Wheeling Gull Isle hunting

Takes place some days after she meets Padma. @Zodiac - no need to match post length.

Strand limped around the island on three legs, ignoring the cold, light rain that washed over her pelt. The rain was good. It would help keep her wound clean, which was healing nicely. She was well enough to walk again, but she was afraid to put weight on her right leg in case it hurt or the action of moving it to walk caused the wound to open again. But she couldn’t bare to lay down any longer. Besides, she needed to eat some time. The pool of water she lay beside every day kept her from dehydration, and if she drank a lot, especially all at once, she would feel full for a while. But she was starving now and couldn’t afford to keep laying down forever. She needed to eat.

She’d wandered around the forest, looking for prey that was slow enough for her to catch without running, but such prey did not exist. She also hadn’t had much luck finding any kind of eggs to chow down on. So, she’d resorted to wandering the beach, going in a circle around the circumference of the island. The little fish that swam in the shallows were too fast for her limping form. They darted here and there around her legs. She gave up on them quickly, not wanting to exhaust herself. Eventually, she settled on hunting crabs, which was dangerous because of their sharp claws. But what choice did she have? It was eat crabs or starve to death until her shoulder was healed a bit more.

Luckily, the crabs were relatively slow. Unfortunately, their hard outer shells acted as a protectant, and their claws were killer. She had chased one down and now it was coming back in her direction, tired of running, she expected. “Yeah, come on!” she yelled, and stood her ground. It came nearer and nearer and at the last second she snapped at it, hoping to close her jaws on its carapace and crack it open. Instead, she yowled in pain as it pinched her on the nose with its big sharp claw and scuttled away. Strand sat down in the wet sand and kept yowling.

Some days were bad. For long stretches of time, he felt like he had not even enough energy to pick himself up and perform the daily tasks needed to keep himself alive, and so he would just stay glued to the ground by some imaginary force that stole any amount of steam he could even think to try and build. The last few days had played out much like that. He had remained between a state of drowsy awareness and deep sleep inside the ocean cave he had been lucky to stumble into; not that he had cared whether or not someone might find him in there and snuff out his life. Secretly, deep, deep down, he thought he might have wished for it--the same coward as always. 

But today, he had awoken with renewed energy, well as much as was normal for Zodiac, which was never a whole lot, but at least he could raise himself to his feet and walk from the cave. He meandered down the coast, searching for something to take his mind off things when he saw the island in the distance and the land bridge that connected it to the main land. With nothing else to do with his day, he followed the bridge and soon found himself in a place he had never been before. He explored the beach for a while, wondering if anyone else lived here. A cry of pain caught his attention, and he whipped his head in the direction of the sound. He could see the source in the distance, and he trotted over to see what was up. A crab running from the scene scurried right past him, and he jumped a little to the side to avoid it. After a few more steps, he stopped a short distance from the woman. Yeah, that shit hurts, he said. He knew exactly what that felt like, unfortunately.

wow sorry, this response is... terrible.

The sound of a male voice brought Strand out of her pain, which had gone down to a whimper and not a howl. But at the sound of the voice, she straightened her back and sniffled, forcing herself to quit being a baby in front of company. “Yeah,” she agreed, turning her head to look at him. “Yeah it does hurt. But I can take it.” She gave a wild grin, fire in her eyes. “It’s nothin’ compared to this!” She gestured with her muzzle towards her shoulder, the bite marks still clearly visible as they slowly scabbed over. “I gave that guy so much hell that he ran for it!” Here she was definitely lying, but what was she supposed to say? That she’d gotten her ass handed to her on a silver platter? No way! This random dude didn’t need to know her little secret. Let him think she was a badass. (Except, no badass would ever cry so much from getting pinched by a crab…)

He raised an eyebrow as she spoke, immediately regretting his decision to converse with this stranger. She seemed eager to prove herself, which Zodiac found exhausting. What once would have excited the man, now only made him want to be anywhere else but here. Her energy was like a white hot poker against his raw nerves. He fought the urge to roll his eyes at her story, giving only a half-interested nod instead. That's cool, he answered, not even trying to hide his disinterest. Do you want to try and catch some fish or something? he weirdly offered next. He was here now regardless of whether or not he wanted to be, so he might as well use the time to find something to eat. All of the sudden he was fucking starving, and he realized then that he probably hadn't eaten in days. He honestly couldn't remember when his last meal had been.

’That’s cool,’ the male said in the most bored voice Strand had ever heard. Then he moved on and asked if she wanted to catch some fish or something, but even then he seemed… like he didn’t even want to be around her.

Wow, okay, she thought to herself, giving him an obvious once-over. What the fuck does it take to impress this asshole? I bet he’s never been attacked by a ghost.

Out loud, she scoffed, and then marched over to the water and waded in. “Yeah, sure, whatever,” she said, not looking at him. Secretly, she was praying she would finally be able to catch something. So far, she hadn’t been too successful and it was really starting to piss her off. How was she supposed to make a pack on an island if she couldn’t even fish? She took a deep breath with her eyes closed, and then opened them again and finally looked back at the male. “Bet I can catch more than you!” she challenged—and immediately regretted it.

