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 Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 1:04 pm
(Pirates are more welcome, but lost kids aren't a surprise^^)
Mondays were good for swimming. It had been something Tock had declared long before he had even left the tree house when he became a child. It was something he still held firm to, and thus, why every Monday found him at The Stream, where there was a decently tall waterfall to jump off of. The water was warm and clear, and deep enough under the waterfall that he wouldn't knock himself in the head. He had learned that lesson the hard way.
At the moment, Tock was standing at the top of the waterfall, on the rocks beside it, wearing only a loincloth and a wicked grin as he took one step, then a second, before he leaped off, twisting in the air in a perfect dive before sinking into the water with a tiny splash.
Jake barely glanced over from where he was floating in the water, his eyes closed. You didn't grow up with a gator boy without learning how to swim, after all.
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 3:03 pm
Sparry loved swimming days nearly as much as she loved treasure, and that was saying something. She was stomping around in the shallows right now chasing a herd of oversized tadpoles and attempting to tie her pants up around her thighs. At the same time. (It wasn't going well.) Once upon a time, she swam nude, and that worked just fine until someone had objected that she was a girl and girls weren't allowed to swim naked. (They hadn't been sure why, though. Just that they shouldn't.) She'd meant to not let it bother her, but the feeling kept nagging and finally she gave in to peer pressure and dove in fully dressed.
Captain Tock's plunge from the top of the fall distracted her from tying up her pants/chasing the frogspawn/ not tripping over rocks for the half second that it took for her to lose her balance. Sparry toppled over into the water.
"I'm okay!" she shouted, surfacing again.
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 3:10 pm
"That's good!" Jake called back, not even looking over at her. If she was a pirate she was expected to know how to swim, after all.
Tock surfaced a few feet away from her, grinning. "Whatcha doin' Sparry?" he asked, falling so he was floating in a sitting position. "Cuz it sure as hell don't look like swimming to me."
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 3:19 pm
"How observant of you," replied Sparry, rolling her eyes and getting up. She waded a bit further out and then began to doggy-paddle around. Nose in the air, she continued, "That was the fine art of falling."
She put her face in the water and swam frog-like in a circle around Tock before surfacing again. Without even pausing to breathe, she said, "This is swimming."
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 3:24 pm
"Mmmhmm," he said. "Remind me to not take you mermaid spying," he added, evilly, using his tail to keep himself afloat.
"Hey!" he called to the group at large. "Who's up for a swimming race? Winner gets free dinner!"
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 3:30 pm
"I can breathe underwater for five minutes!" said Sparry helpfully, as if that was going to get her back on the mermaid spying brigade. Her ears wiggled, flicking water every which way.
Hearing Tock's challenge, she looked from the gator to the group and then back to the gator. He'd probably win, but it was worth a try. "I'll race you!" she exclaimed, bobbing up and down a bit in the water as she did so.
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 3:32 pm
He grinned. "Alright, but let's make it interesting."
"Cap'n--" Jake said.
"No, she's right, she can hold her breath for a bit. And I know for a fact that there are some shiny rocks down there. So here's the competition. First to get five shiny rocks from the Stream bed wins."
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 3:39 pm
Sparry knew what rocks he meant, and could think of a couple ways to win, but she didn't want to be called a cheat later. (Even if, among pirates, the word didn't really have a clear meaning.)
"Can I get a couple'a rocks at once? Or do I hafta get 'em one at a time?" she asked.
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 4:04 pm
"We're pirates, Sparry. Get the shinies the way we always do it!" Tock said before diving into the water, leaving Jake to finish the saying.
"Any way you can!" he bellowed before diving in right after the gator boy.
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 4:14 pm
Damn it! thought Sparry, plunging into the water behind Tock and swimming for the bottom. It wasn't too deep, she decided as she blinked bubbles out of her eyes. Something glistened in the sandy bottom of the stream and she made a grab for her first stone. It was cool in her palm and she immediately began looking for the next one. She could hear Tock and Jake thrashing around downstream a bit and spotted her second rock, which she snatched.
Her lungs were burning by the time she found the fifth one and resurfaced to gasp for air. She looked around, still panting for air, and asked, "Did I win?"
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 4:15 pm
Jake was there, breathing a bit hard. "Tock got distracted again," he said, grinning. "And I only got three before I ran out of breath," he added sheepishly, holding up the stones.
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 4:20 pm
Sparry proudly held out her five pearly stones. "So that means I won, right?" she asked, eyes wide. She hadn't been expecting to win!
She looked at the stones in her hand, eyes narrowed. She'd have to find a way to string them up like beads. After all, treasure was treasure!
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 4:28 pm
"Awww, you guys are no fun at all," Gywn piped. She sat on a rock by the water, her feet dangling beneath the cold liquid's surface. She had crept out of the jungle while the others were diving. She leaned forward, flicking her tail to one side. She had been watching their competiton only to be disappointed.
"What kinda o' competition is it if the main competitor isn't play'n?" she asked, her ears twitching. She was, of course, refering to Tock, "Some'un better go in and drag 'im out by the tail. Gotta have a proper rematch. Maybe I could join in."
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 4:32 pm
"Hey!" Tock said, surfacing with a strange looking octopus wrapped around his forearm. "Does anybody know how to get this thing off?"
Jake choked, then started laughing. "I think it thinks you're cute, Cap'n!"
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 4:44 pm
Sparry scowled at the fox girl and said, disdainfully, "And I suppose you wanna try?" She'd won fair and square, and no spoilsport was going to stop her.
Rather than let it get her down, Sparry slogged over to Tock to inspect the octopus, but only managed to get a face-full of tentacle. She wrestled with it for a bit and finally got it off, but got an angry line of red sucker marks up her cheek to show for it.
"No idea," she concluded.
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