didn't see the thrill in doing that.

 

While Asix was figuring out the best spot to take up, Cypris crept over towards the mouth of the waterfall, keeping low to the ground. He'd once seen Sun Bears do this exact hunting technique, their namesake given to them by the very fish they fed on. He waited as one or two fish flipped out of the water, twisting around in the air in a maddening frenzy before falling back below the white waters. He waited until a larger group of four sprang out of the water and snagged two of them.

 

Paying no mind to his rider, Cypris easily fell into a rhythm, the fish continuing their vaulting into the air, none the wiser of their missing brethren. His face and chest was sodden, but pride swelled beneath the soaked feathers, filling him with content. The pile of fish he'd accumulated looked to be enough to feed at least twenty stryx. Maybe more given that the younger ones needed less.

 

He stretched his talons and tilted his neck from side to side, trying to work out the stiffness of his fishing posture. How sun bears did it, he wasn't sure. Then again, a sun bear usually only needed two or three fish before they usually ambled away to go feed. He shifted from foot to foot, intent on at least snagging a couple more—

 

A surprised shout from behind, and a torrent of water was splashing into Cypris' face, drenching him further. Unprepared for the droplets, he sputtered and hacked some out of his nose, whipping his head around to clear his vision.

 

When he could see again, he was not expecting to see another stryx, a third of his size with down still fluffing at the base of his wings, cooing and shaking the water droplets off its feathers.

 

The lavender hatchling chirped and hopped out of the stream, darting towards Cypris' backside. He let out a light hiss, sweeping his tails to the side as the chick sought to nab one of his silken tails in its surprisingly sharpened beak. He let out a low grumble and the miniature dragon sat back on its haunches, blinking owlishly up at him.

 

Cypris parted his beak as Asix jogged over, and tasted the air. The stryx was female and couldn't be more than five months old.

 

Not one to stay still for long, she was back on her feet, tottering over towards the pile of fish, intent on sating her curiosity for the small scaley animals.

 

He watched the female hatchling nip at it with her beak, tugging fiercely on the already dead fish.

 

"Where on earth did she come from?" Asix panted, watching the hatchling battle its current opponent. "I mean, we flew here. Did she seriously follow us on the ground?"

 

Cypris let out a chirp in agreement, gaining the other's attention for a moment before the fish proved to be much more interesting.

 

"Poor Irma. She's got her hands full already. It's no wonder this little gal slipped out." Asix tutted, squatting down to be level with the baby stryx, cooing at it softly.

 

She abandoned her pursuit of trying to further mutilate the fish and instead did a silly mixture of flapping her flightless wings and hopping on over into his rider's arms. Asix brandished a knife and slid it along the fish closest to her, nicking off the smallest of pieces that she ground between her fingertips. The female withdrew her head in excitement, the fishy smell all too apparent.

 

Instinctively, the hatchling craned her neck up, her little beak open as wide as it could go, gobbling up the morsel. Satisfied, she nuzzled into the human further. "Looks like we made a friend." She laughed, the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose lifting with her grin.

 

Cyrpis huffed in feigned exasperation, but even he couldn't help himself from shuffling closer to the duo. The soaked hatchling could catch a chill as he curved a wing around the both of them.

 

"I think we've caught enough. Let's get this girl back home. I don' know if Irma has noticed her absence, but if she did, she's probably freaking out.

 

His human stood in one swift motion, clutching the hatchling and fishing out her jacket from her sack. After wrapping and binding the stryx to her chest, she turned to help Cypris with the fish, only to find that he had already deposited each one into the bag. "Thank you Cypris."

 

He cooed, fluffing up his still drying feathers and smoothing them again.

 

Careful of jostling her new charge too much, she swung herself up onto the corva's neck while he himself picked up her sack in his beak.

 

They took to the air, finding that they were flying into the tailwind, generating a much smoother flight. The hatchling never made a peep, and upon further inspection, appeared to be dozing off. She must've used up all of her energy following them, and now that she was warmed and had eaten a snack, could barely keep her eyes open.

 

The Lackadaisy Loft was within their sights, the sprawling land which it owned was marked by many white gates and fences, now doubt built to keep in little troublemakers like the one they towed along with them.

 

Landing smoothly, Cypris neatly tucked his wings in and bowed his chest low to the ground, allowing Asix to slip off with little trouble. As soon as her boots touched the grassy floor, the Loftmaster herself was bursting into the yard, her bun still askew and messy.

 

"Oh my! Is that Ilda? I've been looking for her everywhere!"

 

"If it's the lavender hatchling, then yeah, she found us while we were fishing." Asix unwrapped her jacket and passed the sleepy dragonlet over towards the older woman who began fussing and smoothing the downy feathers. Ilda gave a content purr.

 

"This one is always getting out. I'm sorry if she caused you any trouble. Usually Tyr does a great job of watching her and putting a stop to her escapades, but he's been under the weather lately."

 

"Ah that explains it. I'm surprised she ventured out as far as she did." Asix remembered seeing a rather disgruntled hawk, his head darker than his body as he gazed at them from his nest. The Loftmaster had mentioned that he was the only one to get sick out of the whole lot. "I'm just glad no predators were around."

 

"Oh don't mind your head about that. Ever since I've established this place, we've never seen anything bigger than a fiendrake. I'm sure the many stryx kept here has made any neighboring animal wary about coming too close."

 

Well that was a relief. Cypris found himself laying back his feathers as his worry rose. He remembered the weight in his mouth and sat the bag of fish down, a couple of pieces flopping out.

 

"Wow! This is all that you caught?! My this is splendid."

 

Asix rubbed the back of her neck. "You have Cypris to thank. He did most of the work."

 

"Oh nonsense. I recognize a good team when I see one. It was the both of you." Irma tutted with a knowing look. "But really, I can't thank you enough. This'll last a while, and hopefully I can start putting in orders from the Reamere again."

 

Cypris picked the bag back up at her beckoning motion and followed her.

 

"I must present you with something for you troubles."

 

When Asix made to protest, the lady gave her a stern look that quieted her instantly. "And I'm accepting any kind of humbleness right now. I won't stand for it. I know I've got a ticket around here somewhere."

 

Cypris glanced at Asix and she gave a helpless shrug. They were on the same page about not needing a reward or payment. They only came here to help out a friend's aerie, and had offered to help this loft in turn.

 

"Whenever you feel like, feel free to stop in at any of the lofts to redeem this voucher to adopt a stryx. It's on the house." She thrusted a yellow ticket into her hands quickly, as if she might reject it if left to linger in the air too long.

 

"Well thank you Irma. Truly."

 

"Nonsense, you've helped me far more than you could know." She winked at the pair with a laugh.