He watched her march into the water, at first not moving at all aside from squinting a little at her petulant statement. But with a long sigh, he walked into the ocean, stopping not too far behind her. Her annoying proclamation earned her only a lazy shrug of one shoulder and an ambiguous: Maybe. He started to move away from her in the water, putting enough space between them that they could fish at the same time without scaring each other's prey away. He turned to her for a brief second before focusing all of his attention on the water in front of him, making sure to keep his body as still as possible. His diet consisted mostly of fish, so this was something he had done many times before. His stomach protested its emptiness while he stood there, churning and grumbling--anticipating the food that would soon fill the space that had been without substance for too long. 

His mind hardly had time to drift to anything uncomfortable in the silence; he was much too focused on the water and trying to ignore his painful stomach. But he, luckily, didn't have to wait very long before he saw the flash of a tail flip above the surface of the water. He barely even breathed as he watched it swim closer and closer. His eyes followed the creature as it moved in front of him and when it had almost completely passed by him, Zodiac launched himself forward, parting his jaws as they moved into the water. He clamped his teeth around the fish with the grace of someone who had done this many times before and pulled its wriggling form from the water. After a quick, smug glance in her direction, Zodiac trotted to the beach, dropped his fish, and with one quick crunch to its head, he ended its struggle. Then, he turned and headed back to his spot to wait for the next unlucky creature. 

Rolled on tabletop
even=success
odd=failure
rolled 1d10: 8

Sorry for the wait! I’ve had the flu! Rolled a 9 on Discord so that’s a failure! Your next post is round 2!

Strand spent the next moments watching her competition out of the corner of her eye. Since she had not had much luck catching fish so far, she wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing, but she couldn’t let him know that by staring overtly. So, she stood in her part of the water and acted like she was fishing, but really, her focus was on the periphery of her vision. He was still and silent, something she didn’t have much practice with in general. She caught other pray, small things like rabbits or ducks, by chasing them quickly before they had a chance to run away. Having to stand still to catch prey seemed… counter-intuitive.

But it worked, apparently. Strand saw the tail of the fish out of the corner of her eye and watched in shock as it swam closer to the male instead of farther away. She guessed it was because fish were dumb and if you held still, they couldn’t tell you were there. Suddenly, her fishing competitor launched himself head-first into the water, jaws snapping down onto the fish that had gotten so foolishly close to him. He lifted his head and gave her a smug look, then trotted off to deposit his catch onto the sand.

Strand felt herself flush beneath her fur, hot despite the cool day. She could do that! Now that she’d watched him, she was sure she could copy him. She focused all of her attention on the water now, ignoring the male who was back in the water. There was a fish coming. Strand felt her muscles go taught, but forced herself to wait. It needed to be closer to her if she was going to have any chance of catching it. It swam lazily ever towards her. She was ready. She could already taste it in her mouth… The fish bumped against her leg and she twitched automatically. It shot away at the movement, spooked. She lunged forward, trying to grab it before it could get away but it was too late. Angrily, she watched as it darted out of sight farther out in the ocean. “Damn it.”

equally sorry for the wait
I have no good excuse other than I suck and my muse is being weird

From tabletop:
Even = success 
Odd = failure
Rolled 1d10 = 4 (success)

He watched her try and fail to recreate his successful first catch, and some small part of him maybe felt a little bad for her. He rolled his eyes and sighed a little, and then moved closer to where she stood in the water. Okay, look. You have to aim for where they're going to be, he explained. watch me. Z looked away and into the water below him to wait for things to settle enough for another fish to swim by. 

It was while before anything swam near, but he didn't lose his focus. Eventually, he wasn't even sure she was still watching, afraid to look away from the water to check in case something moved closer. A few more patient minutes, and he could see a fish swimming in his direction. He waited a few more seconds until right before it was about to swim in front of him, then he launched his face into the water once more, swiftly clamping his jaws around the sea creature and pulling it from the ocean. He turned and trotted to the shore, dropping the limp fish to the ground next to his first catch and shaking the water from his coat. Okay, you try, he said, moving back into the water.

Rolled a 2 on Discord which was a success. Next post is round three, final round. Sorry for the wait. Busy and literally no muse whatsoever.

Strand pulled up and sighed, resigning herself to watching the male. She wanted to pretend that she knew what she was doing, but it was clear that she didn’t, and he had a much better hang of fishing so far. She nodded at his words and then watched as he caught another fish, frowning as he deposited the catch onto the sand. Then he told her to try. “Right,” she said, turning to face the water again.

Okay, so aim for where they’re gonna be. I got this. Strand stared intently at the water. It took quite a while for another fish to swim anywhere near her and she was growing bored and restless quickly. They seemed to have picked up on the fact that they were being killed over here. Eventually, a stupid one came swimming by and she kept the male’s advice in mind about aiming for where it was going to be. It felt wrong, but she launched her head down into the water about six inches from where its head was—and felt flesh between her jaws! She kept her grip on it and yanked it up out of the water triumphantly, her tail wagging. She made her way clumsily to shore, walking through the waves and also carrying the fish in her jaws, dropped it onto the sand, and yelled, “Ha!”