Dwin had not become a good fisher, but by trying to find out, what would fish feel and think, she had discovered that she was not that bad of a fish herself. In the swimming aspect. Some are born natural swimmers and some are like this young Blackthorn, who had needed at least thousand of attempts to swim further than her paws could reach and not try to drink the lake in the process. But just the same way one learns to ride the bicycle until it happens on its own in the end, so does mastering the art of swimming. And on the day this happened to Dwin, she spent a huge amount of time being either in the lake or at the lake, resting her tired paws and drying off in the sun.
She was doing the latter now, taking great care of cleaning her paws and picking out dirt and tiny stones from inbetween her pawpads. Now and then she would stop to listen carefully to the sounds around her, or lift her nose to an interesting scent wind brought her way. By all acounts this was a very pleasant summer mid-day and Dwin hugely enjoyed the moment she was in. For her living in general was a throughly happy process, but there were days like these, when being alive here and now made her especially happy.
The beginning of Butterfly's story is no different from many others. He was born, grew up with a loving family and left them when the time was right. It had been bittersweet to say goodbye. Often, as he lay alone under the stars, he would dream of his mother's smile and sister's laugh, the nights of dance and song and he would miss it oh so dearly.
It was during these times of sorrow that he would find himself humming a familiar melody, perhaps a lullaby once sung to him as a child or a vibrant tune akin to that of a campfire song. Or perhaps he would not recognise it at all and it was simply the vibrations that grounded him and gave him comfort.
He was humming such a tune as he paddles into the waters of a lake, sparkling and still in the summer sun. Tiny fish swim about his paws as he wades deeper, submerging his aching muscles in its cool waters as he begins to bathe. It was a welcome break from the summer heat and the wraith was quite content to soak, blissfully unaware that he had company.
Up until now Dwin had not met any other water-loving wolf on the beach, though footprints and scent trails of different age did tell her, that this was not an entirely desolate place. Sometimes the web of new information was so thick that she spent a good deal of her time, sifting through figurative "newsfeed", imagining, who would have left the trails and where had they gone from there.
Today, however, she was greeted from an entirely different directions. She caught sight of the swimming wolf, stood up and carefully followed it's path with her gaze. "Good day!" she called out, trying to draw the fellow's attention and - yes - let's admit it, hoping to be the first witness of a merwolf in the area.
Butterfly wasn't one to totally switch off his senses, especially as he was alone and didn't have his sister to conveniently point things out to him. But he was tired, and tiredness made him clumsy. Clumsy enough to get totally spooked as a voice rang out across the lake.
In a momentary lapse of judgement, he felt his paws lose their footing on the algae-slick slope of the lake floor. It was a slippery slope; once one paw was gone, the next followed, and the next until he went under with a surprised "OH-". If he hadn't been swimming before, he definitely was now. As he surfaced with a cough and splutter, he tried to orientate himself in the direction of the voice, his gaze settling on a pale wolf on the bank.
"Um, a little help here?" speaking as clearly as he could, he remained treading water as his paws searched for a foot hold. If Ceridwen was expecting a merwolf, she would be sorely disappointed
Dwin was grown up enough not to believe that all supernatural creatures her mom had mentioned in bedtime stories were real, but she found the idea entertaining still. Seeking paralell's and origins of the otherwordly in the real life phenomena. She had not intended to scare the wolf or drown him/her (in water all wolf genders look more or less the same), but she felt a tiny pang of guilt, when this almost happened.
Luckily the fellow (fellowess?) quickly recovered and addressed her (a him - at least that mystery had been solved). "Come this way," she beckoned to the left, where a line of sand was visible from the angle she was standing. For a moment she considered going after him and bringing him ashore, but she remembered either Teya's or mother's warning against doing this. She could drown herself. "It becomes less deep here," she walked over to stand right, where she wanted him to swim.
so sorry for the wait
Her voice rang out across the lake and was picked up by the boy's ears with ease. With as much grace as a drowning rat, he began to doggy-paddle his way over to where he could see her pale silhouette on the shore, not far from his current position. After what felt like hours of agonising progress (but was really about a minute), Butterfly finally touched down on the sandbar with a huff of relief.
Despite the coldness of the water, he could feel his cheeks burning as he waded until his hackles were above the surface, then his knees, and finally his ankles. If he'd wanted a bath, he'd certainly had one by now. He was huffing and puffing like an old man at this point as he neared the stranger - taking a few long deep breathes he hoped his ineptitude hadn't been that obvious.
"My knight in shining armour," grinning sheepishly, he gave himself a good shake (undoubtedly poor Ceridwen was probably in range of getting wet).
"On a real though - thanks. And uh, sorry for crashing your afternoon." Snapping his mouth shut, he groaned inwardly as the warmth spread from his cheeks all the way to the tips of his damp toes.
"Consider yourself lucky, you do not meet those very often nowadays," Dwin responded, taking a step back and turing her head away, when the man began to shake. She did not mind water - after all back home she spent at least half of every day around the lake, either attempting to fish fish and having better luck at fishing out everything else, but. And being on the lookout for the big fish.
"Nah, you would have crushed it, had you fallen from the sky ontop of my head," she responded, looking the stranger up and down and letting her more primal part of her brain make an informed decision on, whether this fellow was a threat or not. "So - what happened? Where did you intend to land or should I say - sail?" she asked.
Despite their eventful meeting, the girl seemed to be unfazed by Butterfly’s lack of spatial awareness. She was correct, this encounter could’ve gone very differently had her met someone not so keen to lend a paw. Hell, he could’ve ended up a pile of soggy bones at the bottom of the lake. He was being dramatic but still, he found himself shuddering at the thought of a watery death.
“I’m not sure which would be more embarrassing,” he jested. “Would you rather fail at being a fish or a bird?” At her next words, the boy settled on his haunches deep in thought. Chipper jokes aside, he wasn’t entirely sure what so say. “More like intended to stay on land,” he finally admits, “I’ve never really been that great at swimming.” As refreshing as it was, he would rather keep all four paws on the ground.
"Failure is not embarrassing. How else you learn?" Dwin returned with a rhetorical question of her own, while she herself figured out, which was better - to be a fish or a bird. Life in water was very tempting, but it seemed that creatures of this habitat were closely tied to it. Birds - on the other hand - had more mobility and choice.
"I would go for a bird, me thinks. My family has a long tradition of naming kids or giving a second name at least of that of a bird," she told. "My second name is Owl. In honor of my grand... grand-grand-grand-mother," she paused, trying to count quickly, how many generations were there between her and the legendary March Owl.
"If you are not a good swimmer, what were you doing in the water then?" she asked